DUDE, am surprised that you still havent googled about active pickups. Suppose a normal packup produces max emf of 0.2 V, the active ones may produce 0.5 or even 1 V. Now such a strong signal when goes into a tube amp, the amp overdrives very easily. Almost exactly like when you put a CLEAN BOOST in the signal chain. NOW Suppose, you do the same thing in a digital setup, putting a clean boost in the signal chain, prior to the processor, you will hardly get any added drive. You will, very little, and that too if you keep the gain on your processor around 1 or 2. One more thing you need to take care of is that what is the voiving of the pickups you are gonna choose. EM81/85 are supposed to be quite flat. Usual pickups have mid hump. And some pickups like the ones Ronnieanand uses (forgot its name) has huge mid hump. To some ppl the mid hump prior to distortion doesnt sound good. To some ppl (including me) - thats the real distortion. Meaty and thick with mids. When you play cleans, the EMs may sound brash and loud, but definitly not overdriven! I am 100% certain you aint using a tube amp. Its the t00b amp players who have to worry. The solid state stuff, that we use, will distort, only when designed to do so. However, keep in mind, the voicing aspect wil play an important role in the clean tone also.
one simple thing, dont try and play clean with them....they arent meant for it......its like forcing Sachin to dunk in bball......
i would rather opt for the SD Blackouts(active) or the Dimebucker SH-13(passive)........if you want to play on clean, for an active the blackouts area a really good option and in passives the Dimbucker is like one of the best for metal.
Hmmm, Kirk Hammet uses EMs? So he doesnt play clean ever? Huh? Or is it like he changes his guitar midway in the gig, just to doodle some clean stuff?
^^^^agreed....owned ......... but i played the KH-2, Kirks guitar, my friend has it, and i didnt sound clear to me when i played it........it was at a considerably high volume and a Marshall MG100.......so something sounded WRONG !!! the sound wasnt the airy kind of clean but a rather metallic clean, unnatural sounding. I personally dont like it, everyone has different tastes !!!
Varus, thats what I said about EM's voicing. In cleans it will sound brash and loud, with high treble. To some ppl it sound good, to me it wont sound natural. And may be in your case, same happened. Or there is one more possibility - in Marshall MG clean channel, they have designed it to overdrive a tiny bit, when the master volume is real high (to emulate the clean channels of antique t00b amps). On top of that if you feed very high input, the amp is bound to overdrive, and in solid state equipment, if you are overdriving it beyond what it has been designed for, it WILL not sound good.
aaaaaah that might be the reason...........bcause the sound while strummin in clean used to go like "buzzzz" an i was like, WTF overdrive is off isnt it...........so that maybe the case. @Alexi : My friend just recently bought it for 28k........
High output humbuckers can overdrive anything not just a tube amp. For any circuit, there is an optimum input voltage range, beyond which it will distort irrespective of whether is tube or not. The advantage of tube is they sound smooth when they distort and the other sound crap. Like even your music system at full volume will distort either from the amp or even at the speakers but they sound utter crap when they distort. That natural smoothness at saturation is what make tube amp the real deal. Active pickups sounds unclean, unholy ......:think: Active pickup is nothing but a passive pickup with a clean boost...period...
KH-202 has passives right.......but still ........ and no it aint BS.......he gives guitar tutions and made enough money to buy himself 1......
Now you say uou played the passives? And i play through a Hz in the bridge and even at HIGH volumes it doesnt break up and it's very clear through marshalls/laneys.
