The mules

[redmania]

Hi guys

I am a long time lurker first time poster.

I have a prs cu24 with the hfs and vintage pups. After owning the guitar for a few years, which is a stunner, I believe it's time to upgrade the pups. My musical taste have fallen to the Gary Moore, blues, cream etc.  And i occassionally play in a blues band. I exchanged a few Emails with tim who mentioned that I would be happy with the mules. I wondered what people's opinion of the pups were in a cu24? I have a variety of amps. One being a vox ac30 clone and a fender champ. I am in Australia and I don't know anyone who has these pups to listen to or try. I had thought of buying the 57/08 pups by prs and I guess I am kind of after that vintage sound.

Your thoughts are welcome.

[darkbluemurder]

The HFS is a high output pickup, has lots of center mids and bass and can be a bit muddy at times. The Vintage Bass has a rather low output but is very bassy.

I don't have a set of Mules but I have played them once. You will get a clearer tone in the neck position with about the same output as with the original pickup. The bridge Mule will be lower output and brighter than the HFS so there will be the biggest difference to your existing set up, both output and tone wise. Together with the amps you mentioned you should get a broader range of tones with the Mules from clean to mean whereas I can imagine that it will be difficult to get a clean tone with the HFS.

Never played the PRS 57/08 pickups so I cannot comment on them.

Cheers Stephan

[Tellboy]

I bought a PRS Studio a couple of months ago which has a 57/08 bridge pickup and two narrowfields. Beautifully made guitar, a delight to play, very versatile (sorry all you PRS haters) - been playing it almost non-stop since I bought it. Because the narrowfields are a non standard size and I thought the 57/08 sounded great I thought there was no way I would consider a pickup change (all my other guitars have BKPs). Yesterday I decided I had neglected my Les Paul for a while. This has got a set of unpotted Mules in raw nickel covers. When played alongside the PRS I was surprised that the Mules seemed to have just a little bit more of everything compared with the 57/08 - more bite, more edge, more 'air' - not a huge difference (the 57/08 is a good pickup) but noticable. Of course the guitars are not identicle (the Les Paul feels twice the weight of the PRS!!) but I might be tempted to change the bridge pickups over sometime to see how the Mule sounds in the PRS. Both pickups can get you that vintage sound and both react well to volume and tone changes.

[schenr]

Where abouts in Australia? If you're in Perth, Lee from Musicpark has a set of mules I think. If you're not in Perth, sorry I can't be more of a help

[asianaxeman]

check out vhIIs as well, Hunter has some wicked clips of vhiis in a PRS on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBS02KmxlWE

[Telerocker]

You can play nearly everything with Mules.

[redmania]

Thanks for the responses. I am almost pulling the trigger.

[gueorgues]

Hi. I do not have a set of mules, but I have a 57/08 set in my Korina McCarty. From what I've heard the 57/08s and the Mules are pretty similar pickups, very clean, balanced and organic and you can play just about anything with them in the right setup. So I wouldn't say it's a big dilemma. Buy a set of Mules and you won't go wrong. Order them potted if you plan to use high gain setting from time to time. I know my next guitar is getting a set of Mules - they are one the best pickups available.