The ULTIMATE Metal Guitar Pickup Test DI Tracks (Patreon)

Guitar nerds ahoy!This is the same video that I posted to Youtube a few years ago, but in the ATTACHMENT you'll find the DI tracks for all the pickups (EMGs and Fishmans). You can listen to them raw and hear the differences or upload the DIs to your DAW and run them through for example a Neural DSP amp plugin. There's L & R tracks (meaning Left and Right), so you can listen them in your DAW in mono or in stereo.

(Run two mono tracks, group them to a stereo track, put a Neural DSP amp plugin to the group track, click the amp plugin to stereo mode and tweak away!)

On top of that there's also the EMG Het Set bridge pickup included in the DI files that wasn't on the video. This one ended up being my favourite. Most neutral mids and overall sound, clear highs, tight bass and fast attack making your guitar a machine gun!

Reason why I didn't end up putting the Het Set neck pickup is because the magnets are quite strong in these pickups, so they were pulling the strings down a little bit. I try to get a very low string action and I put the pickups close to the strings so this was causing some extra string buzz. So I'm still using EMG 85 on the neck, in which the magnets aren't as strong.

EMG 81 is still my second favourite. Little bit of high cut, which isn't a bad thing necessarily, but for cleans, not the best. Great fast smooth attack, a little bit of 1.5-3 kHz harshness / nasality, which some dark sounding guitars can benefit.

EMG 57 is my third favourite. Huge bass and low mids which means lift in the 100-400Hz area. Huge "growl"! Softer uppers mids, cut in the 1.5-3 kHz area. If your guitar is too bright or lacks bass, this can be the correct pickup for it. Great attack, but a little "hairy". By this I mean it lets the initial transient through more than other pickups. You either like it or you don't. I would say Het Set is somewhere in the middle of 57 and 81 when it comes to this. 81 has the smoothes attack, it doesn't let the "hair" through at all.

The DIs are only for the 'The Forest That Weeps' bridge rhythm parts that are at the end of the video. These were played without any pedal in front. The beginning riffs in the video were played with Precision Drive in front, so the differences were not that noticeable in those examples.

Also note that the EMG DIs can distort a bit if the pickup height is high and you pick aggressively, which is part of their "character", the high gain compressed sound. You can of course avoid this by lowering the pickups and adding gain from the amp, but personally I like the compressed playing feel and the more "intimate / detailed" sound when the pickup height is very close to the strings.

All of these pickups were tested with the same guitar, my orange Solar. I had fresh strings for every pickup and a fresh pick for every take. Everything was measured very accurately, string action, pickup height which was 3mm from low E and 2mm from high E (bottom of the string to the pickup) and I would like to think my playing was consistent with all the pickups. :)

Hope this is valuable to you if you've ever wondered about the EMG and Fishman pickup differences! Cheers!