Now that I've fixed up my guitar a bit, I've been thinking of doing some modifications, one of the modifications includes maybe putting an EMG active pickup in the bridge (I'm not sure what kind of pickup exactly yet). Currently, there is a stock humbucker and I figure the active pickup will give me more of a hard rock edge when I play. Has anyone ever put active pickups in their guitars? I've never played using one but I've heard they help with gain and stuff and I like Metallica and Zack Wylde's tone, and they use them. Any feedback on this topic would be great.
Steve-0
In my humble opinion, active pickups are not any better. I have a guitar with two Emg SA and one EMG 85 humbucker in it. I also have a Gibson les paul, an Epiphone les paul, and a Fender Strat. The Emg 85 is the only active (battery powered) pickup. Tone-wise it is very similar to the Epi, only the Emg is a little hotter sounding. The main difference is that the Emg is louder than the rest. All you have to do is to turn your amp up a little when your not using the Emg. And I mean a little! The Gibson pickups are very very strong. In fact they are so strong they are harder to play than the Emg because they pickup so well. I like the Gibson's for their tone and power, much better than all the others. The Emg SA singlecoils are divine. They have a great tone. The bottom line is that active pickups are cool but they are no better than the upper-end non-active pickups. In fact, I don't like using them when I have to switch to a clean tone during a song because they are just too harsh sounding. I would check out the non-actice Emg's like the Selects if you want a great sounding pickup and like the Emg looks. I don't want to diss Emg's. They are great pickups and I love 'em. They are no better and certainly no worse, just different.
That's interesting, my guitar teacher pretty much told me the same thing, thanks alot.
Steve-0
