I was just woundering what kind of pickups to get for my ibanez rg220 I was thinkin emgs or dimarzios I heard that i should go with emgs because they have a huge improvement on cheap guitars but, I never installed emgs before so im not realy sure if ill do it right

My friend has a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge of his and he loves it, as do I.

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Funny how you ask that question. I just installed an EMG 81 on a brand new RG 220 in the bridge position. My friend plays a mixture of death metal with some thrash and "metalcore" influences. It sounds killer. He loves it. I love it. It sounds like a pro and expensive guitar now

EMG's lessen the influence of your guitars tone woods on your sound. If you have an cheaper guitar with not so great wood go for it. If you have any kind of decent tone wood on your guitar, you should get good passives from seymour duncan or dimarzio instead.

So basicly, the question is what kind of wood is in your guitar?

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throwing emg's in a cheap guitar isnt going to make it a fucking prs or anything.

a cheapo guitar is cheap because it's made with cheap parts and poorer build quality. emg's arent going to cover that up as much as some would think.

the wood isnt the only thing that affects the sound... everything on the guitar does, tuning pegs, the bridge or trem system, the neck, the wiring on the inside, the pots, ect...

as for the "if you have a nice guitar with nice woods, go with passives.", a nice guitar with nice woods and active pickups is still going to sound drasically different from one with passives. it's still not a matter of better or worse. just different.

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Offcoarse it is, but its all a matter of priorities. Personally, i'd much rather have a nice guitar with passives than a shoddingly build with EMG's, but also i'd rather have a crappy guitar with EMG's than one with passives instead.
Passive pickups let the nature of your guitar out better, while EMG's mask it a bit more.

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I'd personally sell the guitar and buy a secondhand japanese made ibanez rg. You can find them dirt cheap and they shred.

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i woulnt say "mask it"... more like they "isolate" from it.

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I have jsut been thinking about pickups. So, let me seek a summary,

Active's are good for shit guitars, where you want the pickups to do all the work.
Passives are for when you want the sound of the guitar to come out more.

I hope nobody minds that I intend to hijck this thread and use it for my own selfish information seeking purposes

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I don't mind you hijacking a two month old thread...

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get dimarzio, I hate emg. to be more specific get the DiMarzio Evolution pickups, they rule.

I also have the jb in the bridge and it is killer

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I don't think he's not gonna buy an EMG because you hate them


Anywho,I like the tones of an emg. I have the emg 81 -89 set in one guitar. I like the tone.

But in my rr-3 I have SD pickups. And I like those too.

Maybe you should play a similar guitar like yours with emg's and one with SD or dimarzio in it at the guitar store. And find out what you like

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people are taking the actives are for shit guitars, while passives are for good guitars thing to seriously...

actives in a quality guitar are going to be just as good as passives in a quality guitar. just different.

it's like comparing a corvette to a cadilac.

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exactly.