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“When you think about it, the pickup is your microphone”: Why Zakk Wylde swears by his EMG pickups
“When you’re singing out of a $12,000 Telefunken mic in the studio, you can hear the clarity of that thing, compared to a little mic you buy for $100.”
Image: Per Ole Hagen / Getty Images
Pickups are to guitarists what microphones are to singers, at least according to Zakk Wylde, who discusses his love of EMG pickups in a new interview.
The Black Label Society mastermind and current Pantera axeman reveals on Premier Guitar’s Rig Rundown segment that his journey with active pickups actually began with a guitar student of his.
“With EMGs, when I started playing them, one of my guitar students at the time – this was before [Ozzy Osbourne], so I never had anyone try and sell me on ‘em – he had a Fender Jaguar, a thin-body guitar,” Wylde recalls [via Ultimate Guitar]. “And I said, ‘Wow, what are those pickups?’ ‘They’re called EMG’s, you’ve gotta put a battery in them.’ I was like, ‘Battery?’ I had PAFs; I had no idea in mine.”
As the guitarist explains, he immediately fell in love after plugging the guitar into his Marshall amp and playing a G chord: “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s what that amp was supposed to sound like,’” Wylde says. “I could hear all the highs, lows, mids. And the clarity – I could hear everything. Whereas on my guitar, what you hear was all muffled and just sounded like there was a film over it.”
“When you think about it, the pickup is your microphone. When you’re singing out of a $12,000 Telefunken mic in the studio, you can hear the clarity of that thing, compared to a little mic you buy for $100. For me, that’s why I’ve always used EMGs.”
He continues: “If you want to get [Robin] Trower sounds, or Hendrix, you need single coil pickups. There’s no right or wrong, but if you have something you like, that’s what you use.”
For Wylde, using EMGs across his collection also means that there isn’t a “best” or “favourite” guitar he relies on.
“There’s not a favourite guitar; I don’t have [one] where, if I don’t have this guitar, I can’t play. I should be able to put any guitar in my hand, and it should sound slammin’.”