duncan or emg? or?

[nafe]

anyways im still learning and trying not to spend a lot in the process.

If you wanna preserve cash, i'd really recommend having a go at the Dragonfire's (although i'm sure a lot of folks are probably screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" haha)
I only did it coz i'd read a few comments on them both here and on harmony central which seemed to be pretty positive, so i figured "what the hell, it's only 40 bucks - if they suck i'll just throw 'em out".
But i was honestly surprised at the sound of 'em, especially for the money. If anything they are perhaps a little bright, but that can also depend a lot on other things (style of body, body wood etc) and hey, that's what eq's are for.
And the cool thing is that they make a fairly wide range, cloning everything from EMG's (according to them, their actives are actually hotter) to Gibson stuff, so you'll definately find something you like.
And even if you experiment with 'em, you can buy 3 sets and still only spend half of what you would on just one set from some of the bigger names

[Hellbat]

Love my Duncan Custom in my RR1T for a wide range of sounds. It's not the best for cleans/light breakup though because it seems bright when clean. The overbright goes away when you get into more distortion though and helps it be really clear for higher note count chords.

For straight chugga chugga and power chords I love the Blackouts in my Model 5. They sound huge on 2&3 note power chords. If I was going for say a Disturbed kind of guitar tone, the Blackouts would be perfect for that. I don't subscribe to the popular theory that they "won't do clean" either. They will do clean but you can't unplug a passive, leave your gain knob in the same spot and plug in a Blackout or you will get breakup. They have huge output but it's very clean. The pickups themselves though don't break up or distort.

[Riffmeister]

The Emg's I have seem to distort my clean channel a lot. The 85 is in the neck right now and if I have the amp up around 2-3, it starts to break up.

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

That's because EMG 81 and 85 suck for clean. Really, they are just not a good pickup for a nice clean tone. One trick pony... But it's a good trick, if you like it.

[Riffmeister]

Well unfortunealtey for me , I dont' like the one trick They are comeing out as soon as I can get them sold. They are on Evil Bay as we speak.

It's a real pain having to switch the inputs and stuff around and to keep adjusting gain levels everytime I change guitars.