Hello - I am a strat guy and love the sound of traditional single coils, but after much experimenting I've settled on the Dimarzio Area series for live use, as I'm a full time musician and can't sound like I'm standing next to a garbage truck on stage every time I turn on the overdrive.. Of course the Area series aren't perfect, but compared to real single coils I do find them quite convincing... Has anyone had success with EMG's? I know they won't sound exactly like a true single coil, but I play live so much and I want something that will be quiet and not lose fidelity or signal through a bunch of pedals and cables.. And I've read that they respond very well to the volume knob on the guitar, which I use very much. Supposedly, as you turn down the knob you don't lose any part of the frequency. I've tried many different high pass filters (treble bleeds) through the years and hated all of them, as they rolled off all of the bass, mid, and character of the pickup while preserving only treble frequencies... A big thing for me too is to not lose those beautiful 2 and 4 notch sounds.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!