New EMG Retroactives. Open coil actives inspired by vintage designs

guitarfishbay

Dunno how I missed these but it looks like EMG are releasing their take on vintage pickups, but active.  They're doing 2 sets, one PAFish and one aimed more at more raunchy 70s sounds.

Fat 55s http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/retro-active/humbucking/fat-55-set.html#info





And Super 77s http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/retro-active/humbucking/super-77-set.html#info





I'm not massively impressed with the 77s here but the 55s seem like they'll be awesome.  

No stock until end of March on Thomann, not seen them on any UK sites yet.

guitarfishbay

Looks like they're stock on the new Schecter stuff.

guitarfishbay

It appears Duncan are also releasing a similar product, called 'Duality'.  These use A2 pickups and a new preamp design.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/duality-bridge
http://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/duality-neck



Guitars sound great but what is with the weird phasing on the cymbals?  Cleans seem really nice.

fretmeister

I am really tempted by the single coil sets. 

guitarfishbay

I didn't spot those.  The site seems to list them under the singlecoils tab instead of under retroactive (which is where the HBs are).

The RA2 set sounds great on paper.

http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/single-coil/strat/ra-2.html
http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/single-coil/strat/ra-5.html

olafgarten

I like the idea, but all of the Demos are still playing Metal, if they could do a good 50's -60's tone, they would probably show it.

guitarfishbay

This demo might be more to your liking then



They're not designed to be PAFs with a battery (that'd be kind of pointless), they're actives inspired by PAFs.  Actives tend to have a different response to passives and I guess this is another attempt at a middle ground, but more towards the passive side (the previous 57/66 set still sounds fairly similar to a typical EMG IMO).

guitarfishbay

So here's Rob Turner being a little bit evasive as to what the preamp is doing, but it sounds like in terms of gain the neck pickup isn't getting made louder but the bridge is.  He makes reference to a resonant frequency but isn't clear to me if that comes from the wind or the preamp.

At least in terms of output it'd be fair to say there's not a lot coming from the preamp, which is a big departure for EMG (their standard pickups are very low output which is then boosted by the preamp).  It's not clear what the preamp is doing in terms of EQ.  I wonder if it'd be possible to deconstruct them and find out.  My guess is there's an amount of filtering and EQ being applied similar to my understanding of how the Duncan Blackout modular preamp works.

Bidley

They sound great. I don't go mental on pickups any more, but I genuinely want one of each of these!

guitarfishbay

Duncan Duality in black and black/white seem to be in stock at strings direct.  http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/search/duncan-duality

Not seen any UK/EU dealer having stock of the EMG Retroactives yet, Thomann says 20th March

p90fool

I know very little about active pickups, what's the reasoning behind a near conventional-output pickup having a preamp?

What does the preamp add to the product in this case in terms of tone shaping which makes it worth the hassle of batteries?

guitarfishbay

It's a fair question.  I'm hoping to order a set of the Fat 55s when they are available to find out for myself.

If they've got the even low end response of EMG actives but the upper mid cut of passives then that'd be great, but it's hard to tell from YouTube demos.  

Batteries tend to last a long time with EMGs so it really isn't that big of a deal, I got a year out of my two main guitars before I noticed them sounding weaker and they get played a lot.

guitarfishbay

Still not much about these online.

Lasse Lammert has done a short clip comparing the 57 (note this is not a Retroactive) to the 77 Retroactive

Funkfingers

Those have been publicised for a while. Not tried them but I will say that the EMG Stratocaster and Jazz Bass pickups that employ separate polepiece rod magnets rather than a blade polepiece definitely sound, ahem, less unconvincing.

I dare say that this new line will satisfy guitarists who listen with their eyes.

guitarfishbay

Funkfingers said:

Those have been publicised for a while. Not tried them but I will say that the EMG Stratocaster and Jazz Bass pickups that employ separate polepiece rod magnets rather than a blade polepiece definitely sound, ahem, less unconvincing.

I dare say that this new line will satisfy guitarists who listen with their eyes.

They're still not available for purchase in the UK, only place I've seen them is Thomann.  Even the Duncan Dualities aren't available in many places.

So far I've tended to prefer EMGs oldschool single mode offerings - 81/85/60, J, SA etc.  I've had the polepiece stuff like Het Set, still have 57/66 set, and SLV.  And while they're all cool, I kind of just end up going back to their standard stuff.

Got to say so far I'm not really feeling the 77 set in the clip posted above.  Still interested in the 55 but also recently discovered the Fishman KSE set, which seem pretty great on paper save for the crap battery life in comparison to EMG.  3 modes - tight active tone, passive humbucker, and single coil.  Would go a long way in a single guitar.

https://www.fishman.com/products/series/fluence/killswitch-engage-signature-pickup-set/

I keep trying other stuff and keep coming back to actives, they're just better controlled for the tuning and style I play.

Funkfingers

Any opinions on how EMG Retroactives compare against Fishman Fluence sets?

guitarfishbay

The same guy that posted the 57 vs 77 RA demo has done a demo of the Fluence KSE set.  Lots of talking though.



I don't think many people will have compared the Retroactives to Fluences, there aren't many reviews of RA anywhere.  But it seems a lot of long time EMG players seem to have jumped over to Fishman in the past couple of years.  Devin Townsend, both guys from Killswitch Engage, and Stephen Carpenter all seem to have signature sets at Fishman, all of those guys had been EMG users for a long long time.

I'm not sure how much of that is going to be money related, since EMG seem pretty reluctant to do signature deals, but when I saw Devin Townsend earlier this year his tone was pretty awesome.

The only thing that puts me off the Fishmans is battery life, dependent on set, isn't much more than around 100 hours.  Typical EMGs easily get 10x that.  They do a rechargable battery pack you charge through the control cavity cover but it's something like £100+ depending on the option.