Pickup Advice

[Doadman]

The guitar is a Jackson SL3 Soloist going through a Marshall JVM 410 and Marshall 1960A 4X12. I play in a Rock covers band so I need some versatility but generally I like to use quite a bit of distortion. At the moment it has a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and Hotrails in the neck and middle positions. These pickups are good but they’re not as good as I’d like. My last guitar used Bareknuckle pickups (Cold Sweats) and they were far superior. At the moment I'm thinking of either another 'Cold Sweat' or a 'Miracle Man' for the bridge but I may be wrong in this. There is more of an issue with the neck and middle pickups as I’m really not a fan of 60-cycle hum and BKP don't seem to do hum-cancelling single coil sized pups. My initial thought was Trilogy Suites but I may need to go to somewhere like DiMarzio for these to get hum-cancelling options, in which case, what would work best to go with a Bareknuckle bridge pickup? Anyway, here's what I'm after:
 
Bridge humbucker
I use this pickup most of the time for both rhythm and lead. It will be used with quite a bit of distortion on songs ranging from Free to Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. In each case I use more distortion than on the original songs. I like the sound to be highly articulate as I can’t abide muddiness at all in my tone. The distortions should be smooth and have a rich and organic tone. This isn’t easy as a highly articulated sound is often quite sterile (I hate active EMG pickups for that reason) while a richer and more organic tone suggests something more vintage and that often doesn’t have the balls I’m looking for. Other than my BKP 'Cold Sweats', the only decent pickup I've ever owned is a DiMarzio Super Distortion in a Fender Stratocaster. It was very good but it was a number of years ago and obviously wasn’t a thru-neck. Something else may suit me better now, I don’t know.
 
Neck single coil size
As I don’t like having 60 cycle hum I imagine this will need to be a single coil sized humbucker. I use this pickup for some rhythm when I need a cleaner, more ‘acoustic’ type sound, such as when we play Steve Harley’s ‘Make Me Smile’ but it’s main function will be for lead playing. Once again, I don’t want mush. Lots of neck pickups sound great on the really high notes but as soon as I move to strings 4, 5 and 6 they start to go more mushy. The Seymour Duncan Hotrails do this, which is why I want to change them. It needs to be articulate across all strings and give a searing lead tone that is warm and creamy. Ironic as it may seem, seeing as he uses Seymour Duncan Hotrails, think of the lead playing of Dave Murray in Iron Maiden. That’s what I’m after.
 
Middle single coil size
I’m less fussy on this one as it’s never used by itself. I only use this pickup to give a slightly different feel to either the neck or bridge pickups. It’s either taking the edge off the bridge pickup a little or giving a touch more bite to the neck. As with the other pickups, it should not give out any mush.

Many thanks for any suggestions

[FELINEGUITARS]

I love Miracle Man pickups in a neck thru Jackson , although the Cold Sweat will work just great

If you need humcancelling on the singles then I would heartily recommend the Dimarzio Virtual Vintage range
The Area 61 would work well IMO

[Doadman]

Thanks for that. Since I started this thread I've been trying to do a lot of research to narrow down the choices so here's my thinking so far.

Bridge
Research on this forum suggests that for neck-thru Maple Jacksons, support is overwhelmingly behind the Miracle Man pickup so that is probably the way I'll go. It's bloody hard for me to think of an alternative bridge pup as I love Bareknuckles so much but I do keep coming back to the DiMarzio Super Distortion. This is partly because I've heard the Evo can be a bit sterile and partly because I'm used to using ceramics, which puts me off the Tone Zone. I've also had a Super Distortion before so it's something of a known quantity and I am a big fan of Adrian Smith as a guitarist and he's sworn by Super Distortions for years. But of course, it's not a Bareknuckle!

Neck
This would be so much easier if BKP did something for me and I am tempted to go with Trilogy Suites but hum-cancelling seems such a logical choice instead. When I look at the DiMarzio website the one that always seems to stand out is the Air Norton S. It has a solid reputation and sounds like it will do the sort of thing I want. The fact that I am also a fan of John Petrucci helps. Other DiMarzio options I've been looking at are the HS-4, BC-1 and Heavy Blues. Thinking of Adrian Smith, the other option I've been toying with is Fender pickups. I understand he uses Hot Samarium Cobalt Noiseless but looking at Fender pickups online I'm unclear exactly which option he uses. They seem to do a 'Hot Noiseless' and a 'Samarium Cobalt Noiseless' but I don't see a 'Hot Samarium Cobalt Noiseless' listed anywhere! I don't suppose anyone knows? The Strat I had with a Super Distortion in the bridge was a Ritchie Sambora model and that used Fender pickups in the neck and middle positions very effectively indeed, though I can't recall which models they were.

Middle
As the Air Norton S has a distinctly humbucker-like feel to it, I thought that perhaps the middle pickup should have a more traditionally Strat-like feel to it. The one I'm leaning to most at the moment is the Heavy Blues but loads more seem to be capable of putting me in the ballpark, like the Chopper, Virtual Solo and Area 58, 61 or 67. As with the neck pickup, Fender Noiseless are also possible.

I think I'm making progress in choosing pickups but any more advice, opinions or suggestions would be very gratefully received. I wonder why Tim doesn't do noiseless/hum-cancelling single coil sized pickups?