Of all the guitar components, pickups particularly lend themselves to specs, in the form of a simple EQ curve. Now that I know that pickups are basically equivalent to pre-distortion EQ, I am taking a greater interest in pickups and will spend more time reading these descriptions. But I so much would prefer to scan over a few hundred pickup response curves very rapidly, seeking the curve which I use in my pre-distortion EQ pedal. This curve showed him what response curve to look for in a pickup, in order to make his second guitar sound like his main guitar. When you have heavy saturation of the power tubes, play single notes, not chords, for clarity.
Every string has different Tone.
Every way you hit the string has different Tone. Strike near the bridge, or over a pickup, and there are different overtones. Guitarists in an altered state have a different way of striking and articulating notes. Be sensitive to this subtle hyper-creativity. Playing a sequence of 5 notes is an art of expressiveness.