Pickup that would do from ambient music to nasty metal

[usefulalgorithm]

Hi, I'm currently planning to change the pickups on my 94 Gibson LP Standard. I play in three bands right now: one is more like a Smashing Pumpkins leaning towards the softs side; another one is like a mathy rock band (not the Don Caballero/ Battles math but more like toe/ te kind of stuff), and the last one is a progressive metal aiming for the Tool sound.
I'm not sure about the pickups I have right now, my guess is that they are stock Gibson pickups. They sound rather dry and too middy. I was really intrigued by the Miracle Man set, but I have zero hands-on experience with these so I'm really not sure about anything. I'm looking for a combination that would allow me to get some heavy tones like the more brutal passages in Russian Circles' stuff, but also enables me to get some really nice cleans.
Thanks!

[Gary_Goo]

Mike from Russian Circles uses the Miracle Man in his Les Paul Custom, so you'd be somewhere near for those tones. Not sure how versatile the MM is with regard to cleaner/softer rock though, with it being a hot high gain pickup. There's always a compromise somewhere when you want one guitar to cover a wide spectrum of styles though.

[darkbluemurder]

The Miracle Man sure covers heavy. For clean tones it would not be my first choice. I have a guitar with only the Miracle Man in the bridge but I can run it as single coil if I want cleaner sounds, and that is what I recommend.

Cheers Stephan 

[Slartibartfarst42]

I'd say the Miracle Man could do it but you'd always have a slightly modern/Metal feel to it. You could try the Holydiver. With a boost pedal that can cover an extremely wide range of styles.

[ericsabbath]

the miracle man does some great clean tones
it's slightly scooped upper mids and toppy high end actually helps with the cleans
don't worry about that

[EffigyForgotten]

Since the bands he mentioned were from the 90's (TOOL?), the Nailbomb should be what you want.

[usefulalgorithm]

Thanks for the reply guys! I really need every suggestion I can get because acquiring a pair of BKP costs about the same as getting a secondhand Ibanez RG, gotta spend wisely...
 
Anyway the things I play don't really require that chuggy djent sound that many people (at least in my country) consider to be BKP's main usage. It's more like I'm looking for a pickup that would allow me to get really nice clean tones without the overemphasized mids. As for drives I'm going after the sound like Tool or Russian Circles, the sound that leans a little bit to the fuzz side in contrast to the high tech sound in the vein of Meshuggah/Periphery. I'm looking for a combination that would allow me to get clear, defined yet complex clean tones. As for drives I guess I'll stick to pedals to get the sounds that I'm looking after.

I see that many people on this board don't really recommend MMs for cleans. I thought MMs are not that high gain comparing to Nailbomb and Coldweat (that's what the guy at the guitar workshop told me...), but it seems like this is still debatable...?

I currently use a OCD v4 as my main dirt and I add a Fetto in front of it to add more gain when needed. For amps I'd use the Sunn Solarus I just got, which is a clean-only amp.

Thanks again!

[ericsabbath]

no bkp is "high gain"
all models sound pretty clear and won't distort the tone by itself like a gibson dirty fingers or dimarzio x2n
the MM has a pretty close output to both nailbomb and cold sweat, in my experience

my bandmate has a miracle man in a prs mccarty and he gets better cleans than I do with the riff raff in my les paul custom
and he doesn't even have a clean channel

[Slartibartfarst42]

This may sound REALLY stupid but for a very versatile set you could even look at an Abraxas set. I've heard HTH Amps do everything with an Abraxas set from Blues to Metal and it seems to do it all surprisingly well.

[MDV]

Mike from Russian Circles uses the Miracle Man in his Les Paul Custom, so you'd be somewhere near for those tones. Not sure how versatile the MM is with regard to cleaner/softer rock though, with it being a hot high gain pickup. There's always a compromise somewhere when you want one guitar to cover a wide spectrum of styles though.

A: I would never in a majiblion years called that before I knew it.

B: He only uses the MM for heavy parts when recording.

Might use it live. Probably does. They have a lot of songs that have a wide spectrum of tones in them.

[ericsabbath]

he has cold sweats in the doublecut les paul, so still close enough

[carlaz]

This may sound REALLY stupid but for a very versatile set you could even look at an Abraxas set. I've heard HTH Amps do everything with an Abraxas set from Blues to Metal and it seems to do it all surprisingly well.

Crawlers (not dissimilar to the Abraxas, but with more mids) might also work. I was specifically looking for something that would suit a range of styles, and Tim recommended Crawlers. I've had no reason to doubt the recommendation since then!  :)