Any love for EMG H4's?

[Surfguitar!]

Forgive me if this sounds like an odd question for this board, but I've never owned an instrument with EMG's. I just bought a Les Paul off a local guy and it has EMG H4's. It's a Les Paul Classic. I did not try the guitar out before I bought it. That's no biggie. It was a fantastic deal and it included the original exposed coil Gibson's. I can always go back to those, I am very familiar with them.

I took it home today and I was expecting an absolute Metal machine but they came up short. I have a Blackface Dual Rectifier and really was hoping they would deliver. I've kind of been anti-EMG in the past, but really want to try and make them work. I honestly think they were installed wrong. The neck sounds great, bridge horrible.

Anyway, I want a pickup that hits the amp a little harder than normal, as I typically don't play super loud, I have an 8 Ohm THD Hotplate and choke the loudness down to about -8db.

Anyone using these with a similar amp? Tell me what you think of them and don't hold back. I've decided to turn this Les Paul into a Metal machine, I have other electrics for other styles of music like Blues, etc.

Here's a link to the exact model..
http://www.emgpickups.com/displayproducts.asp?section=Guitar&categoryid=17&catalogid=164

 

[Surfguitar!]

How should these sound into a DR?

 

[Surfguitar!]

I think the previous owner did not change out the stock pots. Do the EMG-H4's need 500k or 1 megs? I'm about to dig into this thing. I think it comes with 250k's.

 

[SixVeeSix]

http://www.emginc.com/downloads/wiringdiagrams/EMG-H1-H4.pdf

Should tell you what you need to know. As they state, it is a passive pickup voiced to sound like an 81. This means LOTS of midrange. You may not care for the peak being where it is, depends on your speakers for one thing. The height of the pickups makes a huge difference, strings, etc. Do you have another guitar for a basis for comparison? Your amp will make almost any tone so you may have some dialing in to do. Most people use this style of pickup (high output humbucker) for the bridge position, the spot that you say sounds horrible. I would probably put one of the Gibson pickups back in the fingerboard position and dial the amp for the bridge but that's just me. Good luck!

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Are you playing at low volumes?

A rectifier needs to be working to sound like it should....I had a THD hotplate thinking it would help me get that cranked tone at home, but it NEVER happened. It muffled my tone, and really only sucked treble and bass. I didn't like it and sold it very soon afterwards. I then came to the conclusion that a rectifier is just not a bedroom amp. It needs to have the power section sweating to sound right.

So, crank that puppy up, and then test the pups. Never been a fan of the passive EMGs, or any EMGs for that matter.

 

[ToneAddictJon]

Are you playing at low volumes?

A rectifier needs to be working to sound like it should....I had a THD hotplate thinking it would help me get that cranked tone at home, but it NEVER happened. It muffled my tone, and really only sucked treble and bass. I didn't like it and sold it very soon afterwards. I then came to the conclusion that a rectifier is just not a bedroom amp. It needs to have the power section sweating to sound right.

So, crank that puppy up, and then test the pups. Never been a fan of the passive EMGs, or any EMGs for that matter.

Completely second this. I'm running my recto at 3:00 into a 1x12 open back (ev 200 watt) and it sounds amazing, but when you run the volume under noon it sounds bleh. I have EMG 81's in my SG and I don't care for them, I've played on a couple guitars with the passive EMG's in them and thought they were worse than most stock pickups.

 

[Surfguitar!]

Thanks for the feedback! Let me restate things a bit and provide more info...

Pickup height may be an issue. These EMG's are **** near flush with the pickup rings. I'm guessing that's part of the problem. There is what looks like 5/16" to 3/8" clearance between the surface and strings. The more I think about this the more I think the so called "professional setup" may be inaccurate.

I do have other guitars for comparison, both exposed coil Gibson Les Pauls. The amp has not been touched since it was dialed in with those guitars. I sold them, but know what they sounded like. Anyway, I'd like to think I could find a bond with these passive EMG pickups. However, I am thinking the exposed coil 's that are stock with the guitar might be better to my ears. I need to look at the specs of both and reevaluate.

I do understand that a Rectifier needs to be cooking. When I said I don't play really loud, I mean really loud. It's not at 3:00 like ToneAddictJon's but probably around 1:30 or so on the dial. I then choke the loudness with the THD Hotplate to -8db. So I know the sound is not ideal and will be muffled a bit but I can accept a certain amount of that. I don't jam with friends in a warehouse much anymore.

I will push the amp MUCH harder tonight, I'm just looking to soak in a little more insight before I go home and start "fixing" things. Knowing the guitar has afternmarket pickups, I will at least need to investigate the installation to make sure its correct.

 

[ToneAddictJon]

Trick one to being able to turn in up to 3:00- turn it up to 3:00 then turn the fx send to 0 and slowly bring it up until it's the level you want, then use the fx send as your volume control :twisted:

 

[nomad100hd]

I have a Epiphone ZW with both an h4 in the neck and an H4A in the bridge. i swapped them around once. I prefer the tone of the H4A in the bridge. I really like the sound of them threw my nomad. Pickup height does change the tone a lot on my guitar.


As far as attenuators hotplate or other. I find they aren't to bad unless you turn the volume down to where the speakers not resonating right. Also your ears hear frequencies differently at different volumes. DR get most of there distortion from the preamp, so pushing the power amp to distortion might not be the tone your used to. Weber's makes attenuators with actual speaker motors in them that sound more natural than other brands. Where most other brands just use ceramic resistors.

 

[Eric B]

I don't like H4 if you're playing at any decent volume! The 81/85 is awesome so... they are just not related in my opinion.