Pickup Comparison Through Mesa Rectifier (Duncan, Fishman & EMG)

Seems like pickups only make a difference with clean tones. With very high gain they all sound identical.

All are very good pickups....My favourite ones from here are Fishman, 81, Nazgul and Distortion....I use personally Fishmans, Emgs 81, 85, 60, 57, 66 and Seymour Duncan Livewires Which are active jb and jazz....

The JB is still tops for me. Have one in my Charvel SoCal.

for me its sd black winter i want to put them in all my guitars

the JB in the bridge, and SH in the neck has been the combo to go wit.....classic tone staples

wauw the sey dist.... gonna buy it

Hey Jon, have you done any of the voltage mods on your EMG equipped guitars? Ie: 18 or 24v mod?

just close your eyes and listen

They all have absolutley negligible sound diffrence

Bruh don’t sleep on that SD Nazgûl thing sound better then all of em

All the same lol))

emg sounds like linkin park, duncan distortion sounds like black metal

They literally all sound the same...

Do this on a real amp

Man - that tone is a dream. Personally I favor the Nazgul's, but they all sound amazing.

I still have an old JB SH4 from the 80s in one of my guitars, I have other guitars with emg, bare knuckles, fisherman... JB holds it's own with all of them. Always try to convince myself does the minor tone difference was worth four times the price... I couldn't.

It's funny how you can just love the shape and looks of a guitar model like that. I'm the same with Yamaha Revstar and Anderson Pro Am. Can't get enough of them.
Do you use them in the same way or do they have different pickups and tuning etc?

Dude you can’t compare the sounds from a black guitar and a white guitar, the colors make a huge tonal difference, especially the pickup color. You should really try getting some flames painted on there, that’s how you get the best tone IMO

White pickups sound a bit brighter and black pickups sound a bit darker. The tone is colored. You can't fool electrons because they know what color the pickup is.

The JB is flubby, I don't like it at all. Second worse is the 81TW, the 81 sounds much better. I am surprised I like the Fluence in both modes. The distortion is very full and rich, which can be a good thing or not. You would find yourself cutting some frequencies quite a bit for situations that might be better filled by the more filtered EMG or Fishman sound. The Nazgul sounds good but doesn't stand out much either. I could sit perfectly in a mix. Will the quality of a song be affected at all by pickup selection, I have to wonder. I think I could EQ the flub out of the JB and use it in a song. It also looked as if the distortion was very close to the strings, which might have been a mistake on my part to be able to discern such things.

I would like to admit that I couldn't listen to ANY difference in between nearby PUs. Those soundtracks completely had covered important aspects of each ones. Without a good reference it became unuseful. The massive distorted sound at the end of the footage can't help any one as well.

Since it is dual channel recording, the difference is less noticeable. If there was a mono channel, clearer differences would be felt.

Them Nazgul pups are cool as hell. 🤘

Your audience will never notice the difference

dude, they sound all the same. only speakers and mics matter. serious, surprise i loved the jb (hate it usually) those fluence rock. dude. compressed and mushy emgs...

The 81 is still the best to my ears , proper goldilocks Pup and the Seymour Duncan is definatley the best passive out there still for playing thrash metal.

Too bad... no DiMarzio...

Mh i like my james hetfield emgs, bit that sctive fishmann is smooth, heavy and tight af!

Hi is the fishman the cermaic one?

JB, Distortion - my choice

JB has the thickest tone, Nazgul sounds like less low end, 81TW is definitely thicker than the 81, he Fishman's sound muddy and weak. The Duncan dist sounds weak as well. Most of em sound about the same with the first distortion example. JB still sounds like the best one to me. Nice and thiccccc.

They all sounds the same :D

Trying to figure out the tonal differences here is actually a great ear training exercise :)

JB all the way

the best one: duncan JB.
on my jackson american series virtuoso.
cheers.

1. J.B. 2. Nazgûl 3. 81TW didn’t care for the rest. 81 sounded terrible by the way.

damn duncan jb and fishman passive great

The JB by a mile and it's not even close. Sounds much more guitar-like and warm in the low end. It sounds like a guitar should. The other pickups have more clarity but sacrifice greatly in tone IMO.

I absolutely love riff #2 stop paying attention to the picks and just enjoyed it repeating

Is this a song?

Try Warman 12 gauge pickups and compare them to Seymour Duncan’s.

Those clean tones werent even close to clean.

If you are not listening through studio monitors or headphones like the Sony MDR 7506 you more than likely will not even notice the difference. For live playing you will definitely not notice a difference but on a recording in a studio the differences are noticeable though not life changing. All will get the job done.

After mora than 30 years playing, JB is the best for all, no one is better, when more power full amp better will sound

honestly more of a promotion for the Line 6 Helix lol

81 and Distortion are really special pickups standing well over the years even in lower tunings

and the addition to the package - guitar tabs - is just a suggestion everywhere and always :)