^ I was thinking that as well Neil.
The general impression round here always seems to be "you want classic PAF? Mules will do yer, everytime..." and this thread seems to be contradicting that :roll:
So I thought I'd share my Mule experiences, sorry folks (waffle time)...
When I first got mine (I already had Riff Raffs, which did exactly what I expected and more), I was slightly under-whelmed with the Mules. I'd been expecting something else, some sort of "holy grail" of tone from them. My Epi LP is quite a bright and resonant basswood/maple-cap guitar, and they sounded "nice" but not what I was expecting.
I even went as far as buying a mahogany/maple-cap Tokai Love Rock to house them instead. Looking back, it seems a bit odd that I did this :lol: but it is a gorgeous guitar, and all round it beats the Epi for me, so I'm happy (and I got away with it with the missus - she thinks it's very pretty).
When I put the Mules in the Tokai, they did sound better for my tastes, but I have to admit not a whole lot different. Now I've got used to using them, I wouldn't part with them.
What I put it down to, certainly for me, was expectations: For years I'd been thinking "late 50s PAFs oo-ooh, that's what I need", because that's what the magazines and interviews I was reading were telling me. But what I'd been listening to is mainly late 60s to early 80s rock/pop/blues. I was imagining that Mules would get me a better version of the sounds I thought I was listening to.
So after I'd put the Mules in the Tokai, I started listening closely to recordings that I thought might well have real late 50s PAFs on - the "Beano" bluesbreaker album, earlier ZZ-top, the Allman Brothers, for example. And blow me, my Mule'd Tokai was actually making the noises on those records - not the noises I'd been imagining were on those records! The bridge pickup is actually quite an offensive little thing, you need to control it with your picking and with the vol/tone on the guitar. And there is quite a big difference between bridge and neck - on some amp settings you can go from mud at one end to ice-pick at the other quite easily and feel very frustrated. You've got to get the amp settings to where they both work, and depending on what you want, it'll be a compromise of some sort for both pickups. But I've reached the conclusion that if I ever do play a guitar with real late 50s PAFs that's probably exactly what they'll do as well.
I agree with what everyone is saying about woods above - but I still think the best "first option" is to check the wiring. The bridge is thin in comparison to the neck, but if you think they both sound thin and like single coils in comparison to Black Dogs, then there's something not quite right. I'd even try wiring a pickup straight to the jack to rule out all the rest of the wiring. If I couldn't find anything wrong, then my next option would be to put the Orville's old pickups in and see what they do. Possibly even try the Black Dogs as well if I still wasn't getting any sense out of it.
It might well be that you eventually want something other than Mules, but it's best to make sure they're actually doing their job first...
