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GMC Forum _ GEAR & PRODUCTION _ Putting Active Emgs In A Rg

Posted by: vampire18 Oct 6 2009, 03:42 PM

im considering new pickups for my RG2550(basswood) and im wondering is putting it in basswood such a crime does anyone have any experience with that? im just not sure i want evos

Posted by: ZakkWylde Oct 6 2009, 04:26 PM

You don't have to buy evos if you don't like them, DiMarzio D-Activators are great passive pickups that deliver a similar tone to an active pickup, great for Metal adn Shred (John 5 and Chris Broderick use them)

Ofcourse you can put active EMGs in a RG, not a problem but most Ibanez guitars with EMGs in it are made of mahagony; it COULD get a little bright if you put EMG 81s in your RG but you can put an 85 set in your RG!

The 85 sound a bit warmer and deeper compared to the 81s, which are edgier and tighter. The output is the same but the 85s should work well with basswood.

Posted by: Marc_Maiden Oct 6 2009, 06:04 PM

i used EMGs 85/81 on a basswood body before....it was WAAAYY too mid heavy...you gotta roll off the mids on your amp and you should get a good tone from them. that tends to happen with Basswood + EMGs but let me tell you can get a really nice tone with that combo.


however like zakk said, you could always go with passives (which are way easier to install) and you can still get metal tones out of them.

Posted by: vampire18 Oct 6 2009, 06:21 PM

dont know, felling like im not getting any chugga sound, could be just because i dont set up my pod well but my sound always sounds so thin and not as heavy as i want sometimes.
and what would you reccomend for the single for a cool clean fender like tone?

Posted by: ZakkWylde Oct 6 2009, 06:40 PM

Passive or active?

The EMG SA single coil does cleans very well for an active pickups...
For passive there are a lot of choices, do you want a real coil or a coilsized humbucker? I am guessing real coil as it should sound fender-ish^^
I can't really pick the coil without knowing what the other two pickups will be as the output needs to be matched (otherwise you will have a big volume diffrence between you pickups!).

A really tight ceramic pickups with a good portion of low end should help you with that br00tal chugga sound but a pickup is only a small part of the tone. Amp, amp setup, guitartype and last but not least your own playing style are 90% of the tone!

A basswood guitar with a tremolo does not have a lot of low end and the pickups aren't high output so you should get a chugging high gain pickup to make up for the lack of low end (ofcourse your playing needs to be heavy and tight to sound brutal^^)

DiMarzio D-Activator, X2N or a Seymour Duncan Sh-8 should get you chugging!

Posted by: Marcus Siepen Oct 8 2009, 05:07 PM

I have absolutely no exeprience with basswood guitars, but I like EMG's in general, the 81 is a monster. Of course there are options, the Dimarzio D-Activators are nice pickups too, but I have to disagree that they sound like EMG's. they are supposed to, but sorry, they don't, and I know that, I had them in one of my guitars... for 4 weeks wink.gif But thats all a matter of taste of course.

Posted by: Praetorian Oct 9 2009, 03:59 AM

QUOTE (vampire18 @ Oct 6 2009, 01:21 PM) *
dont know, felling like im not getting any chugga sound, could be just because i dont set up my pod well


This is quite possible. I could never get a satisfactory metal sound with my pod 2.0 either. The harshest metal settings it had, still didn't sound nasty enough for me. I now use the toneport GX with all the add on packs. It sounds MUCH better in my opinion.

On a side note, I have EMG 81/85 Kerry King pickups in my Ibanez and it sounds awesome! I left the center single coil hole empty...looks tricked out now!

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