DIGITAL RECORDERS & ACTIVE PICKUPS

[Saijinn Maas]

Thinking of picking up another guitar and it has EMG active pickups...

Has anyone tried recording into any of the digital recorders using active pickups?

[Trotters]

bump for justice---I'm in the same position...is this the esp ltd by any chance Saijinn?

[Saijinn Maas]

bump for justice---I'm in the same position...is this the esp ltd by any chance Saijinn?

Yes... I have a chance to pick up one at a great deal, but I am wondering how well the digital recorders handle the active pickups.

[64Guitars]

I can't think of any reason why active pickups would be a problem. They have a potentially higher output than passive pickups, but your BR has an input sensitivity control and your guitar has a volume control, so that shouldn't be a problem. Just set the input sensitivity appropriately. If you still get clipping with the input sensitivity all the way down, then lower your guitar's volume control.

[Saijinn Maas]

I can't think of any reason why active pickups would be a problem. They have a potentially higher output than passive pickups, but your BR has an input sensitivity control and your guitar has a volume control, so that shouldn't be a problem. Just set the input sensitivity appropriately. If you still get clipping with the input sensitivity all the way down, then lower your guitar's volume control.

That makes sense. I've never had active pickups, so I wasn't really sure. Might just have to go ahead and pick up this guitar I have my eye on then.

Thanks

[Dmann]

all my recordings are from guitars with EMG's and the MicroBR. Heres the thing with Active pickups though if your not experienced with them. they almost act more like an extra "gain" stage as opposed to a straight up volume control, so you shouldn't simply turn it all the way up and play it that way, especially if your looking for that pristine crystal clear clean sound. most of the time I play with my volume at about 80%-85% otherwise I end up peaking the signal, and when you peak the signal from the source it can really destroy your tone. It's why alot of people do not like EMG's, even though it's the users fault and not the EMG.

(EDIT : I also wanted to add, you can lower the pickup away from the strings if you really want to play it full out and it won't peak. And usually when I am soloing I play full volume, but obviously I have made adjustments to my rig to accomidate that).

 Personally I love them, they compliment my playstyle perfectly. One thing I have noticed though, they tend to pick up interference if your too close to a computer, as I did a few recordings sitting at my PC, you can hear a low level high freq hum, once you start adding dubs the hum gets amplified so watch out for this.

[Gnasty]

This is an apple - oranges thing i know, And you can get great recordings from EMG, but having Emg pickups for a few years and switching to custom made super distortion. It wasn`t apples and oranges to my ears. My custom pickups rock waay better. The thing to know about why EMG`s have batteries is that they were made that way to speed up production. It is faster and cheaper to wire wind a pickup 100 times and add a battery than doing it 300 times.
I might get an argument on this but any guitar player who endorses EMG pickups like James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, and Zakk Wylde use EMG`s on stage live ,but they are NOT active or else they would break up on stage and sound like shit.

[MFer]

I have a Schecter with an active EMG and the BR600 and its beautiful...none to very little hiss. And whatever is left the onboard noise reduction takes care of...