Wow Kiwburger! You mean we don't have to live with all that crappy old Hendrix/Clapton/Page/Beck/Vaughn tone anymore if we just install a set EMG Clinically Perfect Sterile 2000's? Now if we could just get amp makers to abandon those nasty distorting 1940's tubes...Kiwburger wrote:Ooops - didn't realise that mentioning EMGs would cause so much pain. I agree that EMGs may not be always the ultimate for tone (although don't blame them for neck-through piano-like sustain ...). Pickups simply pickup whatever string sound is there in the first place, so wood quality and design/construction quality override most tone concerns. Level and eq curve can always be compensated for, to a certain extent, so EMGs can be made to work if you know what you're doing.
I mentioned them because of noise issues. Most guitars are noisy, because they are poorly made ripoffs of 1940's technology. The only reason so many noisy, passive guitars are sold is because guitar players buy the shit and don't mind eating it. Just like McDonalds hamburgers - they aren't good food, but we buy the shit anyway.
I would like to see somebody build a new technology guitar based on good EMI shielding. I think the whole pickup and electronics assembly should be in a shielded aluminium or steel 'box' unit, and then the problem would be solved.
SO - given that most guitars are poorly shielded (if at all), and given that most home studios are very hostile EMI environments, what can you do (apart from gates that don't work?).
There is a huge difference between EMG pups and Active circuits. An active circuit is simply a preamp in the guitar. It amplifies a passive pup, and therefore if your guitar is poorly shielded, it amplifies the noise. And usually the preamp is very cheap and noisy itself.
An EMG pup has the preamp built into the pickup - a very important difference. This means that the whole pickup and preamp are shielded. It no longer matters if the guitar isn't shielded - because by the time the wire leaves the pup, it's at a higher level and buffered lo-z and fairly immune from hum. There is still a little self noise from the preamp, but if you buy the top shelf ones they have extremely low noise. It's a shame they don't fit the good EMGs to stock guitars, so don't judge EMGs by the ones you see in shops. Read the spec sheets and look at noise specs to see what I mean.
I strongly believe that if guitar makers could forget the 1940's and make a good new design with a fully shielded unit, you could use the classic passive pups and achieve the same low noisefloor - it's not rocket science, but nobody is doing the obvious.
They've been making guitars with active pickups for years...nobody buys them. Except fusion guys.
