This question was asked on my band's forum.
I cannot think how to word the answer properly, so I want you lot to help me out or even do it for me.
You can answer here and I'll copy over, or you can answer directly on the forum by following the link below. Cheers
http://www.hategrowth.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11Ok, I was just talking with our good friend Tony on msn, and I still don't get it. He says the warpig is heavier and louder than Zakk Wylde's emg's, but like when I asked a tech who fixes all the guitars for the kids around here at MI (musician's institute, a $30,000 a year school, that incidentaly, doesn't teach how to read music as well as the community college I go to now for free, LACC, go figure, but still people know things there...), and he said something like this "Well, it's all about actual electrical output. A passive pickup, no matter how many times it's wound, has an absolute physical limit, of exactly 915 mili volts, which is a measurement by the way, of fractions of a volt, whereas an active pickup, has an output of exactly 9 or 18 volts continuous, respectively." Now let's focus on that for a second. I saw on youtube a video of Zakk Wylde playing Hendrix's Voo Doo Chile Slight Return (the usual choice, most people haven't heard or played the actual Voo Doo Chile, a completly different song...), with Slash, and I noticed, as well as the poor guy who posted the video, that Slash's guitar, was at least 25% quieter, than Zakk's. Now of course as we know, Zakk uses 18 volt EMG's, while Slash, uses custom made Seymoure Duncans, which are passive. From the evidence of this video alone, it was quite clear to me, that the active pickups Zakk had, had much stronger and more strident output, than Slash's Seymoures, (which of course is not saying who played better that evening, that's a much tougher discussion), so it looks at least from there, that my tech friend's analysis here carries weight, in this particular case at least. Then my friend also said "The difference in tonality, comes from the different ways the pickups work. Passive pickups pick up much more of the physical characteristics of the guitar itself, i.e. type of wood, neck through or bolt on, rose wood or ebony fret board, etc, while active pickups strictly focus on just putting more of the string vibration out of the magnetic field, at a higher voltage, causing higher signal strength, so it's a stronger sonic output."
So, my question is, if all this is scientific fact, which purportedly so far, it is, how the hell can any passive pickup, bareknuckle included, be stronger and have more output, than say, Zakk, or Dave Mustaine's custom 18 volt EMG's???!!!!! (never tried Zakk's by the way, but a friend of mine has a white, Dave signature series ESP flying V, with his custom 18 volt EMG's, which they don't make anymore by the way, and it was the greatest tone, I have ever played with) I really need the final word on this one, it's causing me some major bedlam trying to figure it out on my own.
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