Hey guys, I'm looking through my Musician's Friend catalog trying to decide on what pickups and pedals to get. Right now I'm using a DOD Grunge pedal and the normal pickups that come with the Warlock NJ series. Since I'm going for the heavy metal sound, I have chosen a few products. For the pedals I found a Digitech Metal Master pedal going for $89.99. For the pickups I found an SH-13 Dimebucker going for $99.99 . I'm not sure if they sell EMG-81s at stores since I haven't been able to find any, but are they better than the SH-13? And also do I want to get 1 pickup or 2? I had a friend tell me that the EMG-81s are naturally distorted so if I wanted to do acoustic I should only get 1. Does that apply to the SH-13? I'd appreciate any feedback to help me come to a decision. Thx!

Phil

i mentioned this in another thread, but EMGs like the 81/85/89 are active circuit pickups (require 9V battery) and can't be used with a pickup thats not active. they have a built in preamp that does boost the output a bit, and allows you to overdrive your amp/pedal a little easier. i've personally found that running EMGs at 18V is much better than at 9V. it gives a little more 'headroom,' a term that i really only have a mental picture for. basically more punch, where palm muting would be more aggressive and heavy. you can still play clean with EMGs, no problem. they're not the best pickups for everything. i have other guitars with different pickups for different kinds of music. i've never played a pickup better than EMG for metal riffing. the closest one was a duncan trembucker and dimarzio super distortion.

there are so many damn kinds of replacement pickups out there, so looking forward to what other peeps will say here.

ok so you're saying I must buy it in pairs then I'm assuming. Is it possible to play acoustic since they are already distorted? And how do you pump up the voltage?

nm, clean is the same as acoustic ;p

Voltage - for 18V, put in 2 9V batteries.


And EMGs arent 'Naturally distorted'

I have an 89 in my bridge, and 85 in neck, i get awesome clean, becuase the 89 has a switch, for single coil sound, or humbucker.
Its a dualmode pickup, i play Reggae, blues and shit too, so i opted for the 89 instead of an 81

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