software

looking for new pickup combo. thinkin either emg 85[brigde] and emg60[neck] or seymour duncn custom/59 combo or a dimarzio paf pro and paf joe combo. for playing any kinda of rock from cream to nirvana to 80's hair metal and led zepplin. to clean rock as well. so i need good distortion tones and good clean tones from this combo. any imput is appreciated

replace the emg 85 with an89 and you should have all bases covered. Everything from ultra-clean jazz to bone-rattling metal and the ability to split the 89 into a singlecoil SA. Great combo if you ask me.

although I'm mainly an emg user, in your case I would recommend the custom/59
set-up.I use seymour duncan pick-ups for anything other than for super saturated
tones. The bands and tones you described were created using passive pick-ups not
active ones so why try not try passives first. For jazz tones passive duncans will give you that warm woody tone you need so a '59 or even a sh1n jazz pick-up in the neck will give you what you want. A sh5b custom will give you that edgy punchie crunch you want for the more aggresive hard rock type tones.

The only time I would recommend active designs is if passive pick-ups simply wont give you the amount of extremely saturated tone you need. At intense volumes and hi-gain,
an active design sounds clearer amp; more defined that passive designs IMO.
The duncans I personally use are:
sh6b-Distortion
sh10n-Full Shred

custom in the bridge/59 neck
this combo will take you wherever you need to go man
I absolutely thank seymour for this custom pup
i like it more than my emg's now
it really grew on my when i started playiun more classic stuff like KISS, ac/dc, VH,zep
i love the fact that not only can i do those tones but with very little tweaking i can go full tilt and dop all the SLAYER, older metallica,megadeth,etc stuff no prob
the emgs are great but much more limiting tone wise they are a specailty pup like the 81 excels at the heavy stuff but will, not do a good classic tone