I started my "modding" with DiMarzio, went Duncan, then realized that both brands had things in their catalogs that I could use. Back in my Metal days it was X2Ns and hs3s in my HSS super strats (you not only had to play with pickup heights but use quite a bit of compression to get those two even remotely close to the same volume). Eventually, since I used rack gear at the time, I just made my clean presets louder to compensate for the clean stuff that and using the 2 position between the x2n and middle hs3. Heavily distorted, gong to the neck hs3 didn't seem to drop very dramatically. If only they had the injector or vvhb2 back then, and I had realized that with that much preamp, there was no need for that much pickup.
