Metal Guitar Players, What is your pickup of choice?

If you want to get into the boutique pickup department, then Motor City Pickups and Bare Knuckle Pickups are both great builders with any flavor you want. You have to be specific as to what type of metal. Uber heavy drop-tuned Killswitch Engage stuff, 80's hair metal, or modern metal Alice In Chains type tone. Im a passive pickup guy as opposed to active, (not knocking active, just my preference because of the feel and they tend to clean up alot better with volume knob). Passive pickup metal style offerings from Motor City are the Afwayu (Jerry Cantrell model, it's probably on 90% of the new AIC record for reference), the Solution or the Nasty Nasty. Wade is the owner and if you can get a hold of him, he is the most laid back and coolest guy to talk to. Really cares about his customers and will talk music with you for however long you want. I just got a pair of slightly overwound Detroiter's for my Les Paul and they are smoking. They are the most expressive and vocal pickups I've ever used. They are def more of the vintage type flavor but they will give your guitar a huge set of balls. Overkill "Electric Age" has this pickup all over it so it can def handle metal as well as classic rock. Bare Knuckle wise, the Nailbomb and Painkiller's are supposed to smoke. You could also go the Duncan way and get the Custom 5 or 11 or a simple JB.

Motor City Pickups

Duncan Jb/59 setup in an eclipse. Dimarzio crunchlab/liquifire in my allender. 81t/60 in the schector 7. 81 is the coil tapped one.

I think I lil the jb/59 setup the best, but I have heard the hetfield 16v pickups and they sound amazing. Far and away the best actives.

I have the 81/85 set in a early 90s mk ii ESP. I absolutely love this guitar, but my baby is my 77 Les Paul. I had it reloaded with Seymour Duncan distortion SH-6 and a SD jazz SH-2.

I'm using an ENGL Powerball 1 with so much gain though it doesn't really matter.

Shameless plug -if any of you are big metal heads near Charleston, my band is playing with Darkest Hour (meh, but they're huge) on June 5th. It'll be great.

A metal guitar has to sound like shite

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Ford

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I am looking to get some new aftermarket pickups in some of my other guitars, and was curious what other metal fans liked.

The EMGs are nice, but I really do like my Tone Zone.

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checking back on this thread, if you like the attack of the actives but want something with lower output, check out emg's new set of actives. the 57/66. they are meant for heavier guitars like les pauls and you can still get creamy tones with them.

57/66 demo
gibson tech playing country with 57/66