EMG H1 Passive Electric Guitar Humbucker Pickup Neck

I found a set of two of these. I jumped on the deal although I had heard that passive EMGs suck. Quite the contrary. With the original epi pickups, I could get a crunchy, lightly distorted tone no problem. But crank up the gain for metal and be prepared to face some serious feedback/screeching, even while playing. With the EMGs, I can push the gain so high and only have to deal with normal feedback when not muting the strings. The distortion sounds very aggressive with a lot of growl and bite to it, but its still so clear that you can hear the pick digging into the strings. And you'd better practice a lot more with these pickups, because your mistakes will be much more obvious and your good technique will sound better than ever. Another thing I like about these pickups is that they are highly responsive to the volume and tone knobs. When practicing with the school blues band, things get LOUD. Playing on the clean channel of s shrimpy 25 wt kustom, I cranked that amp's volume nearly all the way up. With my guitar's volume around 5-6, I got a clean rhythm sound, but turning it all the way up gave a distorted bluesy sound. Adjusting the tone knob was actually useful, and I found that the tone knobs don't always need to be all the up to get the best sound for the situation. A few days later I got another set for my Bronze series Warlock ... now that guitar sounds better too. And the pickups are also responsive to the type of guitar ... the epi SG sounds like an SG, very bluesy but very metal at the same time. The Warlock is just straight-up metal, super heavy. Bottom line: these pickups will enhance your guitar's unique sound but also add clarity and sting. If you're looking for hotter pickups, look no further.