“Thwack” best describes the attack of this pickup like the sound effect from an old Bruce Lee fight scene. There is snap with body to the transient. It makes playing staccato very exciting. The pickup has a pleasant voice too, like a very slight “aww” sound when playing distorted rhythms. I loaded them a stock wound 43 awg set into a Hamer Vanguard which is all mahogany and semi-hollow in the upper bout. Stainless-steel saddles and a steel stop tail. The guitar still doesn’t sound overly bright nor does it sound dark or dull. Quite the contrary! They are definitely in the ball park of P-90s as I compared them against a set of Lollar 50s wind P-90s, Mojotone QC P90s and Fralin P-92s. They were the clearest of the bunch but not the brightest (the lollar 50s wind were). Saying that the P-92s are darker is really splitting hairs since they are very much in the same tonal arena. These just feel “muscular” if your definition of that term is full and thick under gain but without any loss in attack. These clean up very effectively when you roll down the volume on your guitar too. More than other pickups I’ve used. I could roll the volume on the neck almost all the way down and still have a clear, full-bodied rhythm sound that chimed and “clanged” which is evidence of the transient response of the pickup which stays true at all levels of saturation. I really like playing old-school punk as well as little pretty clear arpeggiated chords too often in the same phrase. this is a real neat design that is unique but not so tonally out there that it feel unfamiliar to work with against other more traditionally equipped guitars. Lastly – I found the sound clips of the Big Single Mini 43 gauge to by true to my experience in practice.
