Weird to get used to as a non-PAF guy. So much of my playing has evolved in the context of bright single coils with sharp attack, so if I use it to play stuff I normally play the way I normally play it on my main guitars, it sounds thuddy and lifeless.
But once I started working with the guitar instead of fighting against it, I slowly began playing better to its strengths. The middle pickup position is by far my favourite. There's some magic there that I've never heard in another one of my guitars. With a capo on, middle pickup position, I found myself playing it fingerstyle much like I would an acoustic guitar, and Bruce Cockburn type stuff sounds incredible.
Single note lines on the neck pickup have a thickness and body I'm not used to, and I found I could solo with it with very low gain because the blunted attack and long natural sustain made it work. I've never been much of a solo guy, though, but I'm sure I'll figure out what to do with it.
The bridge pickup remains a bit of an enigma. It does a certain type of thing very well, but that thing really isn't my thing. I'm used to only using bridge pickups for very cutting tones and that's not what this guitar wants to do. I instantly recognized that it sounds like a million famous recordings of PAF guitars on their bridge pickup, but that's by and large a tone I've always found rather boring. It's like it's daring me to play along to a "classic rock" radio station or join a blues band with a bunch of other middle class white guys, and I'm trying my best to politely decline.
I know the middle position is pretty commonly prized by 335 players, and now I totally get it. It's like all the things that I want to play on this guitar sound the best in that position. It's funny, because I'm probably 60% neck/30% bridge/10% middle position on my other two-pickup guitars, but so far it's 10% neck/90% middle/0% bridge on the 335.
But it's really a hard guitar to put down. The feedback it gives in the form of its acoustic response is kind of addictive. I do not find the Gibson sunburst or 335 shape appealing in the slightest, but the feel of the neck and the response of the guitar once I pick it up makes me forget about all that. It's really challenged my perception of electric guitars.