Active vs passive pickups - can you tell the difference? (Soundfile)

BMU

I often read in-depth forum debates about which pickups sound better, or comments about people not liking actives, not liking passives etc.

Below are two soundfiles I just recorded to directly compare two pickups that are supposedly worlds apart, and to be honest I really can't hear much difference.

The contenders are
1. Ibanez UV with passive Dimarzio Blaze II's. Basswood guitar, bridge pickup.
2. Shecter Loomis with active EMG-707s. (The 7-string version of EMG-85's.) Alder body, also the bridge pickup.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think:

Riffage. The same piece played on each guitar.
http://www.box.net/embed/od1preje50s9bvi.swf
(Extra bonus street cred for the 1st person to identify the band and album ? )

Gratuitous, sloppy shredding, again the the same piece on each guitar. Well more or less the same. (WARNING: no tasteful restraint here, listeners with any semblance of good taste may be offended LOL)
http://www.box.net/embed/qr242khrr9buz26.swf

Now I'm not saying they sound exactly identical, especially on the riffing. What I'm saying is there's no really big QUALITATIVE difference. You could do metal with either choice equally well.

This means either
1. I'm tone deaf
2. People spend far too much time talking about inconsequential details. All you really need to do is shut up and play yer guitar
3. The huge distortion I'm fond of homogenizes the differences and makes them minor.
4. The POD XT I'm using is incapable of capturing the differences, and that's the source of the homogenization.

I'm guessing probably a little bit of each... let's hear what you all think.

AlanRatcliffe

At that degree of gain, I doubt if many could tell the difference between an electric guitar and an piezo'd nylon string. ?

inflames

At that degree of gain, I doubt if many could tell the difference between an electric guitar and an piezo'd nylon string.

Ha HA @ Alan!

I think you should compare EMG with EMG.
I could hear a slight difference between the active and passive EMG's

BMU

Yeah the gain equalizes things a lot I guess. People always complain EMGs sound compressed, I don't get that. Wonder why LOL.

BUT most people who are interested in EMGs in the first place, DO play with massive gain...that's what EMGs are for right?

Anyway this revelation makes me think it's pointless switching the DiMarzio's in the UV for a different set of DiMarzio's (I wanted to put in an Evo instead of the stock Blaze). If the difference between passive vs active is so small, it must be negligible between similar high-output pickups from the same manufacturer. I'm still curious though, maybe I'll do it anyway.

@Inflames - bit off topic but I played a Cort 7-string with EMG HZ (passives) the other day, man it sounded good and played good. (One of those silly EVL things with pentagram inlays.) Amazing for the price.

inflames

@Inflames - bit off topic but I played a Cort 7-string with EMG HZ (passives) the other day, man it sounded good and played good. (One of those silly EVL things with pentagram inlays.) Amazing for the price.

Nothing wrong with the EMG HZ pups at all!!! Switch them out with a pair of Kerry King Active EMG's and you will know what I'm talking about ?

EMG's to me = Metal

arjunmenon

Nice topic BMU. I was just reading Alan's Elelctric Guitar Handbook yesterday and he explains that active p/ups use less windings (i'm guessing this translates to low output and less string pull) yet have hum cancelling qualities and use a built-in system to boost the output.
In my mind, this means that the EMGs should have an almost hi-fi like quality.
I guess you'd have to play clean (chordal & single note stuff) and then see things like, how long the note(s) sustain for, how even sounding it is and where the volume/sustain drops.
Then again, its probably the pre-amp/boost system that compresses the sound.

AlanRatcliffe

BMU wrote: People always complain EMGs sound compressed, I don't get that. Wonder why LOL.

They are compressed (and yes, it's the preamp Arjun). But so is any high output humbucker. Most obvious with dynamic clean/edge of drive playing. I think they lasted two days in my guitar for exactly that reason (I stayed with actives for a while, just moving from EMGs).

BUT most people who are interested in EMGs in the first place, DO play with massive gain...that's what EMGs are for right?

Not originally, no. ? They first appeared in the Steinbergers and then started cropping up everywhere else (Pensa-Suhr for one and eventually even in relatively budget guitars). Only after their popularity waned with the mass market did they really take off with the metal players, I think the other advantages over passive pickups had more to do with their success in metal circles than tone - low noise, making cable quality irrelevant, etc. The compression is also less of an issue (actually a bonus) with the legato and tapping styles used by heavy players.

If the difference between passive vs active is so small, it must be negligible between similar high-output pickups from the same manufacturer.

I think it's down to the player - who often gets small changes in tone or feel that the listener doesn't get. They are the ones who have to be happy, IMO.

BMU

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: They are compressed (and yes, it's the preamp Arjun). But so is any high output humbucker.

Cool, see that makes sense to me.

Most obvious with dynamic clean/edge of drive playing. I think they lasted two days in my guitar for exactly that reason (I stayed with actives for a while, just moving from EMGs).

Perfect sense too. That's the place in the sonic spectrum I never venture. Either clean or balls to the wall, nothing inbetween. So when METAL players complain about EMGs sounding too compressed compared to high output passives... well it's down to individual taste but I'm going to start taking that with a pinch of salt.

Thanks for the history lesson, interesting! EMGs are a bit more quiet indeed. Hence I find them a bit more forgiving of sloppiness, I think my shred comparison recording shows that to an extent. A bit less unwanted noise from the 2nd take with the EMGs haha. (But ok by then I also had the piece down a little bit more...)

It's down to the player, very true. Small perceptions etc. And those perceptions change in weird ways too... after I played the EMG guitar exclusively for a month and picked up the Dimarzio, I thought it sounded sloppy and uncontrolled. That was 3 months ago, that's what made me decide to swop the pickups. Now I can't reproduce what I think I heard then.... they both sound great. Really strange.

tonerider

EMG's are just fantastic for players who use lots of gain, either through the use of floor pedals and processors or high gain stages of amps. Since we are all aware of the huge amounts of extra hum and hiss that is so endemic to high gain it is probably the single most important reason why metal and heavy rock players have been using EMG's so religiously for years. It's because their so quiet!

One could even argue that EMG's have a "better" tone than most pickups since they produce some of the widest frequency responses on the market today. Then again, this could be the very reason why people have been calling them sterile and cold for years.

I can honestly say, from personal experience, that I've used EMG's very successfully in the studio. They're just sooo quiet and engineers have seldom have had to wait for me while I frantically search for an ideal spot to stand on the floor (normally far from the amp in a corner) or have had to turn all the dimmer switches down (and practically stand in the dark) just to get a fairly decent quiet clean guitar track. I've sweated blood in my time during sessions where the tiniest bit of guitar noise was frowned upon. With EMG's - No Problemo!

So, although I'm selling "classic" designed passive Toneriders, I have to admit that I love EMG's too. ?

6x9base13

BMU wrote:
(Extra bonus street cred for the 1st person to identify the band and album ? )

Interesting thing happened here, I opened both clips in tabs and unusually, the download was slowish. Thinking they would be finished, I unmuted the laptop sound and got the shredding playing over the tail end of the first clip - the combo actually worked very well for a few seconds ?

Please let us know who that was before forgetting about the thread.

BMU

AndreM - good comments thanks. Needless to say at those crazy gain levels I never go without a noise gate!

6x9base13 wrote:
BMU wrote:
(Extra bonus street cred for the 1st person to identify the band and album ? )

Interesting thing happened here, I opened both clips in tabs and unusually, the download was slowish. Thinking they would be finished, I unmuted the laptop sound and got the shredding playing over the tail end of the first clip - the combo actually worked very well for a few seconds ?

BWAAHAAHAAA that's great story, thanks for sharing.

Re. the band: I'm surprised none of the metalheads have named it. C'mon guys! It's from THE classic album by one of the original founding bands of the Gothenburg melodic death metal sound..nudge nudge, wink wink.

MikeM

In Flames? ?

inflames

In Flames? Tongue

Whats up Mike?

BMU

Nope, not In Flames. And I need the album title too, before the assigning of street cred can be affected. ?

(I'm starting to wonder if I played the thing so badly no-one can recognize it. Wouldn't that be embarrassing HAHAHA)

BMU

Ok before I really do forget about this thread: the riff is from the Slaughter of the Soul album by At The Gates. Opening riff, track 2, the title track. I reinterpreted a tiny bit but it should be recognizable.

If you're a metalhead, especially a guitar playing metalhead, you need that album for the outstanding riffing.

raithza

dammit! I recognised the riff but you spoiled ☹

BMU

raithza wrote: dammit! I recognised the riff but you spoiled ☹

Sorry dude!! I thought all takers had given up. Anyway we're all friends here, the honour system applies, so you get +400 Streed Cred. Congratulations. HAHA.