The Het Set sounds more open to me, and offers lot more potential. I have the ZW Set right now, and look forward to receiving my Het Set in the mail very soon.
@@ToroKchannel it's probably almost as hot as an ahb-2b but the zw set is just an 81/85 pair with two volume/tone knobs all four being long-shaft but they're never officially sold as a set without a guitar except the kerry king version which has less pots but a gain boost
Yeah I don't get the hate on harley benton guitars, they make for great cheap back up / mod project guitars. I actually ordered this exact one in the video, waiting for it to be in stock (left handed guitars are never in stock)
Finally. The review that actually shows how the pickups preform. Chugging. This is the first review I’ve seen with every necessary form of playing. Thank you.
I'm not a huge fan of Zack Wylde either and those pickups already existed before he became famous. He just personifies them :) And yes the Het Set is excellent , one of my fav EMG set.
The HetSet is a bit tighter and punchy with slightly less high freq. This allows power chords to produce a sound which keeps each frequency in its own lane allowing for less dissonant warble. The HetSet is much less noisey in between notes. In clean mode, both the ZW and HET sound like 2 year old strings played thru a compressor with a low battery. Lots of variables could cause this that have nothing to do with the pickups themselves.
For the clean sound, in order to get the most pure sound out of the pups, I have plugged the guitar straight into my soundcard and just used a cab sim. It results in a sound that's close to an accoustic amp. But I admit it was probably not the best choice.
With the EMG Het Set, I found it sounded quite compressed similar to this video. SOLVED this issue by simply lowering the pickups. I turned each screw 1 full turn to lower them. . Suddenly the clouds lifted, and she came alive. I could hear the passive characteristics that this set is intended for. All the nasty compression issue was corrected, and I stopped clipping everything I plugged into. Lol. These pups are so powerfull, they will chug you, if you don't brace yourself They still aren't quite on par with passive, but they are as close as I've heard. Fishman has a new technology and a new set alleged to employ magic and sorcery to achieve a passive authenticity unseen thusfar, but I haven't played them. This Het-Set can sound like total shit, or be the best active set you have ever heard or felt and It all comes down to pickup height. If anybody is using a modeler you may hafta adjust your input sensitivity as well.
I have and use both 81 and JH, the 57 even. The thing is you have to lower the JH from the strings a tad to really make it shine. You also have to lower the bass frequency to really clear it up. It will roar! And you don't need a ton of distortion from the amp. Just an awesome pickup. The 81 has it's place for sure. Side note, I also have 5 guitars loaded with Fishman moderns. They are a different beast, approaching them like a normal pickup is not advised. They sound absolutely killer! You have to add more bass and cut down the highs between 8000 to 10000 hrz range, whether it be in the IR cab or parametric EQ. Be warned, the JH will expose any hand deficiencies and if you go to Fishman its absolutely unforgiving FYI. I love the fishmens and the JH equally. For straight feel, Fishman's hands down!
I really need to review a guitar with Fishman. I've tried them twice, each time in a guitar shop, playing on amps that I didn't know and I was really disappointed. But I'm sure they would sound good with my current rig, so, well, I just have to decide which guitar I'm gonna review. I'm torn betwenen a Cort KX 500 and an Dean Exile in black satin.
I think that ceramic pickups will always sound better dirty but alnico are always better at the all around game. I've never had a ceramic that had a clean sound that I really gravitated towards.
They both sound great. Can't go wrong with either. I bought a guitar with some bareknuckle ragnarok pickups and I'm just not happy with them for fast riffing. The ragnarok pickups are more suited to like djent riffs or doom metal or something. Bottom end is way to big and fat. Need something tighter. I'll probably go with the emg ZW
My thought about the Het Set - that I love btw : super wild bridge PU with more bite than the 81 and some lower mids, and the neck pickup is like a 60 on steroids :) I think that among all the EMG sets I have, the Het Set has the biggest output level.
Het Set a little bit warmy IMO and more punchy. Harley Benton sounds great with both sets even though kits cost like a guitar itself. How easy to replace stock pickups on that HB? No need to change other electronics?
changing pickups on this guitar is easy : unplug the current ones, plus the new ones in and that's it. The longest part of the process consists in loosing the strings then tune the guitar :)
I have the same a Harley Benton sc custom active. Been looking at both these sets, can't really make up my mind. Which one did you prefer? And was it a big upgrade from the Roswell pups? I was going to go for the ZW but the JH sound great too, so now I don't know
This one is a SC-1000, it looks like the sc custom active but it’s not the exact same. I have installed some 81/60 and yes it’s definitely a big upgrade with more precision, more bite and a more balanced sound. I have installed the Het Set in another axe (dean C450) cos I find this set sounds better in this axe. But if I had to chose, really I wouldn’t know which one to keep, both are great !
