the mal young gretch uses the same pups as the other filtertron gretsches. the first ones had ceramic pups that sounded very different from the old ones. the later ones have alnico 5 pups that are good. the best new pup, however, seems to be tvclassics from tvjones. I recommend these. Notice, however, that you must be very careful about the setup - the pup and the polescrews must be close to the strings - follow tv jones instructions.
What have got peoples attention is mal's heavy strings. what gets overlooked is that he uses pure nickel roundwould strings, mostly old gibson jcm2000 I believe. these are hard to find, the closest gibson string today is the L5 jazz strings. I prefer pyramids, however. snake oil nickel strings are also supposed to be good. I don't like the GHS nickels strings and the new gibson strings - they sound to darka and muddy for me. the pyramids are brighter and will give you much more punch.
I have some comments on amps and settings as well
