just wondering....i currently have EMG-HZs in my guitar, and while they sound great, i've heard some people say they aren't for metal (is that right? they sound metal enough for me...) and that active pickups are better.......what do you people think?

also, if i bought EMG-81s, they'd cost me around £80 each i think, anyone know how much i could expect to get for my current ones if i sold them?

I honestly dont know, my emg 81s dont sound heavier... my friends in his explorer does... but for passives, listen to dave mustaine and for emgs metallica... but if I get an ibanez it will have passive pickups and ill compare my emgs to the dimarzios

Well active pick-ups are alot heavier.
The EMG 81s are designed for high gain, high volume and you will get no noise or unwanted feedback.
The passive EMGs are still good, give a nice thick sound but actives are obviously better for the no resonance noise etc.
As for EMG-HZs not "metal" its a load of shit! They are fitted standard in the KH-202 so u decide :P
Another thing 2 consider with active pick-ups is they run of 9V batteries!
Hope this helps
:bang:

oh my friend and I were actually discusing price... he told me if I get a guitar with hzs and immediatly sell them new I can get 50 us for both... but their worth around 75 us for 1... sp you might get them for 50 us since yours are prolly used... but yea 81s are great man... but the bitch is the labor of getting em installed.. thats why I wanna find a guitar with emg 81 and 60s so I dont have to pay 200 for them to get installed but Ill see if my friend can do it for me...
Ummm I never paid attention to hzs but I know for a fact now my emg 81s are heavy fuckers... so id reccommend them plus if you have passive pickups you get dust and pick dust in the space around the pickup... also id reccommend getting emg 60s in the neck... metallicas setup or atleast james' is emg 81 in bridge and 60 in the neck.... the 60 gives you a beautiful clean...

sgs are too thin for active ones

nope cause theres emgs like this
heres the site
http://guitarpartsdepot.com/Merchant2/merc...ory_Code=EMGGTR

wait his guitar has emg hzs already in them... that means he can get emg 81s

Very true. Sg's have the same size as most humbuckers so he should be fine.
If not EMGs come in all shapes and sizes so it shouldn't be a problem!

my guitar?! i dont have EMGs in my SG, the EMGs are in the DV-8, but when i went to the guitar store he said that EMGs wouldnt work for my SG

were not talking about your guitar... jimmeh was asking he said his came with emg hzs in it... so he can get 81s
and whos sg are you talking about... and if its a gibson it should fit... kirk has emgs in his gibson les paul arent they the same only different shapes....

Been looking into this on the web today. By the sounds of it the active ones will provide a kick ass sound. However there are passive EMGs that get you a similar sound to the active ones. EMG 81 are the actives and EMG H4 are the passive. But what the difference is between them i have no idea.

actives are heavier... emg 81s offer the most gain and take away unwanted noise... 81s also require 9volt batteries...

oh ok, confused me when you quoted my post about SGs being too thin for active pickups, and said that it had HZ's already in it, anyway, LP's are a lot thicker than SG's, and i dont have a Gibson, ive got an Epiphone, but its still a great guitar, anyway, my SG can get EMGs, im actually getting some next week, but its too thin for active ones, cause the guitars with active pickups have battery cases on the back of them

no alot of guitars have them in the back... its just that alot of the shitty ones dont... not calling your guitar shitty.. i have a yamaha rgs 121 basically bootleg ibznez rg series... its got a battery compartment in the back... on the other hand my othe shitty guitar ibanez gax 30 has no battery compartment and obviously my ltd ec 1000 has one!!!!

mine doesnt even have active pickups, but im gettin some EMG ZWs this weekend, those dont need a battery pack do they?

If you mean the Zakk Wylde set, then yeah they do need a battery pack.

they do? damn it! what about an 81 and a 60 those wouldnt need a battery pack, would they?

an 81 does, not sure about a 60.

cheers for the help guys, i've been thinking about it and i don't have the money yet but i might change them when i can.

The thing is, all active pickups need batteries in order to drive the built in pre-amp. The only passive EMG pickup I can think of is the HZ model. A set of those get you in the same ballpark as the EMG-81 bit it's obviously not exact.

Alternatively, check out Bare Knuckle pickups. They're passive but some of them are designed to sound similar to EMG's active models. I've heard nothing but good things about them and they're apparently a great alternative if you're unable to install active pickups in your guitar. Check out the Players section of their forum if you want some soundclips. They're handmade here in England, which may be a problem if you live overseas but they're from what I've heard they're well worth looking into.

is it possible to fit a battery pack in an Epiphone SG?

get it fitted in a store... prolly cost more than 200 ill tel you that much...

wait, 200 just for the battery pack, or 200 with the pickups and battery pack?

in america the average shop prolly charges 100 to install any pickup so its 200 for pickup and labor... now if your guitar doesnt fit emgs thats more work for them to do so they either send it to the company or they do it themselves... that will cost you...

but if you already have passive EMGs in then could you install the 81s yourself?

you could do it yourself with a soldering kit, thats just installing them... I dont know how you take the pickups out though... look it up online...

damn if its soldering i'm taking it to a shop, last time i soldered was at school and i ended up with a huge blob of solder on a circuit over several copper strips :lol:

yea either that or look for someone that can do em for free>friend family

its not too difficult to take the pickups out, but i dont have a sodder kit. i went to Guitar center today and the ZW set costs $199 plus tax so $212... damn pickups costing big money

yep!