Your advice for Gibson SG standard pickup replacement for metal ?

[ericsabbath]

What do you exactly mean by "grinding" sounding ?

Eric says the aftermath sourds more grinding and ToeKnee says the miracle man sounds more grinding... It got me confused...

the miracle man has some grind on the low mids, but the center and upper mids are quite cleanish
the aftermath is definitely more hairy and aggressive on the mids

[Miek]

Tim doesn't recommend mid output alnico models for SG's
I didn't listen to him and installed a holy diver that I had in 3 les pauls
it was absolutely great in all 3 different sounding les pauls, but it was dark, muffled and dead sounding on the sg, although it retained the lead tone qualities

Im quite surprised that there was such a dramatic difference between the Les Pauls and the SG. The specs of both guitars are generally pretty close, is the tonal difference basically down to the maple top?

The SG's thinness and neck joint cause it to have a significantly different kind of resonance, and that will affect the tone. Even on an all mahogany LP, an SG would still sound really different.

[ericsabbath]

I believe the body mass and shape makes more difference than the top wood by itself
one of the les pauls had a brazilian imbuya top, which is quite dark and not much of a resonant wood, and the diver sounded great on that guitar
SGs have a very peculiar tone, different from les pauls and from mahogany superstrats as well
the resonance thing on the neck the joint area is very noticeable unplugged, even on suspicious cheap wood epiphones, so it must be a construction tone character

[BigB]

Im quite surprised that there was such a dramatic difference between the Les Pauls and the SG. The specs of both guitars are generally pretty close, is the tonal difference basically down to the maple top?

The specs are actually not _that_ close. Yes, there's the maple top and it make quite a big difference by itself, but there's also the shape, mass, thickness etc... In fact there are more differences between a LP and a SG than between a Strat and a Tele, and the difference between a Strat and Tele is not only about bridge and pups.

And, well.... My own experience with SGs is that it's a very "emotionally disturbed", unpredictable kind of guitar :lol:. It usually seems works fine with 1/ brighter low output pups, 2/ P90, and 3/ very high, preferably ceramic pups. Anything else is really a "hit or miss" affair, and really depends on the exact guitar and pup. Now don't ask me why - I've tried brighter SGs that did sound muddy with mid/hi output alnico pups, I don't understand why mine doesn't react the same way (but I'm glad it does)...