I finally got some Mules for my Edwards ELP98LTS yesterday (Thanks Monkey!), and promptly wired them up. I'd never wired my own pickups before, and it was bloody fiddly; i guess if i wasn't so lazy i'd have taken the pots out of the guitar before working on them :lol:
Anyways: I'm back at uni now, so my first impressions are thru my uni amp; Blackstar HT-5C.
They are hugely open sounding and impossibly 'sweet', very clear and defined. The neck pickup is extremely warm but extremely clear and ridiculously articulate. Before i had a SD '59 in the neck position, which i suppose is supposed to be a very similar style of pickup to the mule and i actually quite liked it. However, the mule destroys this pickup, making it sound dull, empty and lifeless in comparison. It was a HUGE difference, which i really wasn't expecting. On the clean channel it is crystal clear and chimey, and this translates well on overdrive, giving a level of clarity i've never heard in a neck humbucker before. The neck mule is three dimensional sounding, hell, maybe even holographic!
The bridge pickup I imagine is a really similar wind to the neck, it exhibits all of the same qualities, however on first impression, and as somebody who appreciates a big thick sound from his bridge position (and has got used to the Nailbomb!), I am finding it a bit scooped. It has a very "hi-fi" quality, with a big bottom end, modestly balanced mids and sparkly highs, but not too much of a 'push' from it as I was expecting (don't ask me why, PAF style pups are renowned for being 'scoopy'!). Raising the pickup height helped a lot to providing a bit more of a kick behind the mule in the bridge, and I feel like i'm learning how to get the most from it already.
The place I've found myself most often though, is the middle position which I feel is an oft-neglected position on a LP style dual humbucker guitar. This position on the switch sounds HUGE, perfectly balanced, sparkly clean, it's hard to describe but it's just SO expressive. The pickups are also fantastically respondent to changes in volume and tone, and somehow do not 'thin out' or 'muddy up' the way than my SD pups did when i used the volume and tone pots.
I'm new to PAF style pickups, always having gone for something higher output in the past to drive my JCM800 a bit harder, but now I've got this Blackstar with me which is ridiculously high gain for the stuff I play (with the SD JB in the bridge i never got the gain past about 9o'clock - and that was metal territory, lol), now the controls on the amp seem to be far more usable and balanced, and the pickups respond VERY well to my boost and overdrive pedals.
Overall, I'm intrigued by these pickups, lol... They were not quite what I was expecting, but I played them for a good 4 hours straight after I got them, and picked the guitar up again first thing this morning when i woke up; they definitely inspire you to play, they are FULL of tone and expression.
I'll update this after a few days, when I should have tried it through an Orange Rockerverb 50, a Tiny Terror, and an Epi Valve Special.
