What is the best Humbucker Pickup? (no matter if active or passive).What do you think about EMG pickups?

Question

Well, i'm about to change my Ibanez' pickups

and i can't make up my mind to do the right decission.

Answer 1

I don't think there's a "best" pickup, just pickups that work better than others in different situations.

For instance, if you want a great blues sound on your Strat guitar, you would generally not want to install Seymour Duncan Dimebuckers. Likewise, you wouldn't put Hot Rails (same company) on your axe if you wanted a killer metal tone.

So there is some degree of differentiation according to the tone, output, and configuration (single coil, humbucker, etc) that you want when you start looking at selecting a pickup.

I like the Seymour Duncan JB humbucker. It has a very nice tone, kind've an "all-around" tone that will work for most styles of music. I haven't gotten a great death metal tone with mine, but for pretty much everything else it's all good.

If you visit the Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio homepages (google) you will find EQ response curves of the different pickups. These aren't super accurate, but you can use them as a ballpark guide. In general, thin guitars can have bassier pickups than thick guitars (although of course it depends on the tone wood) and vice versa, and if you have a naturally "dark" sounding guitar, you want lots of treble, etc. Higher output is better, in general, for heavier styles of music, but be aware of the lower output pickups, as these tend to have great tone vs the higher output. DiMarzio's PAF Joes have been reviewed very well, for instance, and helping get that "virtuouso" sound.

I do not like EMGs. They sound nice but they don't play well - they have a flatter, more compressed sound than other pickups and this is a turn-off for me. I feel that they color my sound so much that when I put them in my guitar it made my guitar sound like any other guitar with EMGs in them. Ugh! I'm too individualistic for that - my guitar has a natural voice, and that's what I want to express. The tone is nice, but as far as dynamics and expression, not so much. They're good for more extreme metal, where nuances, dynamics, and subtlety aren't really possible.

Saul

Answer 2

Depends on the sound you want, Ibanez im guessing you play metal. But in general the Les Paul's humbuckers sounds good too me

Answer 3

Hi

EMG  are ery good pickups and so are Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio. It depends what sound you are looking for.

I use DiMarzio on my old gibson because I love the bite and dirty sound it gives. On my Jackson, I use EMG and on Fender, I use Seymour Duncan because they are super clean. For studio work, I prefer them especially when you use a distortion unit. Their is no hum and the sustain is more than amazing.