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« on: August 23, 2015, 11:42:31 PM »
I'm looking to replace the stock pickups (PRS SE HFS bridge, SE Vintage Bass neck) on my PRS SE Floyd. GREAT guitar, especially for the money, and the pickups aren't terrible, but I do want to upgrade. It has a mahogany body (with maple top), and rosewood fingerboard. I definitely want to keep the tone fairly modern, since I already have a Les Paul and Stratocaster with vintage sounding pickups.
I want the lows to stay tight and articulate even with reasonably high gain, but I don't want extremely dark sounding pickups---the highs are important to me as well. I don't want "ice pick" highs, but neither do I want them to be so fat they lose their edge.The mids can make their presence known (as opposed to scooped), but not be overwhelming. I'd like for pinch and tapped harmonics to be relatively easy to find. Since I play a variety of genres, cleans are somewhat important too, both humbucker and split coil, but I don't expect them to sound like the '57 Classics in my Gibson when clean. I considered the PRS \m/ (metal), but I can't believe they're that much better than the others I'm considering to justify spending around $200 per pickup. I'm mainly looking at Dimarzio, and the pickups I'm most interested in so far are these: Illuminator (neck & bridge--I'm a HUGE John Petrucci fan, and I've heard that these do have PAF traits while sounding modern), Liquifire (neck), Transition (neck & bridge--someone else suggested these, but I'm not sure about the lows with high gain), Mo' Joe (bridge--I've heard the harmonics are great, but what about cleans?), and Steve Morse (bridge).
I'm also considering the following Seymour Duncans: Custom (TB-5 bridge), Jazz (neck--once again, not sure about the lows with high gain), and Sentient (neck--CLEANS?). I may even get a bridge PU from one brand and neck from the other. My 2 preamps are a Peavey Rock Master moded to sound like a hot-rodded Marshall JCM800, and a Mesa Boogie Studio Preamp (Mark IIC+ sounding), along with a Peavey VTX power amp. I also have too many pedals to mention here, but the Boogie is the extent of my available amp gain (although I can goose it with a clean boost), and Dream Theater-like tones are as heavy as I need. Hopefully I'm not asking for too much from one set of pickups. The overdriven tones are my main priority, but I'm obviously looking for versatility, including better cleans than the stock pickups provide. I would like to keep the suggestions primarily between these 2 brands. ANY help is appreciated, and the more detail the better. Thanks in advance!