Miracle Man/Irish Tour ... initial impressions

[TwilightOdyssey]

This isn't my official review of the new pups I installed into my TOC guitar (The Twilight Odyssey Custom), but here are my initial impressions I just got from wailing on the guitar for a good 10 minutes after I got the bridge level and the strings to pitch. Just writing this now to document my first impressions while they are still fresh in my mind, and see if the differ after I've lived with the pups for a bit, and the guitar has 'settled' a little more.

This is the guitar:

It started life as an ESP Kamikaze 4 that I was rather disappointed in. New neck, new hardware, and new pups went into this rebuild. Body is 1 piece maple, neck is 1 piece rock maple with birdseye maple fingerboard.

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
Bridge Pickup: Miracle Man with Nailbomb Cammo Cover.
Huge sounding. Articulate. Can actually hear what the maple is doing now, tonally. Reminds me of Back For The Attack era DOKKEN. Very bright (glad I got a covered pup). Very high resolution, every nuance is preserved. Great sustain.

Neck Pickup: Irish Tour with Green Cover.
Pure vintage tone. Bell-like. Eats the Hot Rails and SSL-1 for breakfast. Buttery fatness. Suprisingly little volume drop from the Miracle Man. Best single coil I've ever heard.

I will have to live with these pups for a few days before I post anything conclusive ...

These pups are making me reconsider everything I thought I knew about good tone. THANK YOU, TIM!!

[Peterku]

That's cool! :) When you first told me the Kamikaze was an all-maple guitar, after listening to the Miracle Man demo in the Players section, I started wondering whether you'd find the pup to be toooo bright in that guitar, especially without a tone pot. Like most people find the Duncan Distortion shrill in bright-sounding guitars. I'm glad you like it.

BTW, why does the Kamikaze have the neck pup slot angled? Are the highs nicer that way?

[TwilightOdyssey]

I'm used to the brightness of the maple; it's nothing an EQ re-adjustment won't cure, I don't think. The fundamental tone has really changed, and it will take some dialing in.

The angled neck pup is supposed to lend itself to more attack. I don't have a straight neck-pup guitar to compare it against, so I'll have to take their word for it.

You can probably compare the MM to the Distortion in broad terms, but there's a clarity to these pups that Duncan has yet to achieve. It's not really brightness, it's more a case of so much resolution and articulation.