I just put a pair in my Epi Les Paul standard. They're perfect for it, but don't have the midrange snarl you'd expect out from a T-Bird pickup. They work perfectly for me as I have an insanely heavy plucking hand and like their more mellow sound. I get all the snarl I need from my playing. As everyone else has said, compared to the Epi p/u's I removed, they're much lower in output even though they measure just a little less with DC resistance, but the significantly lower output was exactly what I was hoping for. I was more than a little puzzled with the high output of the Epi's, which were 8.9 and 9.1k. IIRC, my Fralins are 7.5 and 8.1k.
Ray, what do you think you'll want for yours?
Here's the review I posted on RS's website:
I purchased these as an upgrade for my Epiphone Les Paul Standard, which uses the same guitar-sized ring-mount pickups. Its stock pickups were much too hot and very nasal, with limited low end and very clanky highs; the overall tone was very brassy. Strung with Ernie Balll light gauge flatwounds through a vintage Ampeg SVT rig, the Fralins improved the tone drastically, but they didn't really impart much vintage 'Thunderbird' to it.
The pickups are very reasonable in output, comparable to most Fender pickups and much more "mellow" in sound without being overly muffled. However, they really could be even more mellow without sacrificing tone. Even using the vintage cap kit from RS, I find myself keeping the tone knobs mostly turned nearly all the way down and my strings are not particularly bright.
These are supposed to be modelled after vintage Gibson Thunderbird pickups, and they do not capture that particular sound. Perhaps the mixture of neck-through construction and mahogany completes that tonal mix, but I have found vintage T-Birds to be much more aggressive sounding with a less polite bottom. The sound these pickups is rticulate and smooth but not biting or big-bottomed. To my ears, they sound most similar to modern Fender Precision bass humbuckers with a slightly higher midrange resonance.
If I could make any suggestions, it would be to make the pickups more raw sounding with a bigger bottom, but not necessarily more output; I feel that is the one aspect that is completely appropriate, any hotter and they would be useless for non-master volume rigs. The negative aspects are that the height adjustment screws are too short; it is impossible to lower the pickups significantly without them coming unthreaded from the mounts and the flat-mount nickel finshed rings supplied with the pickups do not fit flush on carved-top instruments. I realize that this is not an issue for most of the basses these will be installed in, but it is something to be considered.
Overall, I am happy with them, but I feel they could be improved.
