Re: Black Winter owner.... Feedback so far????
For 80s thrash, notably the high-gain tight stuff (Metallica), the EMGs are a bit better imo, because the BWs are pretty harsh at high gain. More black than thrash metal. For rawer Slayer sound, I think Distortions are best and BWs still much better than the EMGs. But as you said, the EMGs are a one-trick pony. The BW is the opposite, it's fantastic for clean/blues sounds, while the EMGs can only do very high gain and nothing else imo. As I said earlier, after installing a pair of BWs in my Epi SG, I'm mostly playing blues now. In the SG with its mid-heavy, dry hard rock sound, it can be tricky to tame the BW at high gain. In my Jackson, it (bridge) absolutely destroys at high gain too, for any style, but it's not quite as great for blues as in the SG. Just depends on the guitar's characteristics, I guess.
I have a switch in the SG that puts both pickups in series. Seemed like overkill, but it gives me fantastic, lovely, crunchy, fat old-school blues sound on my valve amps at low gain.
I almost never used neck pickups because they always were too mushy for my liking. With the very bright BWs, I use neck and middle position a lot now and I even started using the tone control. I don't know how a pickup could be any more versatile. They are that good.
