Just can't decide on pickups and need help

I have the Epi Standard LP with mahagony body. Looking serious at the DiMarzio's for the PAF Joe in the neck and the the Fred in the bridge. I am no pro but just enjoy heck out of playing rock, hard rock, some metal like Metallica, Enter Sandman stuff. My amp is the Vox AD100VT-XL and my pedal board is the DigiTech RP350. I'm just looking for less mud and more growl and crunch. It has the Gibson 57 and 57 plus in it right now. A very bad choice for my first pickup swap. Secondaly I'm looking at the SD Livewire Dave Mustaine active pickup set. Since I'm still new at this game of looking for that dream combination. Is the active pickup worth the extra money if your ready to spend for new ones anyway? Last big question. The pot game!? My Epi has 500k pots in it. Why do all the active pickups I look at come with 25k pots, some with 100k? It seems silly to me. Appreciate any help you can throw my way. I love all my gear and owning 2-3-4 guitars would be the perfect solution but unafordable.

For what it's worth... I'm not a les paul guy. Would like to have one some day, but my guitars are strat based.

As I understand it, most les pauls (and I'm assuming clones) are going to mahogany with a maple top. Mahogany from what I hear seems to be a warm wood. Will probably accent and bring out more lower range frequencies.

If you are having trouble with mud, I'd look for a pup that has less lower frequency output and more mid/upper range frequencies. I'm thinking that might help balance out the frequency band.

I know that I put a Duncan JB into an alder body and it really sounds great. Has nice high frequency response and great mids. But again, thats a strat.

Have you visited the Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan forums?

Oh and welcome to tone chasing. It can get maddening. :D

I have a Schecter C! plus and had some Designed by Duncan pups. I was going to get a strat to get rid of the muddy sound. The salesman talked to me about it and suggested some P-rails from seymour duncan. I absolutely love them. I would highly reccommend you give them a listen. You can get just about any tone you want out of them. Let us know what you decide on.

I have a pair of 1984 Yamaha SBG1000 guitars that I have put DiMarzio pups in. The guitars are all mahogany, except for the maple tops. Picture an LP with cutaways on both sides of the neck.

The stock pups sounded good, but I wanted a bit more output, so I put a DiMarzio SCHB (DP-106) at the neck, and a Dual Sound (DP-101) at the bridge. Classic Rock sound. Not muddy at all, but definitely 'thick', classic, humbucker tone.

I like this axe so much, that a few years ago I bought another one just like it on eBay. Same story with the stock pups. They actually sound better than what Gibson was offering in 1984, but I wanted this axe to have a little more 'bite' than stock, or the other modified SBG1000. I settled on a PAF Pro at the neck, and a Tone Zone at the bridge. No 'mud' on this axe, at all! Very distinct separation of the notes in a chord, very sensitive to pick attack, mid-rangey bite when clean, and chords don't blurr when the amp is being pushed hard. Expressive. Nowhere to hide if you get sloppy, but just the thing to bring out your best if you're on your game.

Pots: Humbuckers need fairly high values, or the treble gets lost. 500k or 1 Meg for the Volume pot, and 1 Meg for the Tone pot.

Active pups have a preamp built in to the guitar, so the control values don't affect the tone as much. 25k and 100k are readily available. The high values needed for passive pickups (500k & 1 Meg for HB; 250k for single-coil) are not used in most transistor-based equipment. Low volume demand means that the manufacturers don't make a lot of them.

I am going through this right now. I acquired a beautiful Epi LP flame-top with Lace Sensors. A nice clean thin sound, but no LP growl. I had a set of Dimarzio PAF Pros kicking around, so I swapped them in. Not much of a difference in tone, but there is more punch due to the hotter winding. I was rather dissapointed not finding much tonal diffences between bridge and neck. In fact both my amps (tube & SS) have to have the treble turned way down. Where is that typical mellow LP tone?

I am thinking that the issues lies within the caps. Not sure what in there now, but they appear to be plain stock. I read that many people raving over Bumblebee caps, so I ordered a set of .022's. They claim to have a woodier tone.

I had the same problem with my Jackson stock pickups. They were too muddy sounding so I went on a hunt. :D I ended up getting a pair of EMG 81/60 pickups (81/ bridge, 60/neck) and ought to say these are really great pickups.
Not sure if your into the active pickups or not, but these bad boys got rid of the muddy tone right away. Great sound, gives that nice Metallica palm mute chug that you always hear and KILLER for hard rock tones. It can nail cleans like a pro too.
I had been searching for the illusive "master of Puppets" clean tone for a looooooong while. I've spent literally hours in front of the amp and CD player trying to get the tone, but always was a little off or it sounded too deep. I threw the EMG's in there, and a couple minutes later had the clean tone I was looking for. (WOOT! XD)

Just finished doing this with my Epi LP. Put PAF Joe in the neck and Air Norton in the bridge. I can't stop playing ther guitar now. It was the perfect set up for hard rock heavy metal. Go with your tastes but I couldn't ask for a better set up with my LP right now.

The Seymour Duncan Phat Cats are a really nice pickup if you want a sharper sound that still has some balls. They are humbucker sized single coils that are made to drop right in you old HB holes. I put a pair in a 335 style and love them. Cleaner sound but not whimpy.

i used burstbuckers and i like them. i sourced them used on craig's list so i didn't spend a ton of money.