Ye Olde "Help me choose pickups" Thread (SG Standard)

[Defi]

Howdly doodly. Just picked up an SG standard, love the guitar, definitely changing the pickups.

Music I play: Progressive black metal. I don't use lots of gain most of the time. I'll cut to the chase and post some clips of tones I love rather than attempting to use words:

Deathspell Omega - Abscission (high quality) <-- these guys have my favorite guitar tone of all time I WANT TO COPY THEM BAAHAHAHA

Nightbringer - The Gnosis of Inhumation  <-- need to cover ground like this as well

BLUT AUS NORD - Epitome IV <-- being able to pull something like this off would be bonus too


What I want:
NOW it's time for words. The kind of music I write focuses usually on using all the strings as opposed to single note riffing and power chord chugs, leads, what have you. I like to write music with just one guitar track because to me that encourages unique guitar playing as opposed to the standard rhythm/lead roles. But this involves a different approach to tone. I use small chord shapes, ringing open strings, stuff n things. I don't know how to describe it better than to listen to deathspell omega. It has been the challenge of my guitar tone quest to achieve this balance. It needs to sound "hot" without sounding "fizzy," clear without sounding weak, present without sounding shrill, aggressive without sounding... shrill. Bass I'm not worried about, I've never played a guitar where I couldn't handle the bass with EQ adjustments.


Here are my complaints with my SG in its current form:
-Too shrill. Any time I dial in distortion the high strings are buzzy, I can't seem to get a smooth sound. I WANT "buzzsaw" for my low strings, but I want to be able to avoid it for high strings. Perhaps the mid focus is too high?
-A bit too "robotic" or "metallic," as opposed to "woody" and "organic"
-Neck pickup too "jangly"
-Feels a bit empty in the midrange or something?

Past positive experiences with pickups:
-ESP Horizon NT-II (maple neck through, ebony board) with alnico nailbombs. LOVED IT. The bridge pickup anyway. Wasn't too crazy about the neck ppickup as it seemed thin and bitey and not quite as smooth as I want. But the nailbomb bridge was ACE in here. Basically got everything I was after, but it DID lack a bit of body (But I'm thinking that might have been the maple/ebony construction)
-PRS custom 24 w/ stock pickups. I loved the way this guitar sounded. But it was a bit cold.
Sadly both these guitars are sold now

What BKP said themselves:
I emailed BKP and they suggested alnico nailbombs (again). However as I peruse these forums it seems the standard suggestion for an SG is to go low or high output and correct me if I'm wrong but the nailbomb is more mid output? This is what lead me to ask around here.

Also: I intend to replace the electronics in the guitar with an RS guitarworks kit, just not sure which one yet.

Cliff notes: Loved nailbombs in past, BKP suggested nailbombs again, unsure if these pickups are a good fit for the SG, tones are hard to describe with words.

Thank each and every one of you so very much

[Telerocker]

I was thinking alnico Nailbomb too. Pick a Cold Sweat-neck, it's hotter and more fluid then the NB-neck. A VHII-neck might do too.

[Defi]

It will take me a bit to be swayed from the nailbomb bridge given BKP's recommendation and my love for it in the other guitar, but I was also thinking about the cold sweat neck as well... This is a good idea.

I HATE sweep picking and shreddery neck tones however. Perhaps it's just ill association and it's the tomfoolery and not the tone that is bothering. It's totally lifeless sine wave sounding to me. I used to be into that sort of stuff and I used a dimarzio PAF Pro and although I loved it back then I'm quite sure I wouldn't love it so much now.

For the neck it would be nice to have something that handled cleans very well. I ask this every time but 90% of the time I play anything I end up using the bridge pickup anyway. Maybe I just don't know how to use it properly but neck pickups are always too bassy, boomy, muddy. The nailbomb neck had something going on in the sense it wasn't too much of the aforementioned problems, but was still missing something.

edit: the BKP team said second choice recommendations were holydivers

[BigB]

Not yet listened to the links you posted but as a first quick answer: the ABomb bridge sounds great in my '80 SG standard, and it's definitly NOT lacking in the "body" department. A going-thru maple neck is a very different beast and while very interesting for it's very rich harmonic contents it doesn't have the low-mids weight you get from a good mahogany plank.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

No doubt a NB.

[Defi]

K let's move on to the neck then shall we?

Nailbomb, VHII, Cold Sweat, Holydiver? That's kind of in my order of preference at this point.