Look for something with some hot humbuckers... like a schecter c-1 or an ltd with emg's. People think that the EMG-HZ's are bad EMGs... they're not. They're the passive version of the 81's and 85's. The EMG-HZ's actually are really nice pickups... so look into those to. The duncans you want to look for are the JB/59 set. They get great distortion tones as well as a nice clean sound. Amps and effects can make any guitar sound pretty well as long as you have decent pickups...