High output vs low output

[Pale Rider]

Actually the Miracle Man is going to be the pickup in the custom build I'm going to order once I have enough money for the order :P. From every clip/video I can hear it can give the deep/tuby low mid tone I want. Also master Tim said so.

[Roobubba]

It does that deep mid/low grunt thing like no other pickup! :)

[Pale Rider]

 PDT_015

[Nolly]

Interesting thread topic! In my opinion there isn't a single humbucker in the BKP range that can't "do" metal (and very few from the rest of the range that can't either), but you'd struggle to get a convincing classic blues rock tone from, say, a Miracle Man.

I feel like the Nailbomb is a good place to start if you currently use high-output ceramics and want to experiment. It has the old-school mid-heavy voicing, open top end and dynamic response you generally find in the vintage-hot range, but with a contemporary output.
As you decrease in output from there, the bottom end tightens up simply as a result of the lessening amount of power to reproduce the bass frequencies (the Stormy Monday is somewhat ferociously tight, despite the AII magnet). Something like the Black Dog or Riff Raff can sound every bit as raucous as the most brutal of the contemporaries, and the leaner low end is a godsend for metal players who layer up many rhythm guitar tracks - you can keep adding tracks almost ad infinitum without the bottom end flubbing out.

Any ideas what the Emerald would sound like in the bridge of a maple thru-neck with alder body wings? The clips I've heard sound fantastic but they're invariably in a Les Paul. I love the sound of a Les Paul (Slash, Gary Moore, John Sykes) but I just don't like playing them.

Somewhat bright! The Emeralds are aimed squarely at 70s rock tone - lots of treble, decent midrange but quite little bottom end beneath it.
The Crawler would definitely give you a slice of classic-voiced pie to try out. It's a warm and full sound that will help approximate the LP sounds you're quoting.
Holy Diver is definitely warm and fat, but much more of a hard rock/hair metal voicing IMO, not the classic open sound you're seemingly intrigued to try out.

[Doadman]

I was afraid the Emerald would be bright in my guitar! The clips sound fantastic with a lovely rich tone and very tight bass but it was always a concern that it wouldn't perform in the same way in my guitar. Your description certainly suggests it won't.

It's a knotty problem as I really have a foot in both camps. My desire for a highly articulate pickup with very tight bass response obviously suggests a ceramic and in that, the Miracle Man would be ideal but if I consider all the guitar tones I really like, it always seems like more of a vintage hot tone, albeit with more distortion. At the moment I usually use a Hardwire Metal Distortion pedal through the clean channel of my amp with the gain set at about 12. If I need a heavier tone than that I use an MXR Super Compressor with the sensitivity and output almost maxed out and the attack almost at zero. My current bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan JB. That should give you some idea of how heavy I go but as I'm in a covers band, not all the songs use that much saturation. I think in our current set I play 'Children of the Sea', 'Underdog', Ace of Spades', 'Doctor Doctor', 'Jailbreak' and 'Whisky in the Jar' using those settings. Certainly the two Thin Lizzy songs need 'chug' as I play them far more like Metallica than Thin Lizzy. Whatever pickup I end up getting it needs to stay tight at that kind of distortion but also have a rich and organic tone with fat, open leads. When I play the JB or listen to clips of things like the Miracle Man I always feel like it's got great articulation but the tone is a little two dimensional and sterile, not like the warm and rich distortion you get from a heavily overdriven Les Paul.

In my last guitar (Ibanez RGT42) I used Cold Sweats and they certainly gave it a far more Les Paul type tone but I think they'd be too bright in the Soloist. It's also very difficult to tell based on clips. When I listen to clips of a Holy Diver it always sounds a bit flubby at the bottom, unlike the Emerald clips that always sound super tight, yet I've read enough threads to know that's not so. The Crawler sounds like it has potential and I can't make my mind up about the Nailbomb at all.

[Nolly]

If you're running a compressor on your rhythm sounds you can get away with a really very low output pickup.
I think a Black Dog would be an interesting pickup for you to try - it's very tight and defined, and really snarls and roars under gain. It'd be a rather pleasant experience for you, I imagine.   :)

[Telerocker]

I think the Crawler is certainly in the range you're looking for, as is the Black Dog, like Nolly suggests. Maybe I am wrong, but what about Mules for Thin Lizzy-sounds?