Seymour Duncans louder than EMG's???

[sworn_enemy]

My buddy just got EMG's(81/85) put in his Les Paul Studio and when I plugged his guitar into my amp immediately after putting down my soloist I noticed that his guitar wasn't nearly as loud. When I turned the amp up those things screamed like a raped ape but I figured they would be much louder with a higher output. Do you think it's just his guitar that's quiter or the EMG's?

[sully]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

nah, it's just that duncans are better. [img]graemlins/poke.gif[/img]

sully

[P I K A]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Check the height of the pickup to see how close they are to the strings and make sure you're volume pots are maxed out. Emg's rule.

[zx12r]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

maybe bad wiring in les paul..hehe

[sworn_enemy]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

The pickups were very close to the strings...much closer than my SD's and yes the volume knob was turned all the way up.

[sworn_enemy]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Hey zx12r....I assume you ride. I ride a Honda RC51.

[xenophobe]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Depends... what SD's do you have in your LP? There are a number of pickups that have a hotter output than EMGs.

Also, are your EMGs set to 9 or 18 volts... do you have a preamp boost circuit, etc...

[sully]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Originally posted by zx12r:
maybe bad wiring in les paul..hehe

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">you actually may be on to something.... the emgs may not be wired correctly to the jack.

sully

[shreddermon]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Actually, I've noticed this, too, when switching between my Dinky (EMGs) and Kelly (Duncans). The EMGs seem to need a little more volume, and certainly respond better with it. I suspect the actual issue has less to do with volume, and more to do with the EMGs flatter EQ response. That can make them sound "weak" compared to the Duncans.

I'm not an EMG fan either. They're OK, but not "all that". Give me 'cans or 'zos any day. [img]graemlins/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[StuTDavis]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

I think shreddermon nailed it on this one. Especially if those Duncans are some of the more mids-heavy pickups, with high distortion, that'll drive that amp input much harder. If it's one of the really high output Duncans on top of that, then you'll notice it even more, of course. High quality, high-output, high-mids passives pack quite a punch. But, sometimes it's not purely just about the actual output going into the amp, it's more about those mids.

A lot of people always seem to think that EMGs have some sort of super-high output because they are "active". Not true. The "active" circuits of EMGs are for "tone modeling" and not for pure output. Plus, like shreddermon pointed out, I think the EMGs tend to be a little flatter on the range than most high-end passives.

Here's a hoot...my Carvin DC127 with the Carvin "classic" passive pickups would seem like it's got higher output than my shred guitars with their EMGs, in this same sense. The Carvin pickups just have one helluva mids roar to em hehehe.

Stu

[jtr]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Active & passive pickups are completely different, you 'll have to redo the EQ on your amp volume ect. The guitar is also a factor. To think you could just plug in any guitar with any pickups without changing anything and get the same responce out of your amp, I dont think so.

[Donovan]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

My Les Paul custom has EMGs in it and I really like them. They do have to be VERY close to the strings as they have far less magnetal pull therefore a smaller magnetic field. Also Ive noticed that your amp/rig settings will cancel out frequencies of different pickups more that others and may seem to reduce the volume. If you have a mid cut setting and pickups strong in mid frequencies your cutting the sound of the pickup.
Or it could be as stated that Duncans rule, [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Immortal]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

Maybe the battery is bad?

I had a problem, because I didn't connect the groundings of pots together and it was quiet and hummy. After I connected those, it became louder and it stopped to hum.

[Sunbane]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

It's not unusual to find passive pups that have more brute punch than EMGs. Since I'm not a Duncan person, I don't know exactly what models we're talking about, but people tell me the Duncan Invader and DiMarzio X2N both blow the EMGs away in this department. Not to mention the Duncan Livewires.

[xenophobe]

Re: Seymour Duncans louder than EMG\'s???

The Duncan LiveWires actually would seem to be nearly twice the output of EMGS... at least in the circumstances I've used them, I found the SDLW pickups to be pushing out TOO much signal for my liking.