Worthy quote: Rob Balducci

"I think that the tone comes from the combination of the amp that you use and the guitar that you use... The importance of the pedals come into play after you have that set up."

Individuals who have dabbled too much with tone changing fundamentals would concur what Rob Balducci said, above. We often forget the 2 fundamental components of our tone: guitar + amp. I often come across people who get worked up over pedal/ pickup issues when they don't really pay attention to their guitars & amps. We should see pedals as tone supplements, the stuff we use to better/ refine our fundamentals.

"I’m not into high output pickups because I think if the pickup is too hot that you are getting just the sound of the pickup. It all goes back to what I was saying about this quest for tone. It has to be a reaction between the pickup, the wood of the guitar etc., it all has to react together. If one of them is out of whack it’s just not going to work."

For those of us who love our straight through set-up, pickup selection/ matching is sacred. Like what RB mentioned, pickups with overpowering output would mask the true tone of your instrument; you hear your pickups more than the guitar's inherent voicing. This is why I'm rather selective when it comes to owning guitars with active pickups- the music I generate sometimes calls for that all-out distortion assault which active pickups would unquestionably deliver, hence my employment of EMGs & the likes. However when it comes to more tonal dynamics, the passive pickups would manifest more feel inter-play aka digging in & let your fingers do the talking.