EMG massive Active bridge pickup comparison !
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- 7 different EMG active pickups in metal action ! EMG 81, EMG 85 ceramic (an ancient one)*, EMG 85 alnico, EMG 57, EMG JH, EMG Super 77 and EMG fat 55. Now, you know which one sounds best for you :)
*about this EMG 85 ceramic : it is sold as such by a french online shop called Algam Webstore : www.algam-webstore.fr/lutheri...
That's where I bought it ! But after talking with the fine people at EMG Pickups, they tell me that no EMG with ceramic magnet has ever existed ! So, sorry for this mistake. What I have called an EMG 85 ceramic is just an ancient version of the EMG 85, and it sounds a bit different indeed.
And Now, you can also watch the EMG Active Massive NECK Pickup Comparison here : • EMG Active massive nec...
Those EMG Pickups on Thomann :
EMG 81 : www.thomann.de/fr/emg_81.htm?...
EMG 85 : www.thomann.de/fr/emg_85_guit...
EMG 57/66 : www.thomann.de/fr/emg_57_66_s...
EMG JH (Het Set) : www.thomann.de/fr/emg_james_h...
EMG super 77 : www.thomann.de/fr/emg_super_7...
EMG Fat 55 : www.thomann.de/fr/emg_fat_55_...
And if you order anything from Thomann, please use my partner link : www.thomann.de/de/index.html?...
(You can change the language on top right of the screen, just click the little german flag on top right and chose your own country's)
Here's a list of gear I recommend you on Thomann's Website : thmn.to/thocf/cp8el948z2
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PLAN OF THE VIDEO :
Guitar, setup and signal chain : 00:00
EMG 81 Mix : 00:37
EMG 85 ceramic Mix : 01:26
EMG 85 Alnico Mix : 02:15
EMG 57 Mix : 03:03
EMG JH Mix : 03:52
EMG Super 77 Mix : 04:40
EMG Fat 55 Mix : 05:29
EMG 81 Alone : 06:19
EMG 85 ceramic Alone : 06:44
EMG 85 Alnico Alone : 07:10
EMG 57 Alone : 07:35
EMG JH Alone : 08:01
EMG Super 77 Alone : 08:26
EMG Fat 55 Alone : 08:52
Tribute to Daddario XT : 09:21
Why no clean ? : 10:43
The missing EMG active pickups : 11:37
Neck pickup massive comparison : 12:27 
Видеоклипы
About the EMG 85 ceramic : it is sold as such by a french online shop called Algam Webstore : www.algam-webstore.fr/lutherie-emg-85-actif-aimant-ceramique-noir-530840.html
That's where I bought it ! But after talking with the fine people at EMG Pickups, they tell me that no EMG with ceramic magnet has ever existed ! So, sorry for this mistake. What I have called an EMG 85 ceramic is just an ancient version of the EMG 85, and it sounds a bit different indeed.
What a great comparison video, thanks for the effort you put into this!
Thanks a lot man !
Thanks for doing such a detailed comparison of these. And great playing!
Thanks ! When I get my hands on the JR Demonum and the EMG 58 I'll make an updated version of this video :)
Thanks for taking the time to make this great video.
I had fun making it :)
Perfect video for me. I have 707s in a seven string and the 57/66 set in an Ibanez rg6005 and just picked up an Arz400 with EMG-HZ and wanted to go active. That 57 just keeps being convincing
You my man, despite not having that many subs, the quality of your channel i find very good, keep rocking😁
Thanks Mathias ! I'll keep rocking and chugging ;)
Thank you for the demo. Great playing as well. You just cut to the case. Love it. This really helps me make a decision. The 57 is standing out to me right now. It’s closest to the JB/Gravity Storm sound that I can find so far.
Thanks ! I'm happy this video helped you chose, it's the reason why I made it :)
Sick video! Awesome comparison
Thanks Julian :)
Great help thank you. I am a long time 81 user and your comparison surprised me. I had to listen several times through headphones. The Fat 55 really surprised me. In my opinion the HET> 81/85 it just seems to be the best of both worlds in one pickup! Amazing sound. I think the 57 is perfect but the 77 and the 55 certainly have their place. I Had the 55 on a 7 string and they were amazing, especially the neck, but I needed money so I sold them. In short I don't think you can go wrong with either the 57/66, HET or the Hot 70 set which is a Super77 bridge and a Fat 55 Neck. Love EMG's . Wow. Thanks again I'm going to by some new pickups!
I'm glad that I've helped you :)
Thank a lot. I want 77. U're really make good videos.
Thanks ! Those super 77 are definitely great pickups.
Hey there ! I prefere the 81, because I'm a fan of Zakk Wylde, but the others sound great too ! I'd like to hear them clean, because even if some of the comments tell me "go clean, go passive", I wan't to know how my pickups sound like, because I may want to play clean with active pickups !
Great video, keep up the amazing work !
PS : can't wait the daemonum !
Thanks ! Well the video about the EMG active in neck position is still in my plans but it’s the kind of video that takes a lot of time. I will try my best releasing it early in 2021 :)
The 81 is still my favorite, with the 85 my second favorite. I prefer the 81 TW in the bridge and 89 in the neck for coil splitting because I switch from metal to clean funky jazz on the fly.
I have discovered the 81TW / 89 set with my Schecter Hellraiser and this dual mode is very interesting for sure !
@@ToroKchannel I have it in one of my Schecter Deluxes. Another one has the DiMarzio Steve's Special/Air Norton set. Also sounds great.
The Super 77 reminds me so much of a mix between a SD JB and a SD Distortion. Love it. Might pick one up. Thank fuck for the EMG solderless construction.
sick guitar and sick chops man
Thanks !
Unsurprisingly to me, the Retroactive Fat 55 was my favorite. Currently have one in the bridge of my HSS strat, with two Retro Active Maverick Five singles in the middle and neck. Before finding the Fat 55, my favorite pickup I'd had in the bridge position of my guitar was the Duncan JB. Only reason I ever even decided to try anything different from the JB was due to not liking the fact that I got a normal spaced humbucker instead of F spaced (didn't know about different spacing at the time), so the pole pieces didn't line up with the strings. So I decided to experiment with some EMGs due to the ease of installation, and settled on the Fat 55.
I've been told by several professionals (Luthier, guitar techs) that eventually, normal space of F space did almost change nothing to the sound. But I have never tried. Fat 55 is pretty unique in the EMG active range. Would you say it sounds close to the Duncan JB ?
@@ToroKchannel My only issue with the JB was that it started to visually bother me that I didn't have the F space to line up with the strings. I actually don't really know exactly how similar the JB and Fat 55 are. There was a year or two between the JB and Fat 55 where I had an 89XR in the bridge, and my rig is quite different now compared to when I had the JB (had a Boss Katana, but now have an HX Stomp instead). I wish there was some way for me to quickly and easily swap between the JB and the Fat 55, through my current setup, to see how similar they are.
@@morbidangel989 we should ask EMG to make an active copy of the JB ;)
I’ve never seen an HSS Retroactive Demo, I’m considering one for a Strat.
Awesome Comparison....
Thanks :D
Great job! Awesome comparison! My favourites 81, 57, JH but 77 and 55 also very good. TBH all EMG's are great. It would be nice of neck 60, 85, 66, JH, BB clean sound comparison when will the opportunity
Thanks ! :D about the neck pickups you will have them all except the BB, at least not for the version I will release in 2-3 weeks. I will manage having a 60A and many people say the BB neck is based upon this one.
ToroK I heard same about BB and 60A. Have you tried HB EX-84 with EMG?
@@coach1897 No I didn't, but I have the EX-84 with Roswell and I will replace them with EMGs. That will give me an opportunity for comparing these Roswells with EMGs and HBZ :) The EX-84 is a really good guitar, very well built, I have no doubt it will sound great with EMGs.
ToroK I Hope so. I ordered it with emg in vintage white color. Can’t wait.
I bought an Ibanez jnr on a whim, not my usual choice (I'm proudly a dad rock kinda player) I really didn't like the pickups in it and didn't want to drop £380 on a set of posh pickups so picked up a set of EMG HETSET for it...absolutely love them. Ended up getting a set for two of my Les Pauls and I can still play all the Bryan Adams, darkness, foo's songs in my band, they sound fantastic for all styles and in truth I would have never considered them because I always associated them with metal. honestly for £220 for the pickups, pots, jack socket and control bus you really can't go wrong. I think they have a nice clean tone also.
Clean tones on EMG are very bright and crystal clear. They are interesting for certain genres for sure and I like them when I want a bright tone with a certain amount of thickness.
I love emgs I miss them
Terrific sound test!
1) 57
2) 85
3) 77
Thanks !
Love the guitar. I have the grey version. Want to get the blue one and put Super 77's in it.
great looking and playing guitar, very good choice ! Hopr you'll find it. I bought this one in a french guitar store :)
Awesome Bro U deserve more damn likes.... 77's are sweet!
Thanks !
The Willie Adler picking style. I have that same guitar and (mostly) love it. Does the piece of foam under the strings help?
Thanks ! The foam under the strings helpsa little bit, but it's lmuch ess efficient than a Jimmy Clip, so I finally bought some Jimmy clips :)
@@ToroKchannel Wow, didn't know about the existence of these things! Thanks!
I'm not a fan of active microphones but I respect those who like! Great video and with translation
Thanks man ;)
Great comparisson! What's your pickup height on the 57? sounds sick
Thanks Michael :) For all the pickups the height is 2.5mm on each side (measured without touching the strings. If you push on the strings at the last fret, that's 2mm)
Great video. Do your EMG' bridge pickup get noisier when your palm covers it.I like the EMG 81's. Mine seems noisier when my palm covers it. The other pickups don't sound noisy. It's grounded and the original one from 1985.lol
Thanks ! I don't have this problem on my 81s (I've got 4 of them :) )but they're not as ancient as yours !
emg super 77 sounds the best to me
also.. never heard of the 85 in ceramic? i like it alot even though they all sound similar not in person. im gonna save this video and try to learn this riff. thanks for sharing
Eventually it appears that the 85 in Ceramic is just an older version of the 85, it can be recognized thanks to the old EMG logo. You will see that the riff is not so hard to play :)
Vidéo très intéressante et très bien faite.
Le 85 est excellent en son clair. Tout comme le 81 en manche.
Oui, oui. J’avais inversé le kit ZW, Patrice Vigier avait bien raison de faire ça sur son Excalibur EMG... 😉
Avec cette config, on a tout : clair, crunch, saturax à 11... ☺️
Merci :) Oui la config 85/81 est sympa, mais j'avoue une préférence pour 85/60A surtout si je dois jouer en clean :)
I just replaced 57/66 with 81/85. 57 is great but 81 is iconic.
Agreed ! Since I have several guitars with EMG, I always have one with 81/85 and another with 57/66 :)
Hello Sir, I'm looking forward to change my guitar pickup from EMG FAT 55 to Het Set. I just wanted to know do there's any difference in their size. Because I've to order Het Set, and if there's any difference then I'll face trouble in fitting them. The guitar I'm having is Cort X Ltd 16. There pickups are directly mounted in the body itself. Thanks.
There is a difference of size between EMG retoactives (fat 55 Hot 70 super 77 and Daemonum) and the others, so your het set will be larger. I've had the same problem with my Harley Benton Amarok : no way some het set or 57/66 or 81/85 can fit in. When you get them, just check if they don't fit in, and if not, hopefully you can send them back and be refunded (or you can buy another guitar to put the Het Set in :) )
@@ToroKchannel thanks a lot sir, you are the best youtuber I've ever came across and above all, a nice Gentleman. Regards.
Why would like to change to EMG JH ,are the EMG FAT55 poor or not good enough ?
I’m planning to get the Cort CR300 which has these Active Retro pickups ,due to the videos i have watched I noticed that they have really a clear and a warm sound ...
I just got the fat 55 set. Sounds good but not for metal in my opinion. I have used the 81/85 forever. Time for a change something more versatile. I have a 57/66 set on the way. Maybe this is what Im looking for. Hopefully
the 57/66 is a really good set, with richer tone than the 81/85. Not a night and day difference but a real worthy evolution.
*Thanks for the amazing video!*
D'Addario is my fav strings brand for years!
57 is what I preferred.
I won't buy a 81 even for 5€! 🤣
I grew hating them coz I used them for years when there were no alternative!
I'll be brutally honest: I don't care for active clean sounds.
You go clean? You go passive! 😀
Hi Oilid ! So you've been tortured by the 81... Sorry for you buddy ! I understand your point as far as clean sound on active pickups goes. Now, it really depends upon which one you will play. I'll develop this in my neck pickup comparison video but, and that's pretty much my point, what is true about an EMG 81 is not true about a super 77 or fat 55 for instance ;)
@@ToroKchannel Ok, waiting for the video! 😉👍
@@ToroKchannel Hello, Have you made a comparison of neck pickups?
@@user-jd6rd8cq7k Hi ! I've started working on it, and it should be ok in 3-4 weeks. There will be 2 schecter guitar reviews on the chan before this massive neck comparison :)
@@user-jd6rd8cq7k Hi ! I've started working on it, but I won't release it before 3-4 weeks. 2 Schecter guitar reviews are coming first :)
This helps a lot with finding the right guitar for me without having to try out that much.
I'm happy that I've helped you ! So what guitar did you chose ?
@@ToroKchannel I haven't yet. But I know that I'd like to have one with the EMG 85 Alnico or EMG Super 77. Maybe the EMG Retroactive Super 77 (sounds similar to super 77 just a bit fuller and less compressed) after the direct comparison. There is a good chance I'll choose the Schecter Sun Valley Super Shredder FR S. But I'm reading about some more guitars with these kind of pickups first.
@@XManX102 I'd love to have a sun valley Fr S myself, I need a gbuitar with a sustainiac anyway :) The Cort X 300 I have reviewed a few weeks ago could also be a possibility. No sustainiac, a set of EMG Hot 70 (that's the super 77 bridge pickup and the fat 55 neck pickup) and though it comes with a simple floyd rose special, it stays in tune pretty well. You won't get the same level of finishes as on a schecter but for the price it's an interesting guitar. If, in time, you want to swap pickups and go for an EMG 85 alnico, you'll find one very easily on the used market for half the retail price. Now, if the guitar you chose comes with direct mounted pickups, maybe the cavity that's made for a super 77 / hot 70 set won't be long enough to welcome an EMG 85, but if you have some pickup rings, no problem. Good luck for your choice !
@@ToroKchannel thx a lot I just watched your review about the cort x 300.
Do you know a good guitar that got the emg 85 alnico already built in by any chance?
@@XManX102 well my first thought is for the Schecter C-1 platinum I've been using for this video. It comes stock with a set of 81/85 (by default, 85 means alnico magnets) and it's an amazing player. The Shecter Damien Platinum would be great as well, it's basically the same guitar with a different look. LTD MH-1001 is another good choice. If you search the used market you will find several other interesting guitars like the LTD MH 350 / MH 401 and if you're lucky enough maybe a Dean Custom 450 but these ones are really hard to find !
Ca me conforte dans mon choix, je vais me prendre des FAT55. Merci :-)
Ravi que cette vidéo ait pu servir :)
@@ToroKchannel C'est super ce genre de vidéos, encore merci :-)
The Super 77 sounds the best to my ears. It sounds like a DiMarzio Super Distortion on steroids.
yeah good definition but low gain, sounds like the 57 is the high gain version of it, still at the ending riff the 77 sounded more natural followed by the 57. The 85 sounded good too and the rest are dogshit.
Is the fat 55 similar to the semyour ducan JB? Are their output similar ?
I don't have the JB at home but if I remermber well, tonewise they are different (the JB is less fat) and the output is similar.
@@ToroKchannel thanks bro.
I was a little confused until I heard the guitar tracks by themselves. then I could hear more of the differences. they all sound pretty similar, but some have more or less low end or high end. I heard the mid as really similar. I would think that metal like this it would be important to stay away from ones with too much low end. you can cleanly boost low end on the amp or in post production. having too much low end in the in the guitar pickup will make your playing sound and feel sloppy. that's my experience anyway.
that makes sense. Now, to be fair, none of these pickups have too much low end, nothing that cannot be managed, at least with the rig I have at home. And adding on OD to tighten the bass is helpful too :)
Super comparatif. Effectivement les sons clairs ne servent à rien dans cette video.Pour moi le 57 sort du lot pour le palm mute.D' ailleur depuis la video , j ai décidé de changer mes SD blackouts par un 57.
Merci :) du coup, content des ton changement ?
Great video :) how about EMG Hot 70 retroactive pickups :)
thanks ! The Hot 70 set is made with the same bridge pickup as the super 77 and the same neck pickup as the fat 55 :)
@@ToroKchannel thanks for the fast reply man! :) I have the Hot 70 set in my Amarok 6 emerald burst by Harley Benton :D I love the guitar so much
The Amarok is an excellent guitar ! I find it sounds even better when downtuned :)
@@ToroKchannel agreed! Sounds like a beast :)
85 ceramic for my taste.
Literally everyone keep forgetting the EMG 58 (not 85) pickup when doing these big tests. Little noisy but probably most vile of all EMG humbuckers
Great comparison though
I didn't forget about it but, back then, I couldn't order it since it was out of stock. So next time I make an EMG bridge pickup comparison, it will be in :)
Comparing the clean tones of these pickups would make it much easier to hear any differences between their tone
It would, but it would not make a lot of sense. My chan is dedicated to gear for playing metal music. As I mention in the video I don't know any artist who would use an active bridge pickup for playing clean stuff. And sometimes, the clean tone gives a wrong indication on what you will have with high gain. This being said, when I have recorded this video, I was using a 5W valve head so there was not enough headroom to really hear the differences of tone. In a few months, I will do it again, with all the EMG active pickups I can find, with an amp head that has more headroom and a better DAI.
As long as EMG active ill take it...
Retroactive dar 55
85 has dat thicknessssssssssssssssss
clearly yes !
Super 77 and Fat 55 sound great. The 77 has a quack thats great for modern Djent.
81 and 57 also sound so good.
these 4 models are far and away the best models they have now imo
Super 77 became one of my fav as soon as I've played it, fat 55 is very good too and 81 and 57 are now classics. I'm surprised you didn't quote the Het Set. Don't you like them ?
@@ToroKchannel on demos, they always sound too saturated for my tastes. Its like they are even hotter and more saturated than 81s?
I just never vibe with that style of gain I guess haha
@@lewisstorer89 that's an explanation :) but yes they're definitely hotter than the 81, they're by far the hottest EMG active.
@@lewisstorer89 I don't think they're hotter than the EMG 81. Their output is more or less similar. It's just that the Super 77 has more low end and a thicker tonality which makes it sound bigger than the EMG 81.
@@TheNocturnalEvil I'm talking about the het set having more output - not the super 77
57
Theres more difference in high end than in low end i assume
Well the differences are more in the mids and in the complexity of the tone. 81-85-60 : they ram it down. Het set - 57/66 : a bit more subtle. Fat 55 Supe 77 : kind of a passive feel, more complex tone, a lot of low end on the Fat 55.
@@ToroKchannel Kinda hate that you kinda always have to go custom to get the best sound. Is like, buy pickups or buy pickups hahaha
6:20 / 8:27 / 8:53
Mushiness in standard E? Come on!!
Nice review by the way.
Mushiness ? You think it sounds mushy ? Thanks btw :)
Iam more intrested in your guitar tone
Thanks ! Mu signal chain is in the vidéo description :)
Sorry man you had 666 views and I ruined it.
No prob ! But now you've got to help this vid reaching out to 666.000 views ;)