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ibanez4life SZ! « Great for both bridge and neck depending on your needs! »
Published on 04/09/11 at 12:21For years, EMG has been an instantly recognized name in heavier genres of music for their high output active pickups. And who doesn’t recognize the ‘blacked out’ look of their matte black covered pickups? Used by top acts such as Metallica, Slayer, Zakk Wylde, and MANY more modern bands, EMG has defined a sound of its own that some love, and others don’t.
The 85 an alnico magnet humbucker usually found as the neck pickup in EMG’s recommended sets. As with all EMG pickups, it features a quick connect interfacing of circuitry and pickup, so that pickups can be swapped easily. In an active design, pickups usually have weak magnets, and couple with a preamp (the ‘active’ part of the circuit) to boost and mold the signal. This is why EMG pickups are usually found set very close to the strings. The preamp is also why EMG’s tend to sound a bit more similar in different guitars than your average pickup.
The 85 is a very hot pickup, even more so, in my opinion, than the 81. In the neck, used under high gain application, it offers a very warm and almost ‘slurred’ sound, lending itself to more fluid legato when used in a shredding application. Cleans, if not EQed specifically for this pickup, can come off overly bass heavy and undefined. The hot response does pair well with finger picking though.
Though not the ‘conventional’ EMG setup, the 85 works great in the bridge position aswell. This is my personal preference, unless I am downtuning WAY low and need to keep an obscene amount of clarity. It offers a little more warmth, and a generally more organic response than the typical 81. Chords and single note runs sound bigger, though they do lose some of the very tight initial attack of the 81. Killswitch Engage is one band well known to use EMG 85’s in the bridge positions of their guitars. Again, the quick connect cable makes trying all these EMG combinations a breeze, so break out a screwdriver, and see what works best for you.
The 85 an alnico magnet humbucker usually found as the neck pickup in EMG’s recommended sets. As with all EMG pickups, it features a quick connect interfacing of circuitry and pickup, so that pickups can be swapped easily. In an active design, pickups usually have weak magnets, and couple with a preamp (the ‘active’ part of the circuit) to boost and mold the signal. This is why EMG pickups are usually found set very close to the strings. The preamp is also why EMG’s tend to sound a bit more similar in different guitars than your average pickup.
The 85 is a very hot pickup, even more so, in my opinion, than the 81. In the neck, used under high gain application, it offers a very warm and almost ‘slurred’ sound, lending itself to more fluid legato when used in a shredding application. Cleans, if not EQed specifically for this pickup, can come off overly bass heavy and undefined. The hot response does pair well with finger picking though.
Though not the ‘conventional’ EMG setup, the 85 works great in the bridge position aswell. This is my personal preference, unless I am downtuning WAY low and need to keep an obscene amount of clarity. It offers a little more warmth, and a generally more organic response than the typical 81. Chords and single note runs sound bigger, though they do lose some of the very tight initial attack of the 81. Killswitch Engage is one band well known to use EMG 85’s in the bridge positions of their guitars. Again, the quick connect cable makes trying all these EMG combinations a breeze, so break out a screwdriver, and see what works best for you.