It's been almost a week since I got my new BKPs on my
Les Paul and
Delonge ES and I'm ready to give my impressions on them.
I'm a bit reluctant to write this as it's really redundant: These pickups match what has been written about them here on the forums. I'll try anyway.
I already had the
Black Dog on the LP bridge with a
Mississippi Queen on the neck. They matched on mid-content, but the
MQ felt more punchy, with more "snap". The
BD felt/sounded a bit bright when changing from the
MQ to it.
The
MQ neck was now replaced with
The Mule. Being a humbucker too, they somehow got along better instantly. I initially set the
Mule at the same height as the
MQ (low, almost flush with the ring), but to avoid a volume drop from the
BD I had to raise it a few turns. Don't take what I will write next the wrong way.
They both sound related to each other, and each one of them does what I want from their respective position on the LP. But the
Mule has a vintage tone (sweet, singing, vocal, touch sensitive are all words that come to mind) while the
BD has a modern tone due to how it presents the mids (crunchy).
The neck BD would maybe be a better match to the bridge
BD (duh), while the bridge Abraxas, Mule or Riff Raff would be a better match to the neck
Mule. If I had two Les Pauls, I would have a
BD set on one and a
Mule+Abraxas set on the other. As it is with only one Les Paul, I'm not about to replace either pickup any time soon.
About the pickup height, I had to adjust the
Mule a bit, and only on the last half turn did it really come alive. Suddenly, harmonics started jumping out and the pickup opened up.
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The Abraxas
There is no comparison between the
Abraxas and the Dirty Fingers it replaced. They are nothing alike apart from being humbuckers.
Now that we got that out of the way :) the
Abraxas is installed on this single humbucker/single pot guitar with a push-pull coil split.
On humbucker mode, it's more compressed than the
BD, and
alot more compressed than the
Mule, but in a fine way. The volume pot interacts this characteristic though, and the pickup cleans well. On split mode, the guitar suddenly sounds 3D. I can feel/hear the semi-hollow construction breathing, and the sound is neither thin or shrill, despite being on the bridge position. On my ES,
the split mode alone is worth the money.
The
Abraxas really suits the bright natural tone of the guitar (laminated maple body). Playing it, we don't feel we're limited by a single bridge pickup. Depending on where and how I pick I can set the attack without a tone pot, and with the two modes it's almost like having two guitars, two tones that totally complement each other. Yes, there is alot of hum in split mode with higher gain (obviously), but we can't hear it since the tone itself is so nice 8)
If the
Abraxas is the
Mule's uncle, the
BD is a more distant cousin, but same family.
If the
Abraxas is a BMW and the
Mule a Mercedes, the
BD is a Porsche. A RS3 Porsche. 8)
They all have
that string separation and clarity, and they all clean up very well with the volume knob.
edit: "
So, metale, how does the Abraxas does Brian May after all?" you ask?
With a treble booster, and even with only 2 modes, it does a better Brian May than the strat I just had modded to Brian May switching combinations. It's the right pickup for me, for the ES.
