05/26/2026
“What EMG pickup combo should I run?”
We get this question almost DAILY at LHZ.
The truth? Tone is personal.
What sounds aggressive and punchy to one bassist might sound too harsh to another. What sounds smooth and balanced to one player might feel dull to someone else. Your playing style, touch, strings, tuning, amp, and even genre ALL change how you experience tone.
So instead of telling you what YOU should like… we’d rather let your ears decide.
Here's an excellent video from The Bass Channel and EMGtv. They perform a back-to-back playthrough of all the EMG soapbar pickup combinations. It’s just a single riff played through each pickup combination, which makes it easy to hear differences in tone and attack.
There are no chapter markers or index to each unique pickup pairing, so we created a handy-dandy table to make it easier to jump to the specific pickups YOU are comparing!
Even better? We created a handy reference table so you can quickly jump to the exact pickup combinations YOU want to compare.
https://lhzpreamps.com/compareemg/
Watch the video and compare the tones for yourself (link in comments).
