The Emg 18 Volt Mod Options

[Marcus Siepen]

Since I read about this mod for EMG pickups here in the forum I have been very curious, after all I have been using EMG pickups since almost 20 years now, and today I finally had the chance to test this mod with my main guitar, a Gibson Les Paul Custom, equiped with two EMG 81 pickups. If you have never heard about this mod, here is the story: EMG pickups are active pickups, normally they are powered with a 9 volt battery, this is how I used my pickups ever since I installed the first one. Those pickups are sold with one battery clip, and the manual also only talks about this one battery, but the specifications say that the pickups can be used with 9-27 volts. So obviously one fine day somebody had the idea to run his EMG's with 18 volts and he was blown away by the result, the net is full of reviews that say the sound opens up, is not as compressed anymore, you get more high end, more low end, more overall sound... So much for the theory.
Today I put together a little adapter that can connect two 9 volt batteries to my guitar and like this I ran the EMG's with 18 volts (all reviews say that adding a third battery, blowing the voltage up to 27 volt, doesn't really do much to the sound anymore, so I only focused on the 18 volt version). I recorded two little takes with the normal 9 volt setting, and then recorded the same stuff again with 18 volts, so you can see (or hear) about the difference yourself. About my impression... well, it changes the sound, yes. The clean sound really opens up a bit and is not as compressed, for the heavy sound I can't really see this effect happening. It also adds more high end, I didn't really hear more low end though, the overall volume doesn't really change either. I have to say that I didn't really like the 18 volt version, I definitely prefer the "original" with 9 volt, in my opinion it sounds warmer, the 18 volt make the sound more sterile for my taste. But as I said, there are the 4 recorded files so you can get an idea yourself, of course the only thing that changed for the recordings is the voltage, the sound settings in my guitar rig were the same. Let me know what you think about the 18 volt version, I will go back to 9 volt now

You are at GuitarMasterClass.net

Don't miss today's free lick. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!

Don't miss today's free blues, jazz & country licks. Plus all our lessons are packed with free content!