[jalguitarman]

I have never used actives and was wondering what are the differences in tonality and feel? What makes them better than passives? Are active cleaner than passives. Just curious. Thanks

[Zepp88]

From my experiences with EMGS, Active pickups are cleaner sounding, and tend to hit the amp pretty hard. The downside is they tend to be flat and sterile sounding, though lots of guys to prefer the active tone. Passives can be as powerful as an active, some can be "gritty" and most have better dynamics and headroom than an active.

There are a few passive pickups on the market which claim to have all of the upsides of an active without it's limitations. Such as the DiMarzio D Activator 7


Was that a bit of overexplanation??? lol

[fathead]

For something like this I'd recommend a trip to a music store with a lot of guitars and try to A/B some actives versus passives. Everyone's tastes and ears are a little different. I've never been very good at describing pickup tone.

[Zepp88]

^^^I agree.

I used EMGS for quite awhile untill I heard some good passives, it's all preference.

[JPMDan]

I had a 7620 with a EMG, it was cool for awhile then I hated it and sold it. recently I heard about the 18 volt mod which gives it headroom so now I wanna try this out and see if I'll like them again.

[Ishan]

I like EMGs for what they are, they got a sound of their own but I still prefer a good set of passive. EMGs are far too compressed for my taste, no dynamics at all. It's really a matter of taste, they are good pickups, just with very particular sound.

[ElRay]

Originally Posted by Zepp88

The downside is they tend to be flat and sterile sounding, ...

I wonder how much of this is due to:

• Much flatter frequency response
• Clipping due to saturating the internal OP-AMPS

The first could be "cured" by something like EMG's BQS System -- let's you boost/cut the highs, lows and mid's independently, and even adjust the peak of the mids cut/boost. And the second can be mitigated by switching to 18V power.

Ray

[fathead]

Originally Posted by Zepp88

I used EMGS for quite awhile untill I heard some good passives, it's all preference.

I ultimately like a little of everything. Got some good passives and actives in different guitars so I can always find something to fit the mood.

[7 Strings of Hate]

i'm a die hard emg user, have been for 8 years or so, i love the sharpness of the low end notes, something i havnt gotten as well with passives, i feel you get that death metal tone from them, crisp and clean at crazy volumes, passives seem a little rounder in their sound, a little fuzzier, of course there are exceptions to each, i have yet to try the dimarzio active simulator pickup, dactivator or something, but i keep hearing bad reviews on them and plus i just love the sound of emgs, and like el ray said, you can mess with the dynamics with the multipul mods that emg makes for their pup systems

[Zepp88]

Originally Posted by ElRay

I wonder how much of this is due to:

• Much flatter frequency response
• Clipping due to saturating the internal OP-AMPS

The first could be "cured" by something like EMG's BQS System -- let's you boost/cut the highs, lows and mid's independently, and even adjust the peak of the mids cut/boost. And the second can be mitigated by switching to 18V power.

Ray

That's entirely possible. I was just talking about a basic EMG install as compared to a basic passive install.