Hey!
Yesterday i got my Mules AIV in the mail from Tim. Im glad Tim is such a gentle person because it was the first time i ordered anything abroad and to be honest, im REALLY the kind of person who needs to pick up stuff and pay in cash, i know i have control issues but im working on that :lol:
Anyway, they came yesterday and when i got home i started soldering them in right away, played untill about 4 am, and from about 7am again. Now my fingers are numb and ill try and write some stuff down i noticed in the hours ive palyed the mules.
I have put them in my SG '73.
First thing i noticed is how heavy the Mules are and how well they are made, all very tightly assembled.
On closer inspection i noticed some small wax remnants around the polepieces, Tim puts wax under the raw nickel covers to prevent microphonics, ans yes the Mules are unpotted ones.
I was pretty much looking for a 'real' PAF replacement, and this certainly looks like a VERY well made pickup, also the braided wire used is the same wire i have in my ES125 and the late seventies LP aniversary. Its not the most easy wire to solder though, it takes alot of fumbling to uncover the core.
Tim also seems to have brushed the covers a bit which looks very tastefull.
Ive used my usual setup with my JCM800, Marshall cab with greenbacks and my Boss OD-1 stombox.
After hooking it up i was blown away by the HUGE open sound, the Mules do have an allmost acoustic response to chords too much gain did not work well, not so much because of the mud but more because it was just too much for my ears to handle just at once.
After a little time i found the high rolloff was just too much, overtones were just not what i was used to. As such is quite logical since i have put the mules in an old SG with the old electronics, so they have .022 caps and the dreaded 300k pots. With the usual PAF type pickups this works out nicely but not so much with the Mules.
This got me thinking about PAF's in general. Most pickup producers try to copy the original PAF, which as such is quite stupid since most pickups wont end up in real vintage guitars with ditto electronics. Voicing a PAF to be used in a modern guitar is just such a smart thing to do and im now really eager to try the Mules in my LP.
After this i replaced the OD-1 with my SD-1, cut back a little on the low end to compensate and boosted out the heavy mids..... DAYM! Immediately i was hurled back to a couple decades ago when i played in a crossover band (80's death metal hardcore kinda stuff). If i ONLY had these pups back then, really incrededable stuff. PAF with a kick in the rear huh? Make that a left hook straight on the yaw!
After a short break rethinking everything i set everything back to a more moderate setting and cranked the amp! It was allmost midnight but who cares right? Et voila.... there was my high end again, switched back to the OD-1 and did some speedmetal riffing, dissonance and (string) dynamic tests. I looked at the clock and i had been playing for 3 hours non stop, it just went by in a flash.
After another short break i started to noodle on the pickup hight and found out that the Mules are THAT sensitive that they allways seem to take alot of wood AND alot string dynamics, so after some time i found a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where the overtones were just cutting trough in the nicest way. If i put the bridge mule all the way down in the wood, the string dynamics still cut trough! Really amazing stuff since most gibson pickups are really bad in this respect.
By now i was getting really tired and my wife came down to ask if it wasnt a smart idea to get a few hours sleep.
I did however do a short test on the feedback and grounding noises before i went to bed and when compared to equal DC Gibson pickups these UNPOTTED Mules have less feedback especially when compared with the most recent ones(490R/498T) which i think are also unpotted (or really badly potted). Nor did i experience any grounding issues either, but i do have to say i have a very well ground electric cirquit in my old house, which does make a difference obviously. I was however quite statically charged, but that didnt have anything to do with the pickups :twisted:
After a couple of hours rest(couldnt sleep) i started playing again, kind of low gain acoustic stuff and later some blues jazz on my Bluesbreaker RI.
I found that the mules' tone colour is slightly changeing over time, maybe its because they are just hooked up and the current affects the magnet or something like that, it seems to smoothen a bit especially on the low end and heavy mids in a quite pleasing way.
A mayor downside to the Mules is that they sound so exeptionally good on a cranked amp, this is something i dont have as much with my gibson pickups. Actually this is a very hazardous aspect of the Mules i didnt anticipate, maybe i should send them back :roll: or maybe NOT!!!!!!
Many thanks for making these for me Tim and BKP, im a 100% sure these wont be my last BKP's.
Kindest regards and thank you for reading this lengthly tekst,
Henk
