Are there any good OE pickups made by Fender or Gibson?

[darkandrew]

Having recently moved my A Bomb set from my Custom Tele back into one of my Eclipses I was left with an empty route or two in the Tele and so re-installed the OE Fender pickups as a stop-gap, and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they sounded OK (Black Canyon neck and Atomic II bridge). Now I know that this is a forum dedicated to what is mostly an after-market replacement pickup manufacturer and so it is understandable that most posts here read something like "I'm looking to replace my awful stock pickups" but I just wondered if any of the stock Fender or Gibson pickups are actually liked by anybody? After all, isn't the Mule based on a stock pickup, albeit from quite a long time ago?

[Telerocker]

Funny, I replaced the Atomic bridgepickup from my USA HSS standard by a VHII. I think quite some Fender pickups are decent sounding, like the Texas Specials and Nocasters. Even the stockpickups in a American Series telecaster were quite ok. I had the chance to play the Custom Shop Rory Gallagher strat, which has very fat sounding gritty pickups. I like really liked them.

I don't have that much experience with Gibson pickups. I like most of their P90's. In general people complain most about Burstbuckers (being shrill and uninspiring).  You're right that the Mule is a copy of the 59 Gibson LP pickups. Mind you that the LP pickups from this era were quite bright. The current Gibson LP 59 reissues have custom wound buckers, but I have the idea they sound fatter and smoother than the originals.

[darkandrew]

Funny, I replaced the Atomic bridgepickup from my USA HSS standard by a VHII.

The Custom Tele is a very warm, chambered mahogany guitar with a mahogany set neck (basically a Tele shaped Les Paul) and suits the Atomic's brightness quite well - how did it sound in your Strat?

[Telerocker]

Funny, I replaced the Atomic bridgepickup from my USA HSS standard by a VHII.

The Custom Tele is a very warm, chambered mahogany guitar with a mahogany set neck (basically a Tele shaped Les Paul) and suits the Atomic's brightness quite well - how did it sound in your Strat?

Not so bad, just a bit flat and not so inspiring. Overdriven is was ok, clean I found it not really my cup of tea. But you see, in another guitar with different timbers some pickups suddenly sit just right.