DonovanB
What are basses like with EMG pups?
I'm after a bass with a smooth jazz vibe and I've come across a cheapy with EMG's that look like soap bars.
MikeM
Very off topic, BUT
Congrats on your 738 days and 2500 posts here ? That's a rate of one post every 7 hours over 2 years, one week, and a day and a half.
I should be studying.
AlanRatcliffe
Smooth and balanced kinda sums them up - great for jazz. Make sure they are the actives though - the passive "Select" models are pretty cheap and nasty.
Vintage-Vibe
Not a fan of them in general for guitar, but they do seem to work well on bass - generally prefer them to Bartolini's ... had a Jazz set on a bass that were great - check out John Paul Jones (ex Zeppelin, Them Crooked Vultures) using them in quite a few of his cutom designed Mason basses & instruments ...
Midinut
I have used active EMGs on Precisions with a Jazz Bass pickup mod in the bridge position (so it's both P and J pickups) as well as EMG soapbars on my early Ibanez 6-string basses. I love them as they have some edge with some very low bass end...so the freq range is pretty wide. If you are after a clean sound, then EMGs are the ones. My number one choice!
On the other hand I have since been using Bartolinis and they seem to have a little more low mid bump as well as Basslines on my Warwick which seems to have a bit of both! Bartolinis are obviously a bit harder to get hold of but seem to be used on just about every custom or boutique bass out there.
Keira-WitherKay
back in the 80's and 90's when i was a pro bassist the rage was to replace P bass and jazz bass fenders with EMG actives....... and they sounded great and totally noiseless.......which is what we needed for studio work........ so just a bass with EMG's and a DI box in the studio ....... so yes they were used by pro's as pickup of choice back then , ....... i also owned a graphite steinberger bass which came standard with active EMG's but the humbucker type
and as alan mentioned there are the cheaper EMG select which came out on a lot of hohner guitars and a few others which were cheap sounding and not recommended.......
however i loved the actives back in 80's /90's and stick to the point i made that EMG active pups are quite top end , but if i had the choice today i would have rather left the passive pup in the bass for a more vintage sound.......... but it all depends on what you want ......
