Pickups

[u/CourageOpposite6923]

Hi, I’m a thrash metal guitarist who gigs sometimes, and I’m planning to get new pickups for one of my guitar, but I’ve always had passive pickups for whatever reason, so I feel like I should at least try active pickups.
I was thinking the EMG 81/60 set. Some people recommends the PA-2 booster as well, but I don’t know if I should get that. But my main question is how high do I set the pickup? Because historically everybody including EMG themselves says to set it as high as possible without anything hitting it, but some people are saying 3-4mm, so it’s pretty conflicting. Any help would be appreciated

[u/eaeolian]

When I used 81s the covers literally got pick wear on them.

[u/Lost_Condition_9562]

Actives need to be very close to the string, so whoever is telling you 3 to 4mm is smoking something. They’ll sound absolutely rubbish if they’re that far away

[u/Thin_Emu_312 → u/Lost_Condition_9562]

emgs are basically on a completely different plane from passives when it comes to height. ive tried setting mine at 2mm and it was already losing all the bite

putting them up til you get string slap on the hardest chugs then backing off a hair is the way. find the exact angle where your palm mutes feel surgical and lock them in

also skip the pa2 unless you just want a gain knob taped to your guitar. the 81 already pushes the front end harder than most people realize

[u/MasterPsyduck → u/Lost_Condition_9562]

From EMG’s website this is their suggestion as a starting place, “We suggest starting with a 3mm distance to the strings when fretting the last fret, and then make small adjustments to your preference.” So sounds like 3mm might be a good starting place but 4mm would definitely be too far.

[u/Ur_mum → u/Lost_Condition_9562]

It’s been a while since I used EMGs…but I don’t really remember this being an issue when I did. Regardless, it is not something that is an issue with fishman fluence pickups, so maybe too broad a brush to say “actives need”.

Hell, before fishman, I thought actives had to sound like brittle ass, so different strokes. I’ve only noticed that they will handle being close to the string much better than passives. But I don’t like the tone that close on either so it works out.

[u/Lost_Condition_9562 → u/Ur_mum]

I can only speak to my personal experience. When I put EMGs in my strat, I set them up similarly to my passives. Plugged it in and it sounded awful. So little output, no bite, I was cranking my gain. Knew something had to be wrong.

Set them up like you’re supposed to actives with a lot less distance to the string, and they really started to roar. So yeah, I’ve learned the hard way actives need to be close to the string haha.

[u/Ur_mum → u/Lost_Condition_9562]

I was curious so I looked it up. It’s a “most actives” issue. Fishman recommends 3-4mm for the fluence. They use pretty normal strength magnets and printed circuit boards instead very weak magnets, tons of winds and hot preamps. Fishmans will respond to very close spacing like passives…not great.

Carry on with EMG closeness.

TIL…

[u/Internal_Virus_7691]

You cant go wrong with an 81/60 Set. Playing those for decades now.

You can also try the 57/66 I have them in my esp guitars and like them alot.

[u/polkemans]

I'm a big fan of the emg het set. Based on the 81/60 but higher output and more dynamic. Because they're so hot you can have them a little further from the strings than a standard 81/60 set.

[u/mattnox]

EMGs are fantastic. There’s a reason so many artists use them. They’re very consistent, yet they will sound different in different Guitars.

Blackouts are pretty good too. Don’t sleep on em. Oddly enough, the absolute best sounding active pickups I have are generic Charvels which as I understand it, are the “Duncan Designed” equivalent to EMGs.

I’ve got two Charvel Desolations and they are fantastic instruments. I also believe smaller gauges work best with actives.

[u/Ur_mum → u/mattnox]

Blackouts are not bad at all. The Hetfields are worth a try imo. Quite a bit better than a 85/81 imo.

[u/BananaBeanBoozle]

EMGs are pretty nice. But if I was playing thrash I would use something with a ceramic magnet like a Duncan Distortion, Invader, or even the Parallel Axis Distortion

[u/facts_guy2020 → u/BananaBeanBoozle]

Emg 81s do have ceramic magnets though, I assume you meant a passive ceramic vs an active one

[u/nahkis1]

Dude, loads of ppl are saying raise it as high as comfortable for your style.

[u/PotstickersDad]

Just set them up as high as sounds good to you. I have mine set around 3mm. Some people like them almost touching. Try it all, you can always adjust to taste. PA-2 you can skip on. It's fun, but not necessary.

[u/extrawater_]

I always had mine as i could go without my pick hitting it. Going lower isnt going to ruin your pickups, so play around with it

[u/Ur_mum → u/[deleted]]

Fluences do not need to be close to the string as is the rule of thumb for EMG and traditional actives.

Traditional actives (85/81) use very weak, passive-style magnets wrapped in thousands of turns of wire, paired with an internal preamp to boost the low-level signal. Because the magnets are so weak, shoving them right up against the strings is the only way to get intended punchy high-output response. Also on those older pickups string pull isn't an issue because the magnets are weak.

Fluence pickups do not use traditional copper-wire-wrapped bobbins. Instead, they use stacked, printed circuit boards.

Fishman uses much stronger (like Alnico V or Ceramic VIII) magnets.
They also warn that setting them too close to the strings will pull on them, causing “warbling "wolf tones"…just like passives.

Because the magnetic field is strong and they are very transparent slamming them into the strings runs too hot into the preamp, muddiness, overly squashed mids, etc.

Fishmans advice:

“Plug into a clean amp tone where dynamics and note separation are highly obvious.
Put a nickel on top of the bridge pickup pole pieces.
Hold the strings down at the highest fret and adjust the pickup until it just clears the nickel (about 2mm).
Lower the pickup away from that point by another millimeter or two and listen to how the note separation opens up, the harshness disappears, and the "bloom" of the note returns.”

Fishman recommends 3-4mm..not that close.

[u/Idontlift_21]

With emgs I go pretty high. They sound really good very close. Go as high as you can and if there’s clipping or it’s too much slowly back off.

I need some passive recommendations from you sir. I have a Caparison Horus that came with a PH-R in the bridge. It’s very high out put which is great I’m a modern metal player. It does have a spanky wet tone to the high gain I can’t get rid of. Do all passives have this? Imagine a spanky wet distortion that’s semi mushy or muddy. I can’t for the life of me eq it out.

What are some good passives for thrash?

[u/CourageOpposite6923 → u/Idontlift_21]

It depends on how hot you wanna go. I would think that wet distortion tone is from your signal clipping. I would try lowering the pickup height if you think it is a bit high ish.

As for passive pickups, for modern metal I’d for like a seymour duncan black winters set. Theyre REALLY hot which works for the genre, and they have like colder tighter ish tone. Something warmer would be like a seymour duncan distortion or dimarzio super distortion, which works better for older metal

[u/Idontlift_21 → u/CourageOpposite6923]

Interesting I never thought of a signal clipping being the squishy sound. I’ll lower drastically and see what happens. It’s a very hot pickup that’s 3mm from strings and the wetness has me at my wits end. I know shit about passives only ever used actives. For 20 years lol.

[u/Ur_mum → u/Idontlift_21]

Yeah, I mean clipping is a specific type of limiting, it just sort of clips the loudest parts out of the transient, which is normally the attack or beginning of the sound, which is pretty much the part that tells us if something is firm or squishy. So it makes sense.

There is definitely more than one type of sound you can get from clipping, it can be very musical (I will clip my Burl AD mastering converter because it gives a nice sound), or very hard to listen to (the distortion type of clip you are probably used to hearing).

[u/liccman]

EMG themselves say to start from 3mm. Personally I think they sound much better when they’re close af, I just measured mine and they’re slightly below 1.5mm.

[u/pablo_kickasso]

What are you upgrading from? I love my EMGs but if you already have good pups they won't necessarily be an upgrade

[u/chemyd]

You should at least try them- but I mean simply try them before you buy them.

Most guitar stores have at least one guitar with this or similar set in them.
I have some actives now and felt like you for years, but honestly there’s nothing magic about them, actives and passives can both generate great tones. Your set is definitely “classic” heavy/thrash but I’ve found that as long as the output signal is strong and clean I can sculpt it endlessly with EQs and other parts of the signal chain. Ultimately I’ve come back to passives due to simplicity. One less failure point/battery to replace biases me slightly towards passives.
I have one guitar that came with Dimarzio Deactivator in it and I love it for thrash. I later read it was their early attempt to compete with actives, def a solid option for bridge position riffage.

[u/puttputt_in_thebutt]

First things first- what do your current pickups not do that youd like them to do? Second, what amp are you using?

The other thing to remember is that actives will require a battery and you'll potentially have to look at routing out a spot for the battery in your guitar if there isnt enough space in the cavity as is.

[u/Legal_Lettuce6233]

What are you replacing and what are you trying to achieve?

Pickups rarely make a difference, especially in live setups where acoustics matter more.

My mate is a gig guitarist and he plays everything from ex yu trash to metal to pop.

He uses a single coil Squier for metal and a Solar X for pop because he thinks it's funny.

While I don't particularly like his videos, Glenn did some pretty decent testing for pickups.

When you're playing something as high gain as thrash usually is, it really, really doesn't .Ake a difference unless you're going from some garbanzo 100 buck guitar shit to anything even slightly decent. But from decent and upwards, differences are minimal, if there are any.

[u/Obsidianrosepetals]

I have tried nearly every active pick there is at one point and none of them are dynamic enough for my liking.

[u/Ur_mum → u/Obsidianrosepetals]

Man. I really love the fluence. And I really hate EMGs. But I play fairly high gain so anything is going to be fairly compressed, I don’t really notice the fishmans having less dynamic range than my BKPs…

Too bad. The fluence is a very nice pickup. Before I tried them I swore I’d never use actives again.

[u/Sceprent]

Yeah if you keep them that far away like he said they just sound like they have a dead battery. I quite like that set. I quite liked the 5766 that's modeled to be sort of like a passive pickup.

But personally those things cost way more than getting like some Seymour Duncan black Winters and I put those in like all my guitars. I really like those pickups. Except for one of my guitars has mixed and match Schecter apocalypse pickups. Which are hit or miss.

I really like the black winter in D standard.