guitar is an alder body, maple board, hardtail jazzmaster. to start off i must say this pickup is another excellent design from Tim!
the timbre is clearly PAF - no question. Its less compressed than i expected - its only a smidgen more compressed the a Mule for example - very dynamic. I think it matches really well fender-type guitars. the sound is very vintagey - which gives versatility. this is no Van Halen one trick pony - far from it! the van halen tone is there, but you have to search for it. far more easily you can get nice Gibsony PAF tones for hard rock and blues - ZZ Top for example. i expected to be able to get a george lynch tone like Denim'n'Leather does, but its not as easily found on my rig compared to a cold sweat for example. bass response is tight enough, but its a vintage pickup, so its not ceramic levels of tightness. it probably should be avoided for uber-gain technical metal etc.
the main characteristic of the tone is the burning high end. this gives a wicked crunch to the tone, but it isn't piercingly bright. the mid range is present, but not too prominent. you can quite easily bring out the mids on your amp if you like. the characteristic complements well the upper midrange of the alder body. i find the bass response quite powerful, which i think gives needed thickness to fender guitars. if you have a particularly dark instrument, the bass might be overpowering. this wasn't a problem with my instrument - notes ring out with great clarity.
i would fit this pickup in preference to a mule if I wanted traditional tones from an HH or HSS fender, paired with any of the bkp singles except slowhands or trilogies. i would have though irish tours would be an obvious choice, though i haven't tried these pickups through my rig.
i'm looking forward to trying out this pickup live! as you can tell i find the tone is very playable - almost alive, and its different again to the other PAFs in BKP's range. Its kind of like a more powerful A5 mule, with more treble/bass and slightly less mids.
