« Split tones EMG style »

With the EMG 89 its like EMG put two pickups in one case and let you split between them. The 89 is like an EMG 85 and a SA put together in one case some how. With most active pickups because of their design you cant really get split single coil tones from them. This pickup changes that. The EMG active pickups use a pair of rail magnets with a built in preamp. As you probably know active pickups require a battery to power them. Rail magnets are better than the normal magnets used in pickups because there is no gap in the signal. When you bend a string with normal pickups the string moves slightly away from the magnet that string is associated with, and you get a slight decrease in signal. With rail magnets there is no gap in detection of the string vibration. With EMG's they can also use weaker magnets due to the fact that the signal will be boosted in the preamp. With the weaker magnets the magnets cause less interference with the strings. The strings are very sensitive to how powerful your magnets are. High output passive pickups can reduce the sustain of your guitar with all the magnetic drag These active pickups run on a battery to power the preamp. You will need a 9v battery in your guitar to make these pickups work. With these pickups you can get your single coil tones with your EMG's. Not everyone uses EMG pickups for metal. Dave Gilmour uses EMG. People who have very large signal path's find EMG pickups great because they do not pickup interference and and they have a strong signal that can make it through a line of hundreds of pedals. If you are just playing metal you might not really need a single coil sound so the 89 would be pretty useless for you but for people with more versatile tastes the 89 is a great pickup.