A maple-bodied guitar should have
wonderful tone if you can find a pickup to bring it out!
My own experience is with
DiMarzio pickups. Download their catalog, and spend some time sorting through the info. I use a Super Distortion (wired for switchable series/parallel connection) in the bridge position of my 'Brand X' Yamaha SBG 1000. Its not as hot as some of the newer humbuckers made for metal, so the overdrive is smoother, more 'classic'. With the coils connected in parallel, the output is a little lower, and a little more trebly, so you can get some really nice, warm, blues sounds that still cut through the mix.
I hear good things about
Seymour Duncan, but I haven't got any personal experience with them.
As a rule of thumb, look for relatively low-output humbuckers with a bit more mid-range, for your bridge pickup. You might want to consider some of the new noiseless single-coils, or the stacked humbuckers that will fit in the same body cavity as your originals. Be sure that the bridge pickup will have a bit more output than the other two, so you can balance the sound properly.
Lordathestrings
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