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Man I don’t know what to think without hearing it. What I do know is that I always heard, over and over again, how great EMG actives were for years. At the time, I was playing hard rock/metal on a 7 string (guitar not bass). I decided to get some and try them out.
I don’t remember the model number. But what I do remember is that where they were supposed to have more output and better tone, they did not. It was weird. They were quieter than the Seymour Duncan passives I had swapped them with. And it wasn’t some mistake I made in installing them because I had them professionally installed. Perhaps the tech fucked up? I don’t know. I tried raising them closer to the strings, too. It didn’t matter.
I went back to the Seymour passives and never looked back.
I've never had a bad set of soapbox pickups. Always have the tone I'm looking for
I threw a set of seymour duncan blackouts in a jackson js-22, best sounding metal/rock guitar ive ever heard. Seymour duncan makes great pickups.
yeah, i'm not well versed enough to know just yet. The bass behind is a fender with passives, and it rocks don't get me wrong but I love what I got now - so damned smooth; only issue with the actives is exactly that. I am not certain yet what I'm looking for in the next, leaning acoustic fretless (my goal is standup for psychobilly type jams).
so many possibilities and picking up bass has turned into quite the obsession (I started last August)
Oh so you’re a relative newbie. Welcome and have fun.
Just remember one thing when it comes to gear. Fuck reputation and what people say about gear. Listen to your ears.
Just because Joe Blow in band X uses Y doesn’t necessarily mean shit.
I worked in a recording studio many years ago. Went to school for audio and shit. Still dabble from time to time. Just because a microphone costs $8k doesn’t make it better than a $100 mic in all or necessarily even any particular set of circumstances. Same with all other gear. And combinations of gear matters. Those pickups might be great on a particular bass and then sound like dogshit on another. Same with combinations of mics with preamps, EQs, compressors. Same with guitar and bass amps, guitars and basses, pickups. Even the fucking pick that the guitar player is using matters to at least some extent.
Took me literal years to understand/accept that concept. I used to fight it, in fact. I’d be recording someone’s vocal using some top tier Neumann. And every once in a while, you swap it out with something “lower tier” just to see. And I’ll be damned, but sometimes the “lower tier” mic sounded better with that person’s particular voice. But see, the confirmation bias would kick in and I’d think “no, that can’t be”, even though “it be”, haha.
Same thing happened with my EMG’s. I thought “but Zakk Wylde uses them so no, it can’t be.” But on my guitar, for whatever reason, it be. The Seymour’s were just better on my setup. Like, it wasn’t even a contest. I had to get over the “high” of a much anticipated new purchase and listen to my ears.
Bottom line: use your ears and fuck literally everything else.
Great advice, thank you. One thing I learned quick was to not compare to the folks on jootube that have practices 8 hours a day for 10 years. Once I got passed that ego I was and still am having a blast jammin. I can't recall not playing now if that makes sense.
You have to change your approach to tone when using active pickups. I wasn't a fan when I tried them in my jackson and certainly didn't like how they sounded in a strat style guitar but I've heard other players use them with great results. You have to change your approach to tone when using them, I've found. I could see myself liking them on a bass, though, but that's not my main instrument nor is it a tone zone I've really explored.
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