Kirk Hammett: “Maybe the age of active pickups is over”

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napalmdeath said:
I agree 100%. Actives go from sounding good, to stale. That's how they age for me. Now, that's primarily EMG's. Not a fan.

Fluence Moderns, much better, but I still prefer passives.
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I kinda disagree....and I have only recently changed my mind on emg's.....before I was kinda....meh....24v mod has totally won me over. And I think the older emg's are better. I have no way to back this claim up other than having guitars with newer sets versus older sets. The caveat though is I never tried the 24v mod with my newer sets......hope that makes sense....
 
cardinal said:
He has it somewhat backwards but I think the point he's making is legit. A bright, twangy PAF type humbucker can be feed through a totally gained out signal chain and the tone will hold together better than a darker, higher output pickup (which will turn to mush and noisy sooner).
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I tend to prefer lower output vintage pickups myself for those reasons, but I’ve been through 6 real ‘50’s paf so far and none of them sounded bright or twangy. Their emphasis seems to be mostly in the mids and low mids. They’re for the most part thick, midrangey, chewy and most importantly unusually complex and nuanced in tone. Bright or twangy would be the vintage Gretsch, guild, some Hofner humbuckers and some mini-humbuckers, which I actually enjoy more than real PAF’s for that reason
 
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does the wah pedal change which pickups are better?


/s

whatever they used on RtL and MoP they should try to rediscover. IMO
 
dave74 said:
Kirk says wacky stuff all the time;

“You can push a PAF pickup; you can take an amp and fully just gain it out. That PAF will just take it and take it,” observes Hammett.
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It's seems almost weird that the more of a rockstar somebody is, the less they know about the gear they use that supports their livelihood.

Pickups don't "take" gain. That's not how that works. PAFs are very low output pickups so maxing out the gain on your amp just means the amp is working harder to boost a weaker pickup signal more than a higher output pickup to get the same amount of overall signal level sent into the preamp.
 
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braintheory said:
I’ve got real PAF’s and ‘80’s EMG’s. My ‘86 Schecter came stock with emg’s. I tried so many different pickups in it including various Fishman Fluence’s, and paf style pickups, and the emg’s just sounded best for that particular guitar. I find those paf modes on Fluence’s sound like PAF’s in the same way that cherry flavored medicine tastes like real cherries lol. Like you said gotta have both! And there’s also tons of great vintage pickups that fall tonally somewhere in between those 2. Great vintage pickups are a deep and rather unexplored rabbit hole it seems
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When I do use actives...Nothing has beaten the original EMG 81 in the bridge position for me.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
Pickups don't "take" gain. That's not how that works. PAFs are very low output pickups so maxing out the gain on your amp just means the amp is working harder to boost a weaker pickup signal more than a higher output pickup to get the same amount of overall signal level sent into the preamp.
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Huh? I am a bit confused now. Could you explain this paragraph in some more precise way? Technical terms are welcome.
 
mcstinger said:
Huh? I am a bit confused now. Could you explain this paragraph in some more precise way? Technical terms are welcome.
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lol no need to be a smartass. There are some people in this world who don't know as much about gear as you, but want to learn. Not everything said on this forum is meant for genius amp builder gurus. I wrote that comment for exactly the level of guitar player who might be confused by Kirk's statement about PAFs.
 
They both have their place.

PAFs sound fantastic for high gain/metal

And IME most of the people who dont think so, play with too much gain

EMGs/actives can sound great. A lot of their poor reputation is from a lot of boring modern guitarists with boring modern tone
 
all my old custom shop gibby's killed at the brootz...even my standard issue stuff with 498's and 500's. My custom shop stuff..all of them had burstbuckers or 57's.....I was amazed when I saw the Metallica documentary and pretty much every recording scene was them with a les paul with non active pups. Hey whatever works right?
 
TheGreatGreen said:
lol no need to be a smartass. There are some people in this world who don't know as much about gear as you, but want to learn. Not everything said on this forum is meant for genius amp builder gurus. I wrote that comment for exactly the level of guitar player who might be confused by Kirk's statement about PAFs.
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Ok, ok, but it's really a bit confusing that amp is working harder to get higher level signal into the preamp :)
 
angelspade said:
When I do use actives...Nothing has beaten the original EMG 81 in the bridge position for me.
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I have a EMG 81 that I bought in 89 ....... still have it ..... I retired it in 2017 ...... when someone finally put a Les Paul with a JB in my hands ...
 
explain to me how the 24v mod made those old emg's that I put in my Greco absolutely kill? They came to life....the dynamics and articulation are insane to me. Drastic difference in that guitar. I hope it's repeatable.
 
griff10672 said:
I have a EMG 81 that I bought in 89 ....... still have it ..... I retired it in 2017 ...... when someone finally put a Les Paul with a JB in my hands ...
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Yeah...the guitars that I have with passives is usually a JB or Custom.
 
JackBootedThug said:
I kinda disagree....and I have only recently changed my mind on emg's.....before I was kinda....meh....24v mod has totally won me over. And I think the older emg's are better. I have no way to back this claim up other than having guitars with newer sets versus older sets. The caveat though is I never tried the 24v mod with my newer sets......hope that makes sense....
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The original op amp they used on the standard series preamp got discontinued somewhere around 2018, so they were forced to use something else.

I asked about it on the Duncan forum, and someone informed me about the op amp being discontinued, and then people started noticing some specs did change on the published product specs.

I first noticed it on a 57/66 set and a loose new 85 I bought a couple years ago. They sounded like shit. I sold them, and bought a used 57/66 set from 2017 that sounded glorious.

I have no official confirmation or anything. Only my experience and what I posted on the Duncan Forum.

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...8-did-emg-change-their-preamp-design-recently
These days, Fishman Fluence Moderns sound more like EMG's than actual EMG's, LOL.
 
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JackBootedThug said:
explain to me how the 24v mod made those old emg's that I put in my Greco absolutely kill? They came to life....the dynamics and articulation are insane to me. Drastic difference in that guitar. I hope it's repeatable.
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I love 18 volt mod myself. Less compressed for sure.
 
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