Good question, I have experience recording about every kind of pickup you can think of, matter of fact I have a guitar set up with emg's, a john petrucci sig. model with dimarzio's, a strat with single coils, and a 7 string with actives in it all sitting in my studio right now. I had a esp horizon nt2 with duncans, and numerous other guitars with duncans as well. If you want metal, EMG 81/85 all day. You will never be disappointed, I hate recording with passive pickups, I play much more technical death metal, ala veil of maya, born of osiris and such, but that is where the tone is at. About every metal guitarist uses EMG's so if that is the tone you want, including august burns red, emg's. As for miking, it depends on how many mics you have in your arsenal and what kind of mics. If you only have say an sm57, or sennheiser e609, I would suggest close miking it at the grill off to the edge of the dust cap. Crank the hell out of your amp, unless it's solid state, then go get yourself a good tube amp. Get your tone where you feel that it is exceptable, hit record. It isn't that simple, but that is a good start, key factors are to have that amp sounding the way you want it, before getting a mic on it, then experiment with mic placement. The closer to the dust cap of your speaker being miked, the brighter your guitars will sound. You want it to be kind of a happy medium for metal guitars, that's why I suggest going right to the edge of the dust cap. Hope this helps bro, if you need any more pointers, hit me up.
