Unusual P-90 Wirings

[Shandrazar]

I have a PRS Soapbar II SE (2 P-90s, 1 Vol, 1 Tone) that I am considering upgrading with Lollar pickups.  I discovered that the Lollars and virtually all P-90 replacements use a shielded coaxial wire where the shield wire is bare.  My stock pickups have normal wires connecting them to the controls, so I know it isn't inherent in the P-90 design.  Is there a technical reason for this, or is it simply a matter of everyone doing it the way Gibson originally did it?

The reason why this matters to me is that if I am going to rewire, I might as well try to add some extra flexibility into the design.  I was thinking of adding a push-pull for series/parallel switching.  Has anyone done this with P-90s?  If so, how did it work?  I also haven't ruled out a push-pull phase switch, although I suspect it won't be worth the effort.  Has anyone tried that?

Shielded wiring would make this all more complicated.  The shielding would be too clumsy to be soldered to a lug directly.  I  would have to solder a normal wire to the shielding for ease of use.  I would also have to insulate the shielding wire with shrink tube or electrical tape all the way back to the pickup to avoid accidental shorting.

 

[TroubledTreble]

Any pickup with a metal base plate needs to have the base plate grounded. One way to this is to use the ground wire which goes to the start winding of the coil.

Giving the base plate it's own ground wire gives the user the ability to do other wiring schemes i.e. reverse the wiring.

True you will need to more closely manage the bare shielding wire to prevent shorts. You may just need to neatly tape it or tie wrap it. I haven't seen too many cases of this happening. With a little care it shouldn't give you too much trouble.

I haven't tried reverse phasing on a P-90 but it should work just as well as any single coil.

BTW. If the shield was really an issue for you, you could take it off and just run a separate insulated wire directly to the base plate.

 

[bpmorton777]

shrink tubing works too.

Brian

 

[tfarny]

It's not that hard to work with braided shield as opposed to a typical ground wire. The guitar that gets played the most around here is my thinline tele, it has a lollar neck p90 and a lollar special T bridge, wound near 8K. I have a series switch on the guitar, to make it a humbucker that tops 16k resistance. It's definitely a different tone, big volume boost. But it's extremely midrangey, I'm talking bayou mud, it's fun to use for a few lead lines,but of all the different tones I get with the guitar it's my least favorite, because the 'fat clarity' of the P90 doesn't come through and the 'hot country jangle' of the bridge pup is totally lost. It does not sound like a typical high-output ceramic mag humbucker (like a JB or something) in any way, shape or form, if that's what you are after. Hope that's helpful.

 

[Shandrazar]

That was very helpful, tfarny, although I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "bayou mud".  If you threw in "bayou" just to mean "extreme, unusable mud", that is bad.  However, if you meant a Creedence Clearwater Revival type "swamp rock" tone, I could definitely have some fun with that.  I'm not sure what I was hoping for in the series combination - maybe a P-90 turned to 11 - but I thought it might be interesting.  I would still like to hear if others have gotten similar results.

I've tentatively decided to take an intermediate step and rewire the existing pickups with push-pulls to see if I like what I get.  I expect it will cost me no more than around $30 for the parts, which isn't bad.  If it doesn't work out the push-pulls can go into my spare parts bin when I do the final job.

 

[tfarny]

I meant lots of mud. The two in parallel could get you to creedence though.