Lead and Loud!

Let's say that you want to get a sharp sound like Van hallen or Paul Gilbert, you really want that everybody can hear you, because the ingeneer is never the same you have to adjust the volume output of your pedal or decrease the output of you amplifier or vice-versa, you have to make a micromanagement of all of your volumes, it's long and it's
annoying. When you finally hear that the difference come from the pick up himself, it really changes A lot.
It happened a lot during the soundcheck, when I have to check my whole stuff from A to Z.
I talk about this because in my last band before, there was a second guitar player who was always adjusting his pedals for a Moment and worry about having a loud sound with so many effects.. But the people usually didn't expect that someone was playing during the solo when he was actually playing… Funny enough, He was a bit frustrated when we told him that almost nobody heard his solo, well I found it funny because it happened to me to.

So if you put for exemple a little cheap Squier stratocaster model US, that you plug in a MesaBoogie Dual Rectifier full tube (expensive amplifier). The sound is amazing because of the amplifier, the simple cheap little pick up of the Squier are good but, you're still gonna get these disturbing noises and Larsens and this "Low" sound. After thinking about seriously changing pickups on one of my guitar I found a really good combination of two really amazing Pick ups :

-the Tone Zone (from Dimarzio)
-the Chopper (from Dimarzio)

These two pick ups have the same Output and have good "Contrast" combined together, it's really like the Laurel and Hardy of the Pick up. You can check the picture below :

*picture

It's funny because this guitar is a Vigier excalibur signature model of a crazy guitar player called Christophe Godin, I recommend to check this out, his style is rock/jazzy, pretty complicated to play, but funny and classy.

Anywany, as you see, the Tone Zone is a Humbucker, he's placed on the Bridge position, for a really sharp sound, this pick up has High-Output volume, he make a very Warm metal sound, he's a very accurate and Loud, for me it's one the best pick up for Rock/metal sound, I use it on my Ibanez.

the Chopper, placed in the Neck position, can have a more larger palette of sound. It's very good for funk and Jazz with a little adjustement of the tone knob. The volume of his Output is also very High, that's why you have to make sure to get the Same level of output with the other pick up, it's important.
This pick up is also on my Ibanez, it rocks as well! 

It's your turn to rock, peace!