EMG81: love/hate relationship

[angelspade]

Metallica made them famous.. Now Hetfield has moved on to a Sig set. Any comparisons?

I have the Hets in a couple guitars. Good pickup, lots of output with aggressive highs. That said, there is a sub-bass like bloat to the lows and low mids not found in other EMGs. This is particularly odd as Hetfield speaks regularly about how he favors a percussive attack and low end. With the right amp, they work very well. My EVH 5150s loved that pickup...But my Diezel VH4 and Koch Supernova did not respond well....Muddy lows in both instances. Just my thoughts.

 

[anomaly]

I have the Hets in a couple guitars. Good pickup, lots of output with aggressive highs. That said, there is a sub-bass like bloat to the lows and low mids not found in other EMGs. This is particularly odd as Hetfield speaks regularly about how he favors a percussive attack and low end. With the right amp, they work very well. My EVH 5150s loved that pickup...But my Diezel VH4 and Koch Supernova did not respond well....Muddy lows in both instances. Just my thoughts.

That's weird since Hetfield uses the VH4 as part of his tone.

 

[Rex Rocker]

Metallica made them famous.. Now Hetfield has moved on to a Sig set. Any comparisons?

The Kirk set is actually 1:1 an 81/60A set with a green logo. Nothing different about them.

The Het Set bridge is pretty cool. It's way hotter (before the preamp, so it clips a whole lot more internally) and fatter than an 81, but not as fat as a 57. Like someone said before, it has more low mids, but I personally didn't find it to have more sub lows. It's an EMG running on the same preamp, after all.

 

[angelspade]

That's weird since Hetfield uses the VH4 as part of his tone.

I agree...But I also push the lows a bit more that Hetfield, so who knows. Generally speaking, I don't find the Het or the 57 to be as tight as the 81.

 

[valve]

I have the Hets in a couple guitars. Good pickup, lots of output with aggressive highs. That said, there is a sub-bass like bloat to the lows and low mids not found in other EMGs. This is particularly odd as Hetfield speaks regularly about how he favors a percussive attack and low end. With the right amp, they work very well. My EVH 5150s loved that pickup...But my Diezel VH4 and Koch Supernova did not respond well....Muddy lows in both instances. Just my thoughts.

Every pickup that has big lows and bloated low mids sound like total ass with my Diezels as well! Higher output than the EMG81 also doesn‘t help.

i hear similiar stuff going on in Metallica since hardwired, which would fit the timeline, but it‘s probably something else…

I just don‘t like how fat pickups affect the distortion characteristics (rough grit) at least with my amps (with the mess mark series you can compensate though).

That‘s actually what this thread should be about, because that‘s exactly what the EMG81 does great!!!
Lean bass and low mids, which makes for this very fine grained/grit, smooth distortion!
And the resulting tightness is also great!

 

[angelspade]

Every pickup that has big lows and bloated low mids sound like total ass with my Diezels as well! Higher output than the EMG81 also doesn‘t help.

i hear similiar stuff going on in Metallica since hardwired, which would fit the timeline, but it‘s probably something else…

I just don‘t like how fat pickups affect the distortion characteristics (rough grit) at least with my amps (with the mess mark series you can compensate though).

That‘s actually what this thread should be about, because that‘s exactly what the EMG81 does great!!!
Lean bass and low mids, which makes for this very fine grained/grit, smooth distortion!
And the resulting tightness is also great!

The good old standard 81 sounds absolutely killer through both my VH4 and Supernova.

 

[MetalJim]

Try, the EMG 81-x. It has more headroom, and sounds amazing to me.
I have them in the bridge position of my main guitars (Ibanez RGD2120Z)
I personally feel they make the original 81 obsolete.

I just bought the 81X couple of days ago, I been a EMG user 81 mode since the 90s and for me is the thrash tone pickup, and when I want a little less gain more openness, I have a few guitars with the 85 in the bridge. I really want to install that 81x the moment it arrives in order to see if is better than a regular 81.

 

[Rex Rocker]

Every pickup that has big lows and bloated low mids sound like total ass with my Diezels as well! Higher output than the EMG81 also doesn‘t help.

i hear similiar stuff going on in Metallica since hardwired, which would fit the timeline, but it‘s probably something else…

I just don‘t like how fat pickups affect the distortion characteristics (rough grit) at least with my amps (with the mess mark series you can compensate though).

That‘s actually what this thread should be about, because that‘s exactly what the EMG81 does great!!!
Lean bass and low mids, which makes for this very fine grained/grit, smooth distortion!
And the resulting tightness is also great!

The Het is not a fat pickup. It's just fatter than an 81... which like, what, 99% of all other pickups are? LOL. It just has more going on down low than an 81, but compared to any passive, it's still way leaner.

 

[valve]

The Het is not a fat pickup. It's just fatter than an 81... which like, what, 99% of all other pickups are? LOL. It just has more going on down low than an 81, but compared to any passive, it's still way leaner.

So nothing like a SD Blackout AHB-1, then!
Thanks for clearing that up.
it might still that some amps don't reproduce the lowest of lows even if it's there.
They are all highpassed to a different degree (DC blocking Caps, Cathode bias resistor bypass, ...)
I don't doubt angelspade in this regard at all.

 

[Rex Rocker]

So nothing like a SD Blackout AHB-1, then!
Thanks for clearing that up.
it might still that some amps don't reproduce the lowest of lows even if it's there.
They are all highpassed to a different degree (DC blocking Caps, Cathode bias resistor bypass, ...)
I don't doubt angelspade in this regard at all.

Yeah, I'm not contradicting him either. I don't own a Diezel, and the Het is indeed fatter than the 81. It's just not fat in the grand scheme of things. It is really hot, though.

I actually had the Blackout and the Het in the same guitar at some point, and the Het is pretty much Blackout levels of hot, just with less going on down low and up high.

 

[dave74]

I still really like the 81, but I much prefer it in a guitar that has a wide sonic footprint, a bit scooped even.
Maple neck, mahogany body,ebony fretboard, stainless frets, floyd, ect .

Never tried a newer year that are supposedly a different opamp , mine are all old-logo from early 2000's era.
I did have at one time a couple new-logo solderless from the early 2010's and to my ears they were just as good.

 

[Rex Rocker]

Yeah, the new logo ones pre-2018 still sound the same as the last gen of the old logo.

It's just the really recent EMG's that sound off.

FWIW, I don't find Fishman Moderns brighter than EMG's. But the low-end rolloff is even more extreme, so they're definitely more focused, but not brighter. They also have a few revisions. I've only tried the latest revision before they added the single coil voice, which is not as bright as the first revisions.

 

[FLUXX]

I just bought the 81X couple of days ago, I been a EMG user 81 mode since the 90s and for me is the thrash tone pickup, and when I want a little less gain more openness, I have a few guitars with the 85 in the bridge. I really want to install that 81x the moment it arrives in order to see if is better than a regular 81.

Let me know what you think of the 81-x. I think you're going to really like it!

 

[valve]

So highpassing the passive with series cap works great by the way. Does exactly what i want to the distortion!
You just have to compensate with the Amp EQ for the lost Bass, just like i would with the EMGs.
This freaking kills! get my favorite thing from the EMGs with everything i like about my passives!
No pedals needed!

 

[Detroit1973]

I just bought the 81X couple of days ago, I been a EMG user 81 mode since the 90s and for me is the thrash tone pickup, and when I want a little less gain more openness, I have a few guitars with the 85 in the bridge. I really want to install that 81x the moment it arrives in order to see if is better than a regular 81.

All you had to do was use a regular 81 with either the 18V Mod or the 24V Mod & it's near identical to the 81X. That's why the 81x was designed.....it was designed to mimic the openness of the 81 when running at 18 or 24v. Getting the 18v or 24v tone while still allowing the use of 1 9v battery.

 

[Detroit1973]

The Het is not a fat pickup. It's just fatter than an 81... which like, what, 99% of all other pickups are? LOL. It just has more going on down low than an 81, but compared to any passive, it's still way leaner.

and i keep hearing that the Het set sound like the older 81's from the 90's......which is when i bought my favorite set of Emg's. That set in my les paul standard will never come out but the rest of my les pauls will probably get switched over to passive pickups.

 

[dave74]

and i keep hearing that the Het set sound like the older 81's from the 90's......which is when i bought my favorite set of Emg's. That set in my les paul standard will never come out but the rest of my les pauls will probably get switched over to passive pickups.

But did you have that same 81 in other guitars too? It might just be that specific combo hits perfect.

I know the general word is that an 81 is an 81 no matter it's host, but I've certainly found that to be false after many years of playing musical-chairs with all my pickups and guitars. I really got into that between 2006-15.

 

[Soundstorm]

Anyone ever notice a kind of "clicky" sound in the upper mids on EMG 81s? Like it's picking up and amplifying string noise of some kind. I never noticed it until I had a set, now I notice it on all the YouTube videos with EMGs.

 

[Rex Rocker]

and i keep hearing that the Het set sound like the older 81's from the 90's......which is when i bought my favorite set of Emg's. That set in my les paul standard will never come out but the rest of my les pauls will probably get switched over to passive pickups.

I haven't tried the EMG's from the 90's. I must have started to play guitar around 2000-2001, and would've gotten my first Zakk Wylde set shortly after.

But quite honestly, I highly doubt the Het Set sounds like the 81's from the 90's. Like I said, it's way hotter than a regular 81. Not just a little. And the construction is radically different (poles vs blades, and the coils are full-size rather than the narrower coils on the 81).

 

[Detroit1973]

I haven't tried the EMG's from the 90's. I must have started to play guitar around 2000-2001, and would've gotten my first Zakk Wylde set shortly after.

But quite honestly, I highly doubt the Het Set sounds like the 81's from the 90's. Like I said, it's got way hotter than a regular 81. Not just a little. And the construction is radically different (poles vs blades, and the coils are full-size rather than the narrower coils on the 81).

The Poles vs. Blades was what i was thinking would be very different. I've mostly heard it's slightly fatter in the lows like the early 81. My Set from 1996 has more lows than any other set i have. almost all of my other sets are quick connect, old logo from the early 2000's. I even have 3 sets of the Anniversary 81's that they only did in Chrome. 1 1/2 Years later they made the chrome option avaliable to the public.