I'm really looking for a death metally sound, I was looking at gibson pickups, a 490r for the neck and 500t for bridge, these pickups come stock on such guitars as the gibson sg voodoo, gibson les paul voodoo, and epiphone gothic explorer... I heard a sample on the internet of a gothic explorer being played, it sounded good but it had effects on it so it was hard to tell if it was just a really good amp he was using or the distortion effects had something to do with it, or if it did have a lot to do with pickups... my question to you guys is, in your past experiences do you think pickups can have a noticeable effect on your sound, and also which do you think are the heaviest sounding pickups out there?