I've been playing for about 18 years - never got "too" into the
technical side of gear, but I can give you some general answers to your
questions.
<> As
far as pick-up differences goes, the sound
has a lot to do with the out-put of them. Humbuckers have a higher
out-put compared to single coils so for those large graowling
distortion sounds a lot of guitarists go towards humbuckers, but
humbuckers have plenty of sound variation within them also depending on
the brand and model. Single coils have a lower out-put and a lot of
people that play with clean tones prefer them (of course this is a huge
generalization) as you can get a large variety of those nice janglely
clean sounds from them. But I should mention that the biggest thing
that affects your sound, even more so then pick-ups, is your amp.
Humbuckers were develops to silence the humb that was created by early
single coils puck-ups, and the higher out-put was a bi product of that.
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<>I read a couple of articles a while back breaking down the things
that make up your sound on a % scale - it was something like 60%
amp/speaker, 20% pick-up, 10%body wood, 5% finger board/neck and 5%
bridge. I could be a little off o nthe exact %, but the idea is there.
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<><>Amps and speakers can affect your sound big time, and there are way
too many amps out there to go over all the variations. Go to a guitar
store and try a bunch out and you'll get an idea. The sound you are
going for will help determine the amps you'll like. If all you're into
playing is Pantera type music you may look into something like a Mesa
Boogie Duel Rectifier and not a Fender Twin Reverb.
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<><><>Body wood affects your sound, not hugely like amps and pick-ups,
but it still does and has to do with the hardness of the wood and the
amount of resonence it gives out. The Dan Armstrong guitar is made from
plexi glass - they did that because it's a super hard material and give
off lots of resonence. What kind of wood you want is really depent on
the kind of sound you want, or if you can even tell the different -
some people can't. Play some guitars and pick the one that stays in
tune and sounds good to you, and don't worry too much about the wood -
although a lot of companys use cheap crappy wood to contruct cheap
guitars.
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<><><><>As
for strings, I don't believe the brand affects your sound hugely, but
the gage of the string do change it some what, IMO.
These are just some very general answers,
because these are very big topics that can fill forums and forums. If
you want more specific answers you'll need to ask more specific
questions - like what kind of gear would I need if I wanted to achieve
such and such a sound etc...
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<>I
should also mention that quality of playing affects sound greatly - a
good guitarist can make a crappy guitar and amp sound amazing, but a
bad guitarist can play with the sweetist gear in the world and still
sound like complete shit. Just saying cause some times people focus too
much on quality of gear and forget about quality of playing.