EMG 40's?
 

I'm thinking of switching out my 40 HZ's and am wondering which 40 housed pups will work with the EMG B64 active eq? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Man.. you kinda have a lot of choices to work with. The DC's will be modern, lots of lows and highs. The CS will be a bit tamer, then you have the J and P series which have their own vibes, or my personal favorite... the 40TWX with the ability to go from dual coil to single coil mode (yet always noise free).

Awesome!!! Thank you. I've got some weeding out to do. I play a kinda sorta prog rock/metal. I need aggressive growl and clear highs for tapping and harmonics. Time to hit youtube.

I use a 40TWx in the bridge with a 40JX in the neck, and I find it a very versatile and functional.

The 40DC might give you more of the growl and clear highs you're looking for, but I find that the 40TWx in single-coil mode is very clear and present. It'll depend on the exact frequency response you're looking for, but either way I think you'll get something usable.

I'm not sure of the compatibility with that EQ circuit, I can't seem to find any relevant information on that.

I don't think that it is sold outright. ESP uses it quite a bit, though. I'm pretty sure that it'll work with the DC's. I'm still not sure what I'm going with. I just know that I'm not quite happy with the HZ's.

You're switching to something with a lower output impedance, if you go active, or an equivalent output impedance with other passives. Assuming that a preamp is not meant to interact with the impedance of a pickup coil in some special way (EMG preamps are not.), the only consequence of changing output impedances is that the input impedance can start to get too high or low for the signal, if you're at the extremes of a usable range. Excessively high input impedances create more thermal noise, and excessively low input impedances load on the pickups. 1M Ohms is generally accepted as the standard for all passive pickup coils. EMG preamps are known to have lower input impedance specs than that, presumably to reduce thermal noise. I've seen some at 500k. That works wonderfully for active pickups, and provides a bit more resistive loading to reduce highs on the average passive pickup.

I was pondering the same last year (this is a really common upgrade it seems). I ended up emailing EMG and they were really helpful, and pointed me to bestbassgear.com who were super helpful and explained a lot to me. Maybe drop them a line.

Another factor is the X-series factor. Getting the EMG X-series pickups might sound better, but requires a different pot.

the 40 p/j or DC's get my vote

Do DC's have the darker growling lows?

dc's are a little darker / fuller with a different high end from the P/J. the p/j is the growlier of the setups. the DC's sound smoother / more hifi than the P/J imo. I havent tried the TWX's myself, but almost none of the spector guys like them and usually swap them out. the lows and naisly mids from the P + the bite from the J are what growl best for me.

Right on. I definitely want a fuller sound than the HZ's have. They sound a little hollow to me. I run pretty mid heavy on things. My B already cuts amazingly, though. It also growls like junk yard dog. I also run an overdriven sound most of the time, not distorted though.