I'd like to hear your opinion on the EMG81TW mounting orientation.

[psychepool]

First, I apologize for asking a question about EMG pickups here.
I couldn't find an EMG pickup forum, and since most of my pickups are SD pickups, I decided to ask here, where I'm more familiar.

I have an EMG81TW pickup.
It's mounted on a Jim Root Telecaster with an EMG89. 81TW is used in the bridge position.

When I used it in single-coil mode, it produced a strange, sharp sound.
It sounded like the sound I often hear when splitting a bridge pickup with an outer coil, so I rotated it 180 degrees and mounted it. Only then did I get a more acceptable single-coil sound.

I asked Gemini, and they said that all EMG dual-mode humbuckers, except the R model, are designed to use the side with the logo in single-coil mode.
Most humbuckers, including multi-mode pickups like SD's P-rails, default to using the inner coil when split. I'm not sure why the 81TW is designed to use the outer coil. I understand that the 81TW is primarily intended for bridge use.

I'm curious how you guys are mounting the 81TW, and what your impressions are of single-coil mode when mounted in the default orientation. I find it much more reasonable to mount it 180 degrees.

As a side note, I'm also using the neck pickup 180 degrees. I was hoping to get a used 89, but I happened to see an 89R listed, so I bought that and installed it 180 degrees. When I installed the R pickup in the right orientation on a 22-fret guitar, it sounded too muffled and blunt in single-coil mode. Unexpectedly, I'm using both pickups in reverse.

 

[Artie]

The 81TW is an unusual design. When "split", it is still a dual-coil pup, with the same DCR. So, sort of a quasi-single-coil mode. Flipping it to suit how you like it to sound doesn't seem like a problem, as long as you don't mind the logo upside down.

 

[Juanhanglo]

The tws have 3 coils. 2 standard layout humbucker and a stacked under one side.

Rotating the bridge pickup might cause phasing issues.

 

[Artie]

Rotating the bridge pickup might cause phasing issues.

Nope. This is a common misconception. Rotating a pup has nothing to do with phase. Almost all neck pups are "rotated" relative to bridge pups. The signal polarity is a function of the string going close and away from the pup. Not sideways in front of it.

 

[freefrog]

Rotating the bridge pickup might cause phasing issues.

For that, you'd have to rotate it upside down (to put it upside down over the strings. Don't ask me how I know). ;-)

 

[Juanhanglo]

Nope. This is a common misconception. Rotating a pup has nothing to do with phase. Almost all neck pups are "rotated" relative to bridge pups. The signal polarity is a function of the string going close and away from the pup. Not sideways in front of it.

Thanks. I got my signals (pun intended) crossed.

I was thinking about the prs inner/outer, series/parallel flip.

 

[psychepool]

As I mentioned, I'm using the 89R neck pickup upside-down. I emailed EMG about this and was told it was okay to do so. There's no out-of-phase effect regardless of which way you place it. It's simply a matter of sound take position. This also applies to passive humbuckers.

I prefer the 81TW upside-down. Most humbucker splits use the inner coil as the default, so this feels more natural to me. Some might prefer the original direction. I was just curious to know what everyone else thinks.

I have a further question. While the 81 is often recommended for the bridge position when using an 81/85 set, I've seen quite a few people use the 81 in the neck and the 85 in the bridge, as the 81 tends to cut off the low end too much, while the 85 has a richer low end. Since the 81tw/89 is a single-coil mode version of the 81/85, I was wondering if it would be fun to mount the neck and bridge in reverse for the 81tw 89 set. If there's anyone who's used it that way, I'd be curious to know what it feels like. Or, if there's anyone who's used the 81/85 in different positions, I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[freefrog]

For that, you'd have to rotate it upside down (to put it upside down over the strings. Don't ask me how I know). ;-)

Well, OK, let's explain how I know: that's how I test pickups sometimes. I suspend them over the strings, with baseplate "up". It puts them OOP with any other pickup normally installed (under the strings, baseplate "down"). It's totally logical since a pickup upside down over the strings senses as "descending" the move of a string that a normally mounted pickup senses as "ascending" in the same time... ;-)

Pickups "rotated" under the strings are something else: putting far from the bridge the coil initially meant to be close to it doesn't make any phase difference, not less logically. That's what this topic is about.