Even before I got here I was into upgrade or tweaking my guitars tone Nowadays it got to such a funny point that if I want to play clean stuff I mod. the pickup, later mod. back to distortion setting that I like again probably opened it a 100 times by now but this has to stop at one point

So I tweak the pickup to sound best on clean settings (magnet touching screws-bolts are aired but metal spacer used, sort of a split sound but of course no buzzing on distortion). The problem with it was (same with some strats or vintage output humbuckers) you get a lot of high-end, sound great on clean but on heavy shred type distortion you can get nasty sharp spike sounds or a lot of picking noise...string buzzing cause of touching fret is also very obvious to listeners...

In this case (to get as many sound from the guitar as possible) its simply impossible to setting with one tweak of pickup or any pickup, which is kind of the reason why there are so many on the market.

Changing the capacitor on the tone pot was one of the the first mod. I did to the guitar (an orange drop capacitor, they started using those on Gibson's nowadays) and a slight roll-off can decrease the highs easy and a nice way. Since at least the tone range I want there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution from now on I will use the tone pot

Keep in mind I'm a digital guy so output strength of the pickup has no meaning to me

Edit; Here's a quick example of the tone pot can do (before-after)

https://soundcloud.com/gitarg-nl-kleri/toneandshred

Dig on that clip.

High end is a finicky thing to me. There's a lot of information in your top end and getting it right is important. Unfortunately a byproduct of 'more gain' can be some bad stuff happening in the high end. You can get some nasty bad spikes that are unpleasant.

A lot of people don't touch the tone knob. A little can go a long way, but it is worth having an objectionable ear and play with it.