« Tone close to an 81 »

EMG is a well known company when it comes to active pickups. With EMG pickups you get a truly modern pickup design that puts out modern tones. They use an active battery powered preamp to amplify the signal they get from smaller magnets to help give you quiet pickups that have big tones. The EMG S is one of their single coil sized pickups. To do this you will need to wire in a 9v battery to power the preamp otherwise the pickups wont work. With EMG pickups they use a rail magnet that is pretty weak. With this weak rail magnet you get two advantages. It does not produce must magnetic drag on the strings. This drag would lower your sustain and can even pull your notes out of tune if your magnet is too powerful. With the long rail magnet there is no dead zones in the magnetic field. On some pickups if you bend the string away from the pole piece you may get a slight loss in signal because the string is farther away from the magnet. The tone of this pickup is based on that of the classic EMG 81. It has the raw bright sound that you get from an 81 in the size of a single coil. The EMG S is a great pickup for most everything. It has a bright sound like a single coil yet has the power of a full sized humbucker. It has the high end searing grind that you get from an EMG 81 and because of the active preamp the pickup what lots of output so it can drive most any amp. Single coil sized EMG pickups arent the most popular pickups on the market but there is a market for the people who need them. If you are looking for a single coil sized EMG that has lots of high end tone and the power of a humbucker this pickup is for you.