Mule Bridge in Les Paul Too Bright

[johnnytopshot]

I have just installed a BKP Mule in the bridge of my 1989 Epi Les Paul and it is way too bright for my liking.
To give a bit more detail, the pickup is covered and wax potted, I have changed the pots and caps in the guitar to a Monty's 50's pre-wired harness, the bridge has been changed to a Gotoh. The guitar has had a Seymour Duncan 59 for the last 20 years or so, which was ice pick bright, almost strat bridge single coil. I expected the Mule to tame the brightness of the guitar, which it has to a degree compared to the 59, but is still too bright. I am comparing this to a 2017 Epi Les Paul Standard Pro and a 2001 Gibson Les Standard.
Turning the treble down on the amp or the tone of the guitar will of course reduce the treble, but the voicing of the pickup changes too much in the mids and bass to a place where I also don't like.
I have a PRS SE Custom 24 with an Abraxas pickup set in, and in my opinion, is the best sounding guitar in the bridge position I own. At the moment I am contemplating selling the 4 week old mule and replacing it with an Abraxas, as that pickup has rounded highs compared to the Mule. I just wonder am I wasting my time with this guitar, or will the Abraxas solve my problem? I fully expected that the Mule and hardware changes would transform the guitar, but obviously not.

I should add that I have persevered with this guitar as it has sentimental value to me being the first guitar I owned and learnt to play.

[darrenw5094]

I have les Paul's with the Abraxas and also the mule. The mule is brighter alright by quite a bit, but I use the tone knob on the les paul to tame it and then I have a brighter neck which I like.

The Abraxas is better balanced, but is a bit hotter. I couldn't decide which one I prefer as I like both in different ways

[timmy_pix]

I think unless you get a really dark pickup (which will most likely have to be hotter - higher wind reduces top end), if your guitar is naturally bright, or lacking in low end, that will be reflected in the pickups.

I've got a PRS SE Bernie Marsden, which even with a change to a solid brass bridge, is still very bright acoustically and has next to no low end. It's had Mules in it for 5 years, and I recently put another set of Mules in one of my Les Pauls to compare. The difference is night and day, with the Mules sounding much fuller and more open in the Les Paul - they genuinely sound like completely different pickups.

The Abraxas will probably help, but if the Epiphone sounds thin by itself, don't expect the Abraxas to sound like it does in your PRS.

[Telerocker]

I have just installed a BKP Mule in the bridge of my 1989 Epi Les Paul and it is way too bright for my liking.
To give a bit more detail, the pickup is covered and wax potted, I have changed the pots and caps in the guitar to a Monty's 50's pre-wired harness, the bridge has been changed to a Gotoh. The guitar has had a Seymour Duncan 59 for the last 20 years or so, which was ice pick bright, almost strat bridge single coil. I expected the Mule to tame the brightness of the guitar, which it has to a degree compared to the 59, but is still too bright. I am comparing this to a 2017 Epi Les Paul Standard Pro and a 2001 Gibson Les Standard.
Turning the treble down on the amp or the tone of the guitar will of course reduce the treble, but the voicing of the pickup changes too much in the mids and bass to a place where I also don't like.
I have a PRS SE Custom 24 with an Abraxas pickup set in, and in my opinion, is the best sounding guitar in the bridge position I own. At the moment I am contemplating selling the 4 week old mule and replacing it with an Abraxas, as that pickup has rounded highs compared to the Mule. I just wonder am I wasting my time with this guitar, or will the Abraxas solve my problem? I fully expected that the Mule and hardware changes would transform the guitar, but obviously not.

I should add that I have persevered with this guitar as it has sentimental value to me being the first guitar I owned and learnt to play.

If that guitar sounds quite bright, you might want to consider a Crawler.

[RobAbrams84]

You can't get it where you want, even with 50s wiring?  50s wiring should purely roll off high end as you turn the tone knob down, not affect the other frequencies like in modern wiring.  All of my Les Pauls are like this, I run 50s wiring and EQ my rig to my neck pickup with Tone on 10, then dial the bridge Tone to match.  It's usually down in the 6-7 range.

I would double check your wiring to make sure that it is in fact 50s wiring before changing pickups.  You can also mess with the height of the pickup and adjust the pole pieces.  Bring the bass side closer to the strings and drop the treble side further away from where you have it currently.  If needed, compensate further with pole pieces and see how that helps. 

In my experience it's really easy to tame a bright bridge pickup in a Les Paul because it has it's own dedicated tone circuit.  It's much harder to get pickups to match "just right" in a guitar with shared volume and tone controls, IMO.

Lastly if you do end up putting an Abraxas in you might still be disappointed because it could sound quite different than the PRS.   If you want to mimic that guitar as much as possible you might need to change pot or cap values and possibly install a treble bleed circuit or whatever else it might have.

[johnnytopshot]

Thanks to everyone for their replies so far.
I have played with adjusting the height and pole pieces of the Mule, it seems very sensitive to height changes compared to other pickups, anyone else experience this?

I have got the Mule sounding better in my guitar (with the adjustments above, and the tone knob of the guitar down to 6 - 7), to a point where I don't dislike it, it's just not the sound I was hoping for. In short, still a little too bright, but also a little underpowered and slightly too mellow/polite. I would like something with a little more output, but not anything near a high output or metal type pickup, and a little more raucous, more weight behind each note.

As stated in my initial post, I have an Abraxas which in my opinion could be described like this, but I would like to try something different, which is why I chose the Mule over another Abraxas in the first place.

I am considering a Black dog or Crawler (as suggested by Telerocker). My concerns are that both may still be too spikey in the high treble (as Alnico 5 magnets), the Crawler may be too high output, and the Black Dog maybe too nasal for my liking due to the pronounced mids.

What are others experience comparing these pickups, or would I be better off sticking with another Abraxas?

[darrenw5094]

The black dog has it's extra weight in the low mids, so it's not really nasal.

[b.gandt]

Johnnytopshot, the Crawler is not spikey at all, has a fairly rounded top, but not dull at all.  I use one in a single Humbucker Basswood MIJ Strat.  How that translates to ypur Epi, I don't know.  It is higher output, though.  Despite the high output, it doesn't sound like a metal pickup.  But, if you want vintage or Vintage hot output, it may not be for you.

What style of music are you playing?

[timmy_pix]

I can't speak for the Crawler, but the Black Dog isn't nasal at all. Fuller in the mids, but by no means c--ked wah or anything - the upper mids aren't dissimilar to the Mule, but there's more low-mid weight too. Great versatile pickup that can be very aggressive when asked, but also very polite when you back off. The A5 translates to a more immediate attack and firmer bass than the Mule, which has a pleasant crunchiness/compression to the attack due to the A4.

[Telerocker]

Johnnytopshot, the Crawler is not spikey at all, has a fairly rounded top, but not dull at all.  I use one in a single Humbucker Basswood MIJ Strat.  How that translates to ypur Epi, I don't know.  It is higher output, though.  Despite the high output, it doesn't sound like a metal pickup.  But, if you want vintage or Vintage hot output, it may not be for you.

What style of music are you playing?

Yeah, sums it up pretty much. Not spikey, but certainly not woolly either. Enough upper mid focus too. I can split mine, for a tele-esque but by no means whimpy tone.

[darkbluemurder]

If you want less bright than the Mule, the options are (in ascending order from bright to less bright):

Black Dog
Rebel Yell
Abraxas
Crawler

Cheers Stephan