A REVOLUTION for COMPARING guitar PICK-UPS!

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Watch German producer Kristian Kohle (Aborted, Powerwolf, Eskimo Callboy, Hämatom, Van Canto, Emil Bulls, Benighted) and ‪@Mendelian‬ at #42gsfour checking out the CREAM-T guitars with interchangeable pick-ups!
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[@KohleAudioKult]

How great is that? Which ones are your favorite pick-ups for METAL?

[@jotunbjorn]

I'm one of those weirdos who likes the 85 in bridge position.

[@leonidaspapanikolaou3165]

That's amazing! I use Evolution 7 and Fishman Fluence Modern Hub.

[@felixrische4364]

Dimazio d-activators, emg-x, lace Sensor Dissonant agressors, schecter Apocalypse with sustaiac, Seymour Duncan Blackout, fishman fluence modern... All These Pickups are great!

[@DirkRadloff]

Actually I use a PRS Starla for practicing Metallica-riffs and it works better than expected (US Model, Starla PU Bridge)

[@VincentVegardSvart]

Seymour Duncan for sure. The black winter is my favourite

[@Mendelian]

Great as always talking to you Kohle 🤘🏾🤘🏾!!

[@stevegee218]

It would be easy to make a magnetic coupler for the power circuit for actives, but the pots in the guitar of a passive vs. active setup would likely only work well if you stayed active or passive only. Still, 2 guitars could cover a lot of ground that way.

[@andybarker5687]

Try Dimarzio Imperium Dave Davidson signatures Just made Baritone version I feel like a good way to enter a style of music is thru the pickup 1979 Super D and X2n as well as paf 80s paf pro 90s tone zone and super 3 They even did a nu metal themed Humbucker

[@seanmorgan9020]

This is where all brands should be going, I can't be arsed constantly swapping shit out and resoldering! As far as pickups go, I love the JB, Custom (SH-5) and the EMG81. The Fishman Devin's are on my list but I'll have to wait for this energy crisis to be over :p

[@electricmeatpuppet]

I converted one of my guitars and several pairs of pickups to tiny spade connectors a while back for some quick swaps when i was comparing some brands at the time. It can be tricky space-wise, but works fine if your connections are all good as always.

[@Garbagebrain69420]

Very cool system. Seem some similar to it before. I must say though, someone needs to find a way to put a system like this in MY GUITAR. ANY GUITAR ! I don’t want to be forced to purchase a guitar that I may or may not actually like to do this ! That’s my take on it.

[@jason.martin]

20 years doing studio work myself, EMG81s work so well and easy for metal high gain tones. Having that system that can do both active and passive would be brilliant !!! you could even change things live for different songs

[@AncientLegacyMV]

I have a custom guitar with custom Pick up's from a Company called Hapas Guitars from berlin. I play the Leviathan and they are awesome for rythm stuff, try it. But they are not my first choice for lead and clean guitars. Cheers

[@nicolasmaserov7146]

It's the most interesting thing I have seen!! You can have thousands of guitars sounds, with some pickups, in less than drinking a beer. I'll get one of them for sure.THanks for the video!!

[@taz3672]

I tried the EMG 81/ 85, Seymour Duncan Heavy Metal Live Wires and the Blackouts. I didn't like any of them. I am still loving the passive pickups. I use Dimarzio Super 3 Distortion in the bridge with a PAF or PAF Pro in the neck, Dimarzio Tone Zone in the bridge with a PAF in the neck and the tried and true Seymour Duncan JB and 59 combo. That's all I use now.

[@mvyper]

My fav is definitely the Dimarzio's Super Distortion. That said, I'm on a spree to try out cheap AliExpress pickups. I'm waiting for a quadbucker (basically 2 humbuckers wired together in series) to put in my next build.

[@docsworld1369]

Yes absolutely do a in depth video on the guitars!!

[@Chord_The_Seeker]

I was hoping for a real time shootout of a lot more pickups. That’s something I would love to see (and hear).

[@bloodlinecatalog8960]

Somnium Guitars can mix active/passive pickups

[@johnconnor6706]

Bridge: Dimarzio Dominion or Seymour Duncan JB (even the Alex Skolnick custom shop tweaked JB) Neck: Dimarzio 36th Anniv, Dimarzio Bluesbucker, Seymour Duncan Fat Cat

[@21stcenturymetal31]

My favorite V has fishmans they just sound right everytime. I have emgs too and the fishmans are just better.

[@DJCD92162095]

Please try all the different Bare Knuckle pickups! And also try EMG 707/ 808/ 89/ 85 vs 81! 🙏🙌

[@poulwinther]

Great - but still waiting for the 7-string version. Cheers!

[@ChrrZ]

thats indeed cool, and i also dig the shape of the guitar, love offset style guitars

[@KohleAudioKult]

Now that I see me with the guitar in the video, I gotta stay that shape really suits me 😅

[@mudzera]

2022 baby 🇧🇷👇✌️👌

[@necroticpoison]

Would be seriously cool to have 81/57/FFM/JB/Black Winter/Blackouts, etc. all ready to go, and a guitar that sounds good and performs well in the studio, and swapping in 3 seconds. Mix an Evertune (if that's to your liking, but to me is not) and it could be insanely good for finding the right tone and then tracking.

[@needsLITHIUM]

Guitar Fetish has a great system called the kwikplug, where it uses a trrs 2.5 mm aux plug to actually connect the pickup to the leads inside the guitar. It can be soldered onto the back any pickup, and their in-house pickups come with them out of the box. They also have their own guitars with these preinstalled, branded as Xaviere. I have an Epiphone (shitty student Les Paul that was given to me for free because the wiring was bad) with some of their lower output (~8 to 9k) pickups and a Seymour Duncan active preamp. Best sounding guitar I own, though my H-S config BC Rich Virgo I modded with a Duncan invader and hotstack admittedly comes close.

[@davidshort8226]

And you don't have to have giant mount holes on the back of the guitar ;)

[@KohleAudioKult]

Very interesting! Thanks!

[@needsLITHIUM]

@@KohleAudioKult they also sell solderless harnesses that use kwikplug to connect the output jack, and an alligator clip to connect to ground via the bridge or an exposed existing ground wire that's already soldered.

[@InTheSh8]

Where is the cable? Usually your PU comes with quite a long cable. Do you have to shorten it drastically?

[@Mikesosa75]

Amazing tech!!

[@davel_ggw]

I am with you, EMG > Fishman. For me, by a mile. As well as a long list of passives. There is some frequency, somewhere in the upper mids I think, that I hear poking out with all of them I have tried and heard that I can't stand. And for cleaner and lower gain tones, try an EMG 57. I love that pickup for more dynamic stuff.

[@konsocosmin3332]

Me in a Ibanez i use an 81/85 emg configuration and in a guitar i use the Rabeea Massaad Barecknucle for me works perfectly

[@Galopant.Madness]

Mazzarino pickups have a sistem for switch between diferents coils on the same humbucker. I've never try one yet but seems an interesting feature

[@felinekaiju4517]

Nighthawk!, yeah boy!!. I also love the clean response to the Mick Thomson Blackouts, AHB-3.

[@joker6388]

I bet Keith Merrow wishes he had this back in the day.

[@OliOllsen]

Dafaqu?! That's genius. OK, wich Pick-Ups? Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Seymour Duncan SH-8 Invader Bare Knuckle Nailbomb DiMarzio D Activator X Lace Deathbucker (if this one fits in the guitar) Why? Why not?

[@guitarplayer1434]

I have a Invader bridge on a mohogony body almost indistinguishable from an 81 on a EC1000 but I have a coil split and passive cleans

[@clintmapes8454]

Use the 24 volt mod on the EMGS. I know what u r talkn about with 9volt battery sounds thin.. The 24 volt mod changes the sound. U gotta do a vid on this. It will change ur mind

[@snife]

LOL, you guys sat there gushing about active pickups the whole vid while the dude sat there awkwardly.... Active pickups require more wiring that probably isn't even compatible with his drop in bracket thingies.

[@PeanutButterPavement]

If you haven't tried them yet, the X series EMG's are SO GOOD! I have an 81X/85X combo that I replaced Fishman's with and will never look back!

[@jamescaseley2821]

Great video 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻81’s for the win

[@kutnersuicide]

I remember Mendel from the Sneap Forum days, even before Aborted.

[@Mendelian]

That forum is pure nostalgia

[@kutnersuicide]

@@Mendelian Hell yeah! Didn't even know you had your own channel. Subscribed!

[@jeromesimon8916]

I have learned alot from this channel Chugga Chugga and Dangle Dangle

[@KohleAudioKult]

💪

[@jagoPG]

Would like a cool comparison of bare knuckle. But good chugga chugga instead of djent or progressive stuff

[@DEADLINETV]

Is it only active pickups that are right for Chuggah-chuggah? Asking for a drummer... Oh wait, that's me!

[@FrankNitsch]

I have played an EMG-81 almost exclusively for many many years, but I came to the same conclusion stated in the video: I found it too compressed, a little lifeless. Then I went fully passive for another long period with all my guitars. Just two weeks ago I equipped one of them with an EMG-81 at the bridge and an EMG-60 on the neck position. But I read about that popular 24 volts mod everywhere and so I compared 9V to 18V (simply two batteries in series) and it opens up the sound significantly. The treble and presence is just so much better with 18V and the pickups sound a lot better clean as well - especially the EMG-60, but also the 81 at the bridge. I highly recommend trying that out as it costs next to nothing and gives you such a different experience with EMGs. They even can be supplied with up to 27 volts, but I measured my 9V batteries and they had more than 9V, like 9,6 or so. Three of them would exceed the max. voltage allowed and I didn't want to blow up my pickups. I might try 24 volts at some point to see if that makes a difference as well (but the capacity of those 12V batteries is so much lower and you would need to replace them more often and cannot get them as easily as the 9V ones...).

[@PippPriss]

For the sake of playing around ,out could use a 24V power supply and wire it so the pickup. A bit stupid for regular playing, but just for the sake of testing might do the trick :-)

[@FrankNitsch]

@@PippPriss believe it or not, but I have tried that already. But us all being on the quest for the brutal high-gain tone, I immediately hit a road block: the remaining ripple in the voltage after rectification is most often no problem for supplying all sorts of devices. A guitar pickup producing a signal that gets amplified by insane amounts (high gain distortion) seems to be very picky in this respect. I got so much noise from the power supply this way that stopped that experiment right away. A battery is a genuine direct current power source and that's really what you need for this application. I could have added a couple of other battery cells to the package until I came close to 24V or even 26V, but I was quite happy with the 18V sound already. The 12V cells don't cost a fortune so I will get a package soon and give them a try. ;-)

[@KIL-Drake]

Don't compare just the well-known brands like Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio, Bare Knuckle, etc. I'd love for you to compare pickups from guitar companies too. There's Gibson and Fender obviously. The best pickups I've ever tried are Schecter's Apocalypse pickups. Maybe you can come up with a list of metal guitar pickups? I nominate the Schecter Apocalypse, the Bare Knuckle Juggernauts, and the Seymour Duncan Black Winter (all three of those pickups have been compared to each other)!

[@riangarianga]

I saw the original system from Relish three years ago in Darrel Braun's channel (it was an aluminium body, and incredibly expensive). On one hand, I thought it definitely was interesting. On the other hand, it's something I've seen pickup manufacturers do before. Even Leo Fender did it. So it's not that innovative in that regard. But it's good there's a ready product out there in the market, instead of being forced to go the custom way. However, there's a drawback: the structure between the nut and the bridge is key to the sound. Here two chunks of wood are completely removed. So there's less rigidity, and that will affect the sound to some extent (in the line of what tremolo cavities do, but exaggerated). I remember a small pickup manufacturer commenting specifically on that, such guitar was only intended for test purposes while developing a pickup, but far from the real thing. I wish I could recall his name.

[@PippPriss]

The body barely has anything to do with the sound. I recommend you watch Jim Lills "Tested: Where does the tone come from in an electric guitar?", He shows super clearly that basically the pickup position only matters. Makes also sense, since in an perfect guitar system the string is completely free floating between nut and bridge, thus completely decoupled from the base. The actual imperfection on the coupling of the system "electric guitar" is minuscule and can be neglected for comparative reasons. So, this concept of changeable pickups is actually pretty perfect for the studio. If at all, the wood removal takes away the structural integrity and therefore counters the decoupling. But actually not.

[@riangarianga]

@@PippPriss I agree: the body shape doesn't matter. Johan Segeborn tested it on his channel years before Jim Lills, just sawing off bits from a body, one at a time. Jim Lills, however, plays clean. Add distortion, everything gets multiplied (gain circuits typically are multipliers). I really recommend Johan Segeborn's channel, full of old experiments he carried out. That being said, the structural block between the nut and the bridge, this is where strings are pressing, does matter. This was the idea behind Les Paul's original «The Log», and in turn behind all solidbody guitars: eliminating the sound coming from the body in order to amplify just the strings (and this way preventing feedback). The structure had to be rigid, that was the main thing, so Les Paul used a hardened block of the kind used on railroad tracks. Strat players know that hardtails sound fuller than tremolo ones, and this is the reason: they don't have the tremolo cavity, they have a thicker body, therefore less is lost. I can think of Jake E. Lee mentioning that, or EVH mentioning that when he went too far sawing off bits from his «Shark» Ibanez Destroyer, coming too close to the bridge, that guitar he previously thought it sounded amazing suddenly didn't have it. It doesn't mean it's bad, it's just something to consider. But it's a drawback of the design: it will alter the sound, especially for us, hardtail players; not so much for tremolo guitar players. There's no gain in one area without losing something in another area, an instrument is a balance of factors, and thank goodness we have so many options nowadays.

[@clyderockway6954]

DiCaprio is such a great actor!

[@Timbo6669]

What sorcery is this?

[@whatskraken3886]

As far as I'm aware, that pickup switching system was originally developed by Relish guitars

[@poulwinther]

Well Einstein - they say in the video that they bought the license from Relish....

[@whatskraken3886]

@@poulwinther I hadn't seen that part of the video yet

[@poulwinther]

@@whatskraken3886 All good mate.

[@treewisemenllc7281]

This is some next level shit!

[@tusharjamwal]

what i got from this video is that guitar players don't agree on pickups, just try as many as you can afford. Do record them if you can so you can hear them back to back. And then just decide for yourself.

[@OfficialSNMvids]

EMG 81's till death! \m/ Each to their own though.

[@bradhill935]

I have the fishman DT set...awesum pup. Don't like the EMG 81's...my fav pup would be the 57/66 EMG, so if fishman made a version of this with the 3 voices, perfection!

[@DavePowell666]

The EMG-81 has been on most of my guitars for years, I've been TRYING to find a passive pickup that I might enjoy as much but I think my brain just prefers the active all-out metalness of the 81. Very cool pickup switching concept. 😎

[@KohleAudioKult]

Welcome to the club of the 81! 😇🍺

[@dantredogborsa7048]

Seymour Duncan Distortion.

[@hedonisticpunkvatos4life470]

Do the comparisons, bra.

[@andrevierbucher2863]

Ähhh, Kristiaaaan.... sach mal: Wenn Du jetzt ein ein T-Shirt mit Katze und Regenbogen dahinter oder mit bunten Legosteinen darauf tragen würdest könntest Du das ja auf Henning schieben, aber.... Also ich bin ein alter Sack und nicht einmal von der Chuga-chuga-Fraktion, aber das.... äh, ne... neeeee.... 😉

[@gerdhery]

EMG 81 = ❤

[@MNDZLondon]

What do you think about Bareknuckle pickups?

[@prsguitarfan1]

Kohle, I am a fan of EMG pickups and I really like the X-Series. They sound better (in my opinion) for clean tones.

[@KohleAudioKult]

Are those the passive ones?

[@prsguitarfan1]

@@KohleAudioKult No, they are still Active.

[@Steadybeheady]

Fishman just doesn’t do it for me, or for the battery.. seems to burn through 9v batteries 10x faster than emg

[@Mendelian]

Batteries? Get the USB battery pack! 300 hrs of goodness and no more batteries!

[@Steadybeheady]

@@Mendelian this would be the way, wouldn’t it! I also haven’t tried the Devin Townsend fishman’s variant yet.. that could also be the way.

[@ThrashingBasskill]

I don´t know about this.. It´s a great innovation, that´s for sure. But if you say "especially for the studio", I wonder on how much does this really matter for the outcome or the final result as PUs are such a small piece of the puzzle between the song idea, the cab (or IR) and all the other plugins on all the other tracks that get used. Maybe it´s more for the feeling of the player?

[@KohleAudioKult]

I’d call the mic pre or the converter a small piece of the puzzle. A PU is important!

[@ThrashingBasskill]

@@KohleAudioKult Then I´m confused. I´m just on the beginner level of all the studio business and our friend Glenn from soundspectrestudios mentioned that pic ups barely make a difference... 😅

[@Steadybeheady]

@@ThrashingBasskill I feel Glenn is right but only to an extent. Speaker, cab, amplifier, and pedals will make the most difference but with pickups following just behind those imo. Definitely more difference than tone woods 😂 Yeah yeah mic’s too I know lol

[@SamBrockmann]

This is an insane idea. In the best way. So, I am also a fan of active pickups. I have some of the Tosin Abasi Fishmann signatures. They are amazing. They're even hotter than the stock Schetcher actives that my Demon-7 came with. So, a guy like me would need a 7-string, active pickups version of this kind of guitar.

[@benjiplaizier2935]

have you checked out orbit culture much yet? they are about to do a european tour with 'in flames' in december so if you can make it to one of their germany shows some good content with niklas karlsson would be great to see, a behind the scenes interview about rigs, album production and lundgren pickups ect. He writes, mixes and masters everything for orbit culture and has no sound engineer on tour with them, a brilliant man and musician. check em out before they too famous for you haha jokes love brother \m/

[@T4llJak3]

That wojac face man....

[@Jamsire]

Mercurio Guitars did thus 17 years - EXACTLY THE SAME WAY.

[@Jamsire]

????

[@DycayBeats]

i love chuga chuga music🤘

[@johnathan.jerusik]

Side note, could you recommend some good German beers? Being from the US don't always 100% what are the good ones.

[@KohleAudioKult]

Augustiner is something you might be able to find!

[@johnathan.jerusik]

@@KohleAudioKult thank you my friend!! Ill cheers one to you when I find some!!

[@TheSmallSk8er]

Hansa Pils is the real stuff!!

[@johnathan.jerusik]

@@TheSmallSk8er really?? Ok beer number 2 on my list!!!

[@chrustieyahcrostie8039]

Ding Dong Ding Dong, Chuga chuga chuga chuga, Chuga Ding :D Ahhhh.... i like u more and more :D:D:D Und Liebe Grüße Aus Der Börde !!!!!!!!🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺

[@v0id416]

genius first play the tone for everyone, ask about what the rig is, then hit us with the "its not a real cab, its an impulse i made and I'm selling". I cant think of a single better way to demo and show how convincing your product is to the real thing

[@TheBlindAndTheBeautiful]

So am i the only one who thought this guitar was one of the worst noise creaters i've ever heard? The hissing and buzzing was at an aweful frequency for my ears. Maybe it is because i'm blind and used to hearing things differently, but just no. While i love this idea and would love to own something like this that buzzing at that horrible level would be a true deal breaker for me

[@KohleAudioKult]

That’s the room er shot the video in. It’s quite noisy there. Nothing wrong with the guitar

[@fleekwoodmac3705]

I just got back from Munich. German beer is fine and all. You Germans have been hiding the doner sandwich from the world though. What an amazing hand held drunk food.

[@KohleAudioKult]

I agree! Döner + beer are a fantastic Turkish German collaboration!

[@fleekwoodmac3705]

@@KohleAudioKult Apparently the German Doner, created by newly minted Germans from Turkey, scarcely resembles the Turkish sandwich. It's aestethic is similar but the flavor profiles are completely different. They dont use veggies in Turkey. The herb sauce and the garlic sauce are not used in Turkey. Even the lamb and beef spits are spiced differently. Chicken is never used in Turkey and is a wholey German invention/response to an outbreak of mad cow. Germans were hesitant to eat beef during an outbreak like 30 years ago and the vendors took a financial hit. They started using chicken as a response and it caught on. I'm going to attempt to recreate it here in the states. Sorry to hijack the video with an unrelated topic. I literally just got off the plane a couple days ago from Munich, can't stop thinking about that damn sandwich, and then some brutal German metal heads video crops up on my phones notifications.

[@Ottophil]

I solder 8 hours a day. I can change pickups faster than my underwear

[@user-do7vd9tx3h]

I wonder if you could buy and build this switching system into an available guitar. I mean this is the shit

[@martine.210]

You can buy the system from the relish shop. Would have to do a lot of routing though.

[@gorf101]

Mendel! What an awesome person! Cool guitar too.. great video

[@KohleAudioKult]

Mendel rules! Check out his channel!

[@gorf101]

@@KohleAudioKult I've been subscribed to him for quite awhile.

[@n0nyabznss]

@SpectrSoundStudios

[@KeithMcKissick]

I think you misspelled it.