Hey guys,
I normally don't write reviews any more, but there aren't too many reviews floating around of this one so I thought I'd share my experience. Long story short(er), I put together a hardtail Strat from Musikraft and MJT parts, and while it sounded good with the Jalen pickups I originally put in (great pickup winder by the way, and really cheap especially in the US) the humbucker in particular wasn't quite what I was looking for. The Jalen single coils are really good though, I'm actually not convinced if the Irish Tours I replaced them with were an upgrade. Anyway, on to the review:
From the Crawler product page: "...and the pickups had to be versatile in order to work equally well in both LP and Strat style guitars". This has been disputed quite a few times, though I haven't actually tried it in a Les Paul I too seriously doubt it would work well for that. Tried a Holydiver once in a Les Paul, and it was a really bad match - though I've never been a huge fan of the HD in any guitar I've tried it in.
To twist those words from the product page around a bit, the Crawler actually strikes me as it has been voiced to make a Strat sound more like a Les Paul. It's got more character and bite to it than the HD, while somehow also being thicker and fatter. Though the pickup it replaced was not a low output pickup (a clone of the Duncan/EVH Frankenstein except with an Alnico 4 magnet), the Crawler is significantly hotter and more compressed. But I think that's also part of what makes it more Les Paul-esque, if you're comparing a LP to a Strat with the exact same pickup(s) the LP will always have more output and compression than the Strat.
Despite being more compressed sounding than the pickup it replaced, it is not lacking in dynamics or cleans up any worse. The clean-up with the guitar volume knob is nothing less than impressive, and it gets almost single coil-esque rolled down to 1-2. So I would argue the clean up is actually better, as it has a wider range. It has to be mentioned that clean-up ability also very much guitar dependent, I've never heard any Les Paul with either PAFs or P90s clean up as well as this.
Here is what it sounds like, I'm running a pair of new mics that I'm still in the process of dialing in 100%, but I would say it sounds pretty good anyway:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1e06qer9fjyd7m0/Bare%20Knuckle%20Crawler%20demo.mp3?dl=0
