Revisiting the EMG 81: Still the Best Pickup for Metal!
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- #emg #pickups #guitar #tone #active #schecter #epiphone #fishman #shootout #demo #metallica #metal #best #highgain
Today I revisit the EMG 81 and all its variants. After recently getting an EMG 81/85 set in a guitar, I felt like it was one of the best metal tones I had heard in a while. I wondered if the 24 volt mod, 81x, or James Hetfield signature improved upon the original. The answer I would find was both yes, and no.
I also throw in a @Fishman_Music Fluence Modern for fun!
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0:00 Set-up
01:48 Full Mix Demo
04:09 Full Mixes Aren't Real
06:12 Isolated Guitars
08:30 Do They All Sound the Same?
11:49 My Favorite?
12:18 EMG 81 in a Baritone
13:08 Clean Tones
16:32 Final Thoughts 
Видеоклипы
This is the best emg pickup comparison currently on the internet; I've been watching emg pickup comparisons for months now...shame on youtube for taking so long to feed me this. The 81 9v vs 81 24v vs 81X was particularly helpful.
I had been wanting to do this for over a year now! I grabbed the JH set on a recommendation and then found out it is just a modified 81 . I always thought it was a variation of the 57, but nope! So I finally grabbed an 81x and decided it was time! Ha ha. The 24volt mod is a pretty impressive and inexpensive mod. I have an newfound love for the 81 and with the mod, I can swap the battery as necessary!
The 81x was designed when Rob Turner from EMG was hearing all the noise of people using the 81 at 18V & Later at 24V. So he created a preamp to mimic the sound, tone and feel of the 81 at 18 or 24v but with the need for only 1 9V battery.
Makes a lot of sense! I like swapping back and forth between the 81 and 24v mod… my preference changes daily sometimes. The 81x by all accounts seems to be the better pickup overall. I just recently got a 57/66 set and the Jim Root Daemonum set. Neither of which remind me of the 81/85/60 variants and neither of which feel like a Fishman set either! EMG is still making some of the better metal pickups for my taste!
@@BaritoneGoatStudio I have the 57/66 set in one of my Les Paul’s. The rest have 81’s but they are the older 81’s that are a tad warmer. I’m switching all but 2 of my guitars to 85’s since they have more bottom end and more warmth as well as having a less piercing high end
Fishman moderns 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
I love the compression of my 81 . And after all these years It was even fuckin better adjusted higher near the strings and with right amp settings in place . Heavenly....
I always loved 81. I'm not even cranking the gain. I use 6505MH, gain pointing to LED light and the volume a bit after 10 o'clock and go directly to the amp. This has always been a perfect rhythm tone for busy riffs whether it's metal or classic rock or modern metal. For my D standard/Drop C tuning it's absolute bliss!
The 81X is meant to Mimic the Sound of the 81 with the 18v or 24V Mod while running at 9V.
The battery drain faster with EMG81X , stated on PDF file in EMG website.
Well done sir! I agree, you can hear differences in an isolated situation but when it comes down to the mix, if you took away the visuals, I could not pick those out in a blind setting. My feelings on pickups have plagued my brain since I got started. Thoughts and feelings are much different than previous to having a channel.
I always thought that the differences would be drastic between pickups! And lately, even between passive and actives, the differences are so minor that it often comes down to the response when playing loud and in the room and how noises they are that becomes important.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio couldn’t agree more. In a mix, I don’t care as much as I used too. But by myself, there is a different feel/response I still like with certain pickups.
@@tyrannosaurusriffs a blind test reveals that most of the marketing is pure sh.t. Of course there are excellent products but the difference between them is ridiculous unless you are a pro producer and do stuff for superstars. But we all want to buy new things ;-)
@@scentia_est well said! I learned this the hard way. After I made my first video featuring 20 guitars and 15 different pickups I sold a bunch of them.....Snake oil. Now, I do still believe there are differences, but I can turn on Parkway Drive, Electric Callboy, The Used it doesn't matter, I don't listen to any band and think oh that would have sounded better if they used "insert whatever". Fishman is just what I like now days. Not that the others aren't great, it's just what I play the most and am used to playing.
If you want to try something that might surprise you swap the 85 into the bridge and 81 into the neck. Lower the 85 about 4mm until it cleans up the muddiness, and then set the height of the 81 in the neck until equal volume. If voila, you instantly have the best sounding balance set you can have in my opinion, it's kind of like doing the magnet swap on the old Ibanez v7 v8 pickups, take the ceramic out of the neck v7 and put it into the V8 and take the Al Nico from the V8 and put it into the v7 bam. Voila! Another great fucking set lol. That being said, I can't wait to slam the 81 into a converted 30 in short scale area EB3 base into a six-string baritone. Great video! Thanks for the info
I have been digging the sound of Alnico 5 passives lately. I have no doubt the 85 would sound killer in the neck position. I had thought for a while that I was over the 81 as high gain pickup, but after pluging it in again, it was like a nostalgia blast from my early days playing metal! Thanks for the idea on the 85!
I found the 85 in neck position impossible to lose the boom no matter the heighth, it was unusable for me in my LP custom, the 60 is the real winner in the neck and is about EMGs only active pickup that you can get decent clean sound with. Still not as good and never well. Be as a passive in the neck but hey he's EMGs are just squires cheap low ohm ceramic pickups with a preamp so can't expect a whole bunch. But for distortion, especially for us guys that grew up with the metallicas and slayers and prongs that beat that EMG sound into our brains for life. We are scarred in ways progrock guys would never understand😂 @@BaritoneGoatStudio
Great comparison between the different pickups. I really like the JH EMGs, but I also think that the difference between all these is not that big. In a full mix with high gain it almost doesn't really matter as long as the pickup works!
Totally! The variations are so minor. It ends up coming down to their response through an amp in a room. Even then, the JH and Fishman standout somewhat, but still very subtle. I didn’t go into it in the video, but the JH pickup had a different EQ profile than the others, it had an upper mids shelf and was just about 2 whole dbs louder coming into the DAW. I think it is only a version of the 81 because it uses ceramic magnets. But it is probably my favorite pickup right now!
In this comparison, I preferred the stock 81 for both high gain and cleans. The Fishman's overall EQ is a bit flat in a way that I don't love. I recently sidegraded from Seymour Duncan AHB-1 Blackouts to Fishman Moderns and I don't notice much of a difference through amp modelling. The IR makes most of the difference. Overall, a metal guitarist can't go wrong with any of these pickups. In my view, that's good news.
I think pickups are a big deal when playing tube amps... but with today's improved modeling you can "tune" your amp to your guitar.
Having said that they all sounded good but no game changer in the batch
Agreed. Pickups seem to have most effect in the room when pushing into a tube amp. But, I have yet to capture that nuance with a microphone. The JH pickup pushes hard enough that using a boost in front of my amps are a bit much. But even then the microphone doesn’t capture the extra air push or even the chuggy response I get when a pickup has a balanced low mid range. In a recording you end up using dynamic compression and transient shaping plug-ins help to emulate that in the room response of a high gain amp.
Low output passives suck for high gain regardless of whether it's modeling or a tube amp because of the noise floor. That's one reason why actives are quieter. For a low noise floor you want a hotter signal earlier in the chain rather than boosting gain. Also using EQ to boost frequencies that your pickups aren't picking up much is a variation of the same problem. It's no accident that Fishmans got popular at the same time as modeling. They're flat, clean, quiet and high output. A blank canvas for modeling.
So yeah, I don't entirely agree.
I have a bridge hetfield in my LTD Kh-202 on the 24V mod and I love it. I really like fishmans, but I rather the artist ones like the Tosins.
Yeah. My favorite Fishmans tend to be the artist models. The KSEs are my favorite set for 6 strings. The Ryan “fluff” Bruce pickup is a nice one too.
I have and like them all. But if I had to settle for just one, it would be the Hetfield, all day, second to none, no discussion. It's the PERFECT Metal pickup and does exactly everything I ever wanted to hear from a high gain bridge hmubucker. My least favorite is actually the Fishman, which is funny to me, because it's become so fashionable to hate on EMG and call them "sterile" and whatnot, but the Fishman is so incredibly sleek, even, clean and rigid and it's supposed to be this next level thing everyone has hyped up so much. I never use voice 1 and have my Fishman equipped guitars wired up so that the faux-passive voice 2 is the standard voice in the pushed down position. I like it a lot more. I also think that the Fishman Killswitch Engage set is superior to the standard Moderns. It has a bit tighter low end, a tad more "organic" gain structure and a nicer tonal texture.
I agree pretty much with everything you said. The Hetfield set has become my favorite pickups out of any active set, and the KSE set I have are my second favorite. Voice 2 on the KSE is so chunky and it is mainly due to it being voiced for less clipping, but voice 1 is almost perfect for flubbier amps like my Mesa Rectifier. I like the normal Fishman moderns ok, but the set they put in the Epiphone prophecy’s are cool since they are a hybrid set and have the classic PAF combined with the modern voice, it is just very versatile.
81's sound too brittle in the bridge position on many guitars. They actually work better in the neck position on a LesPaul. With the 85 in the bridge you can adjust the heights to get a nice even volume balance between both. I'll never change them back. Makes the guitar much more versatile.
I have heard people like the 85 in the bridge. Alnico magnets seems to be warmer and less high end focused. Same thing is somewhat true with the Fishman modern Alnico. It is typically meant for the neck but alot of people recommend it as a bridge pickup instead.
@@BaritoneGoatStudio yep, all depends what your after? The Distortion and Probucker custom in my AJ sig from Epiphone got yanked in favor of the 81/85 combo in the respective positions mentioned above. Completely transformed the guitar, from ultra high output belligerent chugs only, to a nice all around classic rock and metal machine. Sounds much different than the Epi LP custom silverburst they were in before this AJ sig.
Wow, I really had no idea that I was going to love the Hetfield set! I bought a new Jackson soloist that I wanted to put an SA-SA-81 EMG set in, but now...hmmmm
I sure do wish that the Hetfield came with two single coils, because how am I going to find two SA EMG's, with chrome covers to match the Hetfield Bridge pickup lol?
This is why I wish all sets came with the option to just get a bridge or neck as needed. The S pickups should get an overhaul for different covers. They offer red, but not chrome? Seems like a missed opportunity.
What you seek is in the 81tw + 89r (85-like) set. Each has a single coil + the humbucker (dual, not split). That's what I have now in my Jackson Soloist. The surprise is how great the cleans sound.
@charliek9311 ended up putting the 81 humbucker and two single coil SA's.
I don't like how thin it sounds. So I just purchased an 89 for the bridge.
I grew up with a 91 soloist professional xl mij that has the 89/SA/SA, and it sounds beefy and tight.
Edit: Oh yeah, I bought the 89 black Chrome model.
What do you think would be the best choice then for a 30" EMG-wise?
The baritone I used later in the video I am going with the normal 81. It is 27” but only tuned to Drop A. I prefer less saturation and more clarity with lower tuning. To much output or low end can make it muddy. The cool thing about the original 81 is that you can just add more voltage to open up the frequencies a little. The EMG 57 is an Alnico V pickup that also has steel poles and might be worth checking out as well if the 81 is a bit too flat for your taste. The open pole designs seems to be more dynamic and passive like. The JH is just very aggressive and if you tune too low it might have some weird overtones.
Really digging the 24 volt mod but as noted elsewhere, there's not a whole lot of difference overall.....the Fishman also deliver.
The 24v mod seems to achieve what the 81x does. I will say that the active tone sweep on the 81x is more useful to me than the passive ones on the the other models. It probably isn’t worth the extra money though to get a whole new pickup!
@@BaritoneGoatStudio I haven't had an EMG in a heck of a long while, the 81x looks to be an excellent choice overall. Cheers for the comparison!
06:12 81
06:19 81 24V
06:25 81X
81 sounds the best overall imo
are the fishman pickups ceramic or alnico?
It is a ceramic mag.
The 81 24v souds like 81 x like its sapose to i have a 24 v in my regular but the 81x has a pre amp that's around 8v and the 81 is 4 to 4.5 not shure
I don't want you to fall in a new rabbit hole but I have a pair of nearly 40 years olds EMG 81s and I can say they are very different sounding than after mid 2000s new logo stuff.
I have heard this before. I owned a mid nineties 81 back when that was in my ESP horizon for a while, and I might be inclined to agree that they were a bit different.
They changed the preamp for the 81 in 2015 or 2017 I believe & that is the reason for the sound change. The original preamp they used was no longer Available. The new preamp is brighter.
What sounds different about it?
@@soundstorm9508 i can't describe exactly, different in somewhat alternative compression sounding. I go for Metallica Ajfa sound and found these older ones always deliver more close results. I'm kinda biased.
@@soundstorm9508 The newer ones are brighter….they have more Mid and Treble frequencies. Less low end and are less warm.
Aight brotha. I need your opinion. I have a guitar that came wired with Fluence pickups. I took out the bridge pickup and put an EMG 81 in instead. I have the 24 volt mod going. I also have another guitar wired up with EMG 81 / 85 but with the EMG harness. 24 volt on that one as well. They sound very different. Would you say that the Fishman harness is doing something odd to the EMG that the EMG harness is not doing?
So… there really shouldn’t be anything electronically affecting the EMG in the Fishman harness. There are differences between the two systems through. Fishmans are hand wired pots, instead of quick connect. Older EMGs can be hand wired though. There are many who debate whether printed boards and pins sound different than hand soldering… usually these are Gibson owners who hate the mid 2000s PCBs.
Fishmans require a bridge ground, where EMGs don’t. The bridge ground shouldn’t affect the tone of the EMG though. You could remove and see…
The only thing that is different that would have an effect is the value of the tone cap between the two guitars. EMGs use a 1 microfarad capacitor whereas the fishmans use a .47 microfarad. This should only matter though if you are sweeping the tone back at all. The Fishman tone caps retain a brighter sound.
Do both guitars have the same number of volume and tone pots?
@@BaritoneGoatStudio Yes. Both are Les Paul Customs. One thing I saw below that intrigued me. Someone made a comment about the older ones that were wired coming out of the pickups instead of the new ones. I have an old Schecter that I just tried that has the old pickups in them and WOW......what a BIG difference.
I think I am going to gut one of the guitars that has the full Fishman harness in it and put in hard wired harness along with a wired old 81 that I have laying around and try that.
I agree with you though that the EMG's just have this certain magic.
I will say this though. If you ever get a chance to try a passive pickup in one of your guitars, try one of the Dimarzio Fortitude pickups. The one that Joe Duplantier from Gojira created. Those have to be one of the best passive pickups I have ever tried. I have a couple of them in other Les Paul's and they will stay there.
Just trying to get my EMG game back on again. 🙂
@@waynefaircloth3423 I have wants to do some shootouts of passive pickups for a while now. The process though is much more work. I have actually never owned a dimarzio pickup. I might be getting a project guitar here soon and maybe that will be the pickup I check out next!
I’ve owned all of these minus the 24v mod. The EMG 81x works the best for me and I use an overdrive to match the tightness of the regular 81, which I also have in another guitar. Fishman Fluence are my least favorite because they sound almost “digital” to me.
The modern voice on the fishmans can be almost too smooth on the top end and a little flat to point that they almost sound fake with some amps. The mid peak is also somewhat forward, which is good for chunky stuff, but gets a little grating for full chord playing. The Passive voice adds back in the loose bottom end and a little more crispy upper mids. Fishmans are not as tight sounding as EMGs to me, and I just got a set of the 57/66 EMGs and they might be the tightest pickups I have tried yet from any brand.
Picks matter much more when your using fractals and other good modelers You literally adjust them to your hottest guitar and it does the rest When you use a tube amp and analog effects they matter a lot more
I enjoy the 81 variants, and the Het Set. I’m not a fan of the Fishman’s. They aren’t bad, good for lead playing. But there is a brittle quaky frequency I don’t like. Through some amps it has too much of a cocked wah midrange.
I have the 81x… It’s rounder sounding than the 81
I agree. Is lacks the top end compression that seems to make the 81 bite. It is more apparent in the cleans for sure.
Stopped a 13:13 🤘
Thanks for this review mate, exactly what I was looking for. From what I can hear on my end, I would agree with everything you said. Loved those 24v mod cleans
@@wowwhataworld.9590 wait! You are supposed to stop before the cleans! 😂 the clean sound tends to be the weak spot for the 81, but the 24v mod opens it up and gives it some chime.
Blackouts for the win!
Would the AHB-1, AHB-2 or the Mick Thomson pickup be the best to check out?
@@BaritoneGoatStudio AHB-1, if you like the 18v EMG 81 (but with less noise). AHB-2 has 2 output levels.. Overdrive and Distorted. You can still use it in a set on the lower output, put on the louder output, you'll never need an OD pedal again. It's for full-blown death metal ridiculousness.
AHB-3 is meant for Drop B and lower tunings (a little less lows and a little more highs). Personally, I like mixing the AHB-1(b) with either the single coil neck pickup (also has 2 modes), or with the Livewire "Classic II" (n), and I tune in between drop C and drop B.
..and while they do work with the EMG solderless stuff, but they do still need to be grounded, if you want them to be dead silent.
Oh.. There's also the "Blackouts Modular Preamp", which makes any passive pickup set "active", which is neat, especially if you're weird like me and mix high output, Alnico V or VI magnet pickups with Ceramic "spacer" magnets, but still want to mix it with the "Blackouts" tone.
You could also look into their "Duality" pickups.
@@JoeyLizotte-di1vh now I have another pickup rabbit hole to explore! Haven’t played any of the blackouts yet, but now I want to! Thanks for the details!
@@BaritoneGoatStudioNo problem!
You can have your opinion, any ceramic high output humbucker can do metal without that annoying compression. I'll stick with my Black Winter and JB thank you. It's kind of ironic that a third of your video demos clean tones though ... why on Earth would you pick an 81 for cleans???
I wouldn’t probably. The 81 on its own is too thin. The extra voltage helps open up the clipping ceiling on the pickup, but for cleans it still isn’t very good. I would likely go with the Fishman. Fishman classics with Alnico V mags do way better cleans than most pickups I have played on. The Hetfield set seems to be more like a hot passive than any other active. In the room it sounds and feels a lot more like my Duncan distortion. That might be a cool comparison actually. I like my Black Winter overall for passive tones, even cleans, and I prefer medium output pickups for low tuned stuff. The Bareknuckle jugg is only about 14k, not super hot and it has a nice texture for high gain without being overly bright.
I can barely hear a difference. That s probably due to phone speakers
No… there is barely any difference honestly. It is only apparent between the JH pickup and the others, and somewhat with the Fishman. Most of the tonal shift is in the mid range and output but it is subtle nonetheless. The clean tones better highlight some of the differences, but with high gain it is very hard to hear anything substantial.
Expensive pickup brands are a scam.
Certain companies claims about drastic tonal shifts are embellished, and some companies are charging too much for what they offer! *cough* Bareknuckle *cough*
Raising the gain floor on a signal almost renders any output EQ from the guitar pretty meaningless. You can also EQ the amp to compensate, and then you have the speaker, mic position, yadda yadda yadda. Never really heard an amp on a recording that sounds like it does in the room, especially since everything after the speaker colors the tone as well, and everyone’s hearing is different.
Only thing that a company can offer that might make a difference is the quality, consistency, durability and customer service.
Active pickups have alot less noise even at high gain… cool, not mind blowing. Cheap active pickups (e.g. HBZs) require a bridge ground, whereas EMGs have an internal ground loop. And most HBZs I have heard retain an odd low mid frequency that sounds boxy even on high gain… and somehow they have the ability to become microphonic which is almost comical for an active pickup.
Fishman is the outlier in terms of high priced pickups since they basically have no copper wires (can never be microphonic), are as noiseless as EMGs (and tend to be louder), and are able to render any EQ curve they want to output in the signal based on their built in preamp. They can also tap any part of the stacked printed circuit boards to capture different sections of individual magnets to create their single coil voices. And their customer service is pretty solid. They are the only company doing something that might be worth the price of the product these days… maybe.
Pickups don't matter . You can mix a pickup to sound like anything you want.
Well yeah. Mixes aren’t real. When it comes to recording, as long as there isn’t a bunch of extra noise, the tone of whatever you have can be made to sound like anything. Even then the noise can be mixed out. I can go around my house and record random hits on different surfaces and probably make it sound like a drum kit… plastic buckets will likely work as well as a $3000 maple drum kit if I am willing put in the effort. All pickups really do is give you a noise floor, your initial gain stage, and EQ. They can make the next gain stage and EQ easier to dial in (boost pedal or amp). Each piece of the signal chain is easier to manipulate if the previous part sounds decent to begin with. But for guitars this probably only matters for a live sound situation where you don’t have any sort of software or high end outboard equipment involved.
@Baritone Goat Studio as soon as you plug it in to something with effects you can't tell the difference
@@skatemetal5062 true. Many effects basically destroy the incoming signal on purpose. If you use any sort of modulation or time based effect with a decay setting the incoming EQ profile gets pretty messed up by the time it hits the preamp, or in the effects loop before it hits the speaker. Pickups matter mostly for clean/edge of break up tones and to a much lesser extent when driving a high gain tube amp. Beyond that, you can use pretty much anything you want and it can sound however you like.
Active pickups 🤮🤮🤮
My favourite was the 81X. I recently removed an original 81 from the bridge of one of my guitars in favour of an old school 18v Seymour Duncan Livewire Metal, it kills the 81 in output obviously but also tone. I always thought the 81 was great on leadwork but lacked a bit body on rhythms, the 81X seems to address that to my ears. Great video.
The 81x and 24v mod seem to do similar things. The X preamp seems to be more consistent in output though. I was getting more responsive peaks with the 24v mod more like a passive pickup on the recorded waveforms. Overall I like the EMG sound, especially for recording.