Re: Thickening Tone?
Your tone depends on many different factors, such as (as mentioned above) your amp, your guitar, P/Ups, strings (brand and gauge), string action, and especially, your playing style.
Raising your pickup closer to the strings will only increase your output level, not thicken your tone. If you raise it too much, it can cause problems with tuning stability and intonation, due to too strong of a magnetic field. High output pickups, also, are not necessarily the answer. For example, I use low output pickups (Duncan Lil Screamin Demon, DiMarzio HS-2 and YJM) and have a very thick tone (sometimes it can be too thick). My string action is a little high, and I don't use skinny strings. Normally I opt for the Ernie Ball Skinny Top, Heavy Bottom (high strings from a set of 10's, low strings from a set of 12's I believe). When I can't get these, I go with a set of 11's. The Skinny Top, Heavy Bottom strings give me a very fat rhythm tone, and since my guitar of choice has only 21 frets, the skinny top strings allow me to bend to the high notes when I need them (at times, from the 21st fret C# all the way to an F#).
Also, I've owned several Ibanez guitars and, while they're not exactly thin sounding, their fatness, to me, isn't organic, it's almost a "processed" fatness, if that makes sense. I gravitate to the Mexican Strats, because I can get a fat tone out of them and they're cheap.
Also, your amplifier's Midrange response also plays a HUGE roll in the fatness of your tone. You can have lows for days but without the right mids in your sound, it can sound thin, even with the low end. Not all amps give you good midrange.
And finally, it's in your playing. For me, nothing but very hard playing will give me that thickness I want in my tone. I play the hell out of the strings. Both picking AND fretting. As such I'm a very heavy handed player, a pack of strings usually won't give me more than two gigs. Either they deaden significantly, or pop.
Anyhow, I hope I've given you some food for thought.
