DiMarzio DP181 WH

So, you are after a SC sized pickup for the neck position. You would like a sound closer to humbuckers but not overly muffled, dark or hot. In fact, you would prefer the sound to be closer to humbuckers and further away from the SC sound but you'd love if there was some of that SC sound in there.

Well, you've just found your pickup!

I love the cleans and the distorted sound is excellent as well. Silent as a mouse, good price and good looks (if you don't mind the rails) and works great with 250K vol pots, always in the neck position.

Also, it might have a relatively low output (a lot higher than say the Cruiser neck, but a lot lower than the Fast Track 2, Tone Zone S etc) but at the neck position it matches the output of way hotter bridge pickups with no effort at all.

For reference, I use it in one of my strats with a Fast Track 2 (or Tone Zone S, it depends) at the bridge position and a Cruiser Bridge at the middle position.

I use this in the neck position of one of my strats matched with a Seymour Duncan JB Jr in the bridge. It has less output than the JB but being in the neck position it is easy to balance the outputs. There are no pole pieces to adjust but the volume and tone accross the 6 strings is even and tight with no loss of volume on either E string. There is little string pull and I have no tuning issues and good sustain. The Lead tone through a high gain amp is very very fluid with the sound of the pick adding to the character. Each individual note is clear even at speed and the pickup is super quiet with no 50Hz hum.