Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

Are active pickup worth having? I absolutely hate the god awful Jackson pickups in my Jackson and I want to put new ones in it and I am pretty handy so putting active pickups in it is interesting me. BUT I really don't know what they even sound like could somebody give me an example or maybe recommend some good passive pickups to put in it? It's my "Metal" guitar so I am looking for something that will carry heavy distortion very well.

I have active EMGs in one of my Strats and one of my Les Pauls. They sound great but changing the battery is a pain in the Strat; it's located underneath the pickguard. You can hear my Les Paul on the tunes on my profile.

Best I can tell you is to go browse a few music stores and try them out.

I don't really care for them much, although the ones I've played, mostly strat single coils, did sound good. David Gilmour played a red Strat with active Lace Sensors in a video I have (Delicate Sound of Thunder) and the guitar sounds great. I think Clapton used them in strats when they were first produced, several other mainstream guitarists use them at least part of the time. If I remember correctly, the first Clapton Signature Strat had Lace pickups back in the 80's.

I've played a few guitars with EMG actives in music stores, good sound but nothing that stands out to really make me want to switch. Just remember you have to keep good batteries in the thing or halfway through a gig your guitar suddenly goes belly up.

All I can tell you is this (because I've used both actives and passives over the years). Actives like the EMG's give a very compressed, sharp, and edgy sound. They are great for heavier rhythms and things like that, but they don't clean up well at all. They also are pretty terrible for super fast leads as they don't seem to respond as well as a passive Duncan or Dimarzio.

That being said...I prefer passives being a faster type of player. The old songs from my old band really didn't require passives, but all of my new material does. More speed through the rhythms with a lot of melodies and such going from clean to distortion (but still really heavy...that goes without saying ).

Even the Duncan Blackouts (which are active) respond much the same as the EMGs. It's all in your tonal preference and what type of playing that you do. Hope that some of this helps you out.

Oh yeah...Duncan passives give more of a vintage type of tone while the Dimarzio passives give more of a modern tone (especially when using distortion). OK...I'll stop rambling now.

I have worked on them through the years. All they are is another pre amp with tone control in series with the pickups. to me, that doesn't seem to make it worth the extra problems people can have with them. If you are using a modeler for a pre amp you have basically the same thing outside of the guitar.

When Kalamazoo guitars came out in the 60's, I put a active tone controls in them for some guys. But I never used them myself. It is just more to go wrong. And with my luck, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. When you can bypass them with a switch it's OK, but if you have a system that is hardwired to the tone control / preamp inside you can get shut down during a gig.

I had a bass player who constantly seemed to have problems with them. Not only that but the switches and the controls used are quite often "not off the shelf" components and you have to pull the unit and send it in for $$$ repair. For the extra amount of control it just isn't worth it for me. He finally opted for pickups that gave him the sound he wanted without any active electronics.

The battery under the pick guard seems like a big pain in the ass. They should sell a pick guard with a built in battery box. Actually, I think you can buy a box that fits into the back of a solid body that just needs a wee bit of routing. That isn't worth it either for me. Warmoth uses a rear control cover for their rear routed axes. One of those looks good and would give easy access to the electronics and battery. All the Ibanez SA series use a rear access cover that would eliminate the under the pick guard battery replacement problem. That must be a real PIA to change on a Strat.

A modeling preamp gives you far more choices, and you can use it with any instrument you own. And they are cheaper so you get far more bang for the buck. Some of them, like the Zoom that I use have noise levels 100db down. You can't even hear them in the signal chain. Just some considerations.

I'll be buried in the cold ground long before I put an active pickup on a guitar.
If you want to sound like every new metal song that comes on you clear channel radio station, go for it.
They rob a guitar of it's unique traits. For the most part, one guitar with active humbuckers sounds like any other guitar with actives.

Bah humbug...

I will respectfully disagree in terms of bass guitar anyway, Two different animals, and I've never owned a guitar with active pick ups, nor felt the need to. But I've never thought passive bass pick ups had enough output or tonal range to suit me. I've owned P-basses, both authentic, and generic, and my current bass, with active EMG's has much better tone, sustain, and if I adjust the balance to the neck pick up, it has a nice warm tone..

but as I said before, totally different animal with guitar vs. bass

2nd'd..

You'll NEVER catch me using an active pickup.

I absolutely hate them.

I had a strat with an emg of some kind and the bitch was fine during the check, later went completely out of power not 25 minutes later.

If the battery is going to take a sh*t, let it be a big stinky turd that's easy to smell. If I didn't strum my guitar a little in the beginning, I wouldn't have known I had an issue until it was time to do what you do.

I'll keep my passive pickups with the excess noise, thank you very much.

Damonfonner wrote:Are active pickup worth having? I absolutely hate the god awful Jackson pickups in my Jackson and I want to put new ones in it and I am pretty handy so putting active pickups in it is interesting me. BUT I really don't know what they even sound like could somebody give me an example or maybe recommend some good passive pickups to put in it? It's my "Metal" guitar so I am looking for something that will carry heavy distortion very well.

This is my experience:

I love passives.


I hate active pickups. I hate them because of the lack of consistency. The basic problem is that once the battery starts to go, you lose the tone. So you either have to replace the batteries often, or deal with inconsistent tone. I hate inconsistent tone.


I buy all Ibanez guitars, and the first thing I always have my tech do is replace the stock pickups with top quality passives. My favorites as of late have been a Duncan Distortion in the bridge and a Duncan Jazz in the neck.

As for "carrying distortion" - I find that, while the pickups do factor in a bunch, a larger part of that is the amp. I get exactly the tone I want because I built my rig for the tone I wanted. I identified the tone I was after and bought the gear to get it. And the amp and power amp are giant parts of my tone. Mesa Boogie = big distortion.

Someday I'll get around to putting up a YouTube video of my rig, because everyone asks me about it at shows and it is a pretty damn cool setup...

So, my advice would be: get passives. They are easier to deal with and the tone you get will be great. And I highly recommend the Duncan Distortion for the bridge...

If I get some audio up in the next couple of days you'll be able to hear what I'm talking about.

I love the sound of my EMGs, although the ones in the Strat are very different from the ones in the Paul. The Paul pickups are heavier than the sun; the ones in the Strat are very low power and cleanup nice. Of course my other Strat and Paul are completely stock, they're worth too much to f with.

I like passives on guitar, I love actives on Bass.

jw123 wrote:I like passives on guitar, I love actives on Bass.

JW is right, active pickups on a bass do sound very good..

Hello, The active pups (EMG) is good for an overdriven and disrtoted amp setting. I have used it on a bridge configuration— sounds tight, clear and compressed. Almost like having a boost channel and the more gain, the smoother and saturated it becomes. It helps cut through the mix. At the same time, you loose all string dynamics and becomes almost sounding synthesized. These pickups are well known in the Metal community. Using the passives on a clean setting sounds brittle and wiry.

If you will be playing other genres, the active pups can limit your sound.

I prefer passives and currently use DiMarzio: ToneZones, PAF pro and Virtual Vintage singles.

Active batteries are good for "1200" or so hours - I've already researched this and had a few discussions on another forum.

They are good for rythem metal guitars - passives are better for lead guitars based on the feedback I've gotten on this subject. To each his own as goes the saying. You have to play with tone to get it right for you, and different tones come from different pickups, among other things.

Active pickups in a Strat? I can see them possibly in a Les Paul if your doing death metal, but strats don't strike me as a typical candidate for actives.

Just 3 cents I picked up in my own enquiries on this topic.

Christian A.

You're right Christian the battery life is quite long; I put a Duracell in once a year or so.

But there are lots of different active pickups, even from the same mfr. As I mentioned, the ones in my Strat are designed to replace the single coils that come standard on a Strat. The ones in my Paul are made by the devil himself.