EMG toneless?

[robboster]

I was just wondering...

When people say that the EMG actives are tonelss, do they mean that the pickup itse;f does not colour your tone, thus allowing you to hear what the woods and stuff of the guitar to be heard, or does it mean that it does not show the tone of the guitar, nor anything on it?

 

[LadyInTears]

i suggest you do a A/B comparison, one with EMGs and the other with passives.

 

[dudelove]

When people say EMGs are toneless, it usually means they have no tone, which also means they are bad pickups. Its just a bad word, another fanciful way of saying these pickups suck.

I don't have anything againsts EMG pickups. Just letting you know I ain't one of those haters.

 

[keithC]

emg pickups do not have bad tone. they are just more neutral sounding and will allow more of your other tone components to shine through, eg. wood/pedals/amps.
if you can live with your other gear well, and demand tons of clarity and versatility, emgs are the way to go. they arent bad pickups, (not the single coils. as for the humbuckers, they seem more like a one trick pony...)

do note what kind of tone you want as well, the emg's (single coils) may not be able to simulate nice chimey or bell-like clean tones from say, a proper vintage spec pickup. there are limitations as well.
the humbuckers... ahha you can easily do a search on this forum. they offer good clarity under high gain, but lacks dynamics and may be too high output for any clean playing.

ps i've never tried them before, but this is what i know and also what i've heard, both live and online streaming hehe.

 

[junhao405]

Haha.. Toneless? I don't feel so.. At least I tried the EMG SA pickup on TGM Strat.. Damm the tone.. can beat any fender out there.. (I did a compare with Fender Vintage Strat, 70s ones with SD Single Coil).. The neck was v clean and fat tone (Yeah, this neck pickup is quite thick).. the mid and brigde have the kind of Twang stuff.. Oh man.. Humbucker I don't know.. but the EMG SA was really awesome

NOTE: EMG SA is active pickup XD

 

[penta-tonic]

when people say that emg pickups are toneless, it just shows that the person who passed the comment is a bigot. cos all tone is subjective, either you like it or you dont. if anything is 'toneless' its probably because its spoilt and not producing any sound cos last i remembered its impossible for something to have sound and yet be toneless.

that said emgs have a totally different response from passives. generally actives such as emgs and duncan blackouts are more commonly used by metal guitarist but it doesnt apply to all. steve lukather who hardly seems like a heavy sounding kinda guy has emgs in his axe. and ive seen quite a number of jazz boxes sporting bartolini actives. debating the pros and cons is just opening up a can of worms, best to have a first hand experience and then choose from there.

 

[fretless6]

EMG SA just doesn't sound like a "true" single coil to me at all. I'm pretty sure I've seen Steve Luke replacing the SA with passive singles on several of his guitars. EMG humbuckers also have this inherent high freq fuzziness that floats some ppl's boats but not others. Have had EMGs on 2 guitars in my lifetime, never kept them.

Anyway, tone for electric guitar has always been heavily colored. I won't say that transparency is necessarily always a good thing. Passing crap through a transparent pickup still gives crap.

 

[penta-tonic]

yeps i never said that actives would sound like passives. whole different ball game. i personally dont like actives as well. dont like that high end fuzziness on drive which i hear alot of symphony x records. but that said ive come across quite a number of people who actually like the response from actives on clean better than passives. hmmm. meat and poison?

 

[dudelove]

At least I tried the EMG SA pickup on TGM Strat.. Damm the tone.. can beat any fender out there..

Whoa serious? Where can i try this Fender slaying strat?

 

[keithC]

Whoa serious? Where can i try this Fender slaying strat?

dudelove, he most probably played it through a marshall mg15 on max gain and treble down. do you get what i mean? or on a roland microcube or smth...
the compression would make the sound seem "nice" but actually thats all the pickup does in that set up-.-

 

[embryo]

Interesting discussion this!

EMGs are Toneless? Not to me.
Different from Passives? Yes!
Good or Bad? It really depends on the intended musical context and players approach on the instrument.

Trendy hear says tend to propogate general opinions without much understanding The biggest difference between Actives and Passives to me really is the way the guitar sounds when you roll off the volume knob. Some people hate the way passives sound when u roll off the volume knob even slightly especially with solid state amps and modelling technology gear so they'll prefer the consistency of overall tone maintained with actives as u play the volume knob.

In passives especially with saturated drive solely from the tube amps the volume knob also behaves like a tone knob. Some love this and use this characteristics of paasives to their dynamic musical style. Some players who do not need so much dynamic variation do not like that tonal change from the volume knob.

If you find urself playing the gtr with the volume at 10 all the time the difference between actives and passives isn't so distinct. Hope this helps somewhat ya.

 

[bf0502tr]

hmmm is there any diff that actives and passives have when it comes to response to diff pick attacks?? or are both equal on this factor?

 

[dudelove]

dudelove, he most probably played it through a marshall mg15 on max gain and treble down. do you get what i mean? or on a roland microcube or smth...
the compression would make the sound seem "nice" but actually thats all the pickup does in that set up-.-

Why not David Gilmour uses EMG SA single coils.

Well you have to take in the consideration the amount of lights Pink Floyd uses during their shows. An ordinary single coil would be suicide in that kinda circumstances

 

[predz23]

EMG's being toneless is quite a myth. They do color SOME tone, but not to the extent that any guitar will sound the same with EMG's.
My epiphone flying v has got active EMG's and it doesn't sound as good as my Epi ZW which has passive EMG's
If your guitar sucks then EMG' won't solve the problem

 

[ecneret]

i beg to differ
my lp with emg pickups just ROARS~
and i love it

 

[geoff1121]

when they mean toneless, people are talking about the vibe coming out of the pickups. emgs are designed for high gain distorted stuff, they sound good in their own genre. You simply cannot compare emgs with strat coils... that is the worst comparison ever. Paf vs emg? fine, but singecoils against emgs?? completely opposite dimensions. lets face it, emgs: good for heavy stuff, shit for cleaner tones. vintage strat coils: great for cleaner stuff, not so well with metal. Why? well there is a reason why john frusciante use strats while mick thompson use ibanez. they dont go together, just try it urself. not saying u cant use emgs for clean stuff or single coils for death metal, its all about morphing ur own tone to ur likings.

 

[keithC]

when they mean toneless, people are talking about the vibe coming out of the pickups. emgs are designed for high gain distorted stuff, they sound good in their own genre. You simply cannot compare emgs with strat coils... that is the worst comparison ever. Paf vs emg? fine, but singecoils against emgs?? completely opposite dimensions. lets face it, emgs: good for heavy stuff, shit for cleaner tones. vintage strat coils: great for cleaner stuff, not so well with metal. Why? well there is a reason why john frusciante use strats while mick thompson use ibanez. they dont go together, just try it urself. not saying u cant use emgs for clean stuff or single coils for death metal, its all about morphing ur own tone to ur likings.

the threadstarter was targetting EMGs, not just EMG humbuckers...
i doubt the EMG SAs are designed purely for high gain.

 

[bf0502tr]

when they mean toneless, people are talking about the vibe coming out of the pickups. emgs are designed for high gain distorted stuff, they sound good in their own genre. You simply cannot compare emgs with strat coils... that is the worst comparison ever. Paf vs emg? fine, but singecoils against emgs?? completely opposite dimensions. lets face it, emgs: good for heavy stuff, shit for cleaner tones. vintage strat coils: great for cleaner stuff, not so well with metal. Why? well there is a reason why john frusciante use strats while mick thompson use ibanez. they dont go together, just try it urself. not saying u cant use emgs for clean stuff or single coils for death metal, its all about morphing ur own tone to ur likings.

well there are exceptions...malmsteen uses strats with super duper low output pickups. it's not just the pickups though. the amp plays a part also.

 

[TheoryD]

EMG toneless, rubbish. Why do you think James Hetfield or ZW uses them. EMG vs passives or something, that's another question. Solely up to preference.

I played 81 for awhile, cleans not fantastic, but doesn't suck. Very good with high gain stuff. Played JB too. Versatile, but imho, somewhat not here not there.

 

[Maiden]

Pinch harmonics sound better using actives. Especially those squeals which requires some extent of vibrato. ( think ZW, killswitch engage.) Sound tighter than passives when playing heavy riffs. Average cleans though. This is based on my epi ZW with emg 81/85.

Basically it is meant for heavy metal. For that chugga chugga without being muddy.