This review covers the EMG Alexi Laiho Signature Pickup Set. For those who don't know, Alexi Laiho is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the melodic metal band Children of Bodom. The set includes a surprising amount of stuff in the box. You get a single EMG ALX pickup, which is a hybrid of active and passive. You also get all wires needed for several different installation configurations. Also included are the ABQ push-pull volume control with equalizer and booster on board, an EMG tone pot, and an EMG control bus used for installing multiple pickups. As a bonus, you also get an EMG/Children of Bodom wrist band (for wiping sweat away while playing), and EMG sticker, and several different wiring diagrams.
Above is the pickup installed in my Epiphone Custom Shop Les Paul Special II Plus Top. It goes in the bridge position, and due to the ABQ push-pull volume control, it can make a surprising amount of tones all by itself. It's tone is a thing of beauty. With no changes to my equalizer settings on my amp or distortion pedal, it was able to create everything from smooth distinctive clean tones to bright and shimmering cleans and punchy powerful distorted rhythms to screaming boosted leads. String definition and clarity are superb. The pickup is very sensitive and conveys your picking style and your left hand style very clearly. There is literally nothing about this pickup that I don't like.
In the picture above, you can see that I might have picked a better guitar to install it in. The cavity in the back of the body has absolutely no room for any additional wiring or controls. The one control you can see is the ABQ active EQ and push-pull booster. The equalizer on the ABQ is adjustable so that when it is pushed in (turned on), it boosts both a specific frequency band and the volume output of the pickup. The amount of boost is adjustable from +0dB to +20dB with +10dB being the default setting. With all of these options available in a single pickup, there really is no need for a second. The pickup you see in the neck position in the picture above is not hooked up to anything and is the stock Epiphone 690 neck pickup.
I love everything about this pickup, and when I get around to building a custom guitar, this will be the only pickup I need. I do look forward to trying at some point in the future the new EMG JH James Hetfield Signature Set, but for now, I am absolutely thrilled with what the EMG ALX Alexi Laiho Pickup.
