What? Chris needs another pickup recommendation? Say it isn't so. P90ish

ChristopherG

ChristopherG

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Realized today that I don't own a P90 equipped git fiddle, so to kill three stones with one bird--see my post in OT--I am going to drop a bucker sized P90 in my latest guitar purchase. Clarity is important but with some bite and growl. A well spoken pitbull if you will.

If you don't want to look at my OT thread and want to know, we are talking about a bridge pickup only, maple body/maple top Michael Kelly Patriot.
 
Check out Wolfetone pickups. he is local for me and I have been talking to him about a bridge P90 for a possible single pickup guitar. The thing I like about his P90s are the tonal texture and they are a bit quieter than many. I also know a happy Kinman owner. The link I sent is for a regular P90 I just realized but I think Wolfe is now doing bucker sized ones also.

http://www.wolfetone.com/mean.html#
 
Yes Kinman is doing Humbucker sized P90s. There is probably a link to a demo video on his site.
 
Pickups I am currently considering:

1. Kinman P90bucker.
2. BG Pure90
3. Harmonic Design Z-90
4. Dimarzio Bluesbucker--makes the list because you can put the hot coil farther from the bridge giving a slightly "looser" sound.
5 Duncan Phat Cat
6. Duncan P-rails with Triple Shot ring

I am not hell bent on a "vintage" P90 sound--a critter that is fairly mythical--just something that has clarity, bite and growl.
 
I'm not a P90 man myself. I actually went the other way and took out the P90 from the -61 Les Paul Junior (SG-shaped) that I once owned (back in the eighties) and put in a Bill Lawrence humbucker that had a smaller size. Best sounding guitar ever in my opinion, but probably not the kind of tone you're looking for.

When the time comes for my Warmoth build I'll be putting in Seymour Duncan P-Rails in it.
 
GFS Dream 90 or Mean 90 will do the trick for half to a fifth of the price of some of your other options.


http://www.guitarfetish.com/GFS-Dream-90-Black-Bobbin-with-Chrome-Case-Bridge-Position_p_311.html


http://www.guitarfetish.com/Mean-90-Gloss-Black-TRUE-Alnico-P90-FAT-and-Loud-bridge-Position_p_477.html


Worked just fine in my GOM/GOY Tele.  Neck position, but still...



 
I guess I should mention the sorts of things that are going to be played on the guitar. Mostly fingerstyle. I can make my bassnotes thumpy with my palm but when I play unmuted I want to be able to have bass notes that aren't mushy and indistinct.
 
Here is a clip of a bare knuckle Manhattan. It has a jazzy sound. At 1 min he goes into finger style.

https://youtu.be/LyKwWKkCprE

Also the Mississippi queen sounds good too.

https://youtu.be/71l_cFkliow
 
I'll put in a second vote for the GFS Dream or Mean 90 parts. Don't be fooled by the price - they're very nice parts.
 
I've got a pair of GFS Mean 90s just waiting for the V body to arrive from Tonar. For the price, I don't see how I can go wrong. I'm already certain they will be just fine if not perfect for the guitar.

I did once own a (dearly missed) Gibson SG Jr I replaced the stock P90 with the then-new DiMarzio P90-sized HB. Great sound! Really kicked up the output and opened up the tonal range. Looking forward to recreating that guitar using the Precision Guitar kit.

Not much help, I'm afraid but that's my humble input.
 
When it comes to P-90s, I always recommend either going big or going small, and ignoring the middle ground.

To that end, the best of the boutique hum-sized P-90s I've found comes from The Creamery. There's a few different options for their Hum-90 pickup. They're wound with 43 AWG wire to either 9k or a little over 8k (i.e. bridge & neck, but you can use either in either position) and you have a choice of alnico 2, 3, 4 or 5 magnets. I use the alnico 4 for the neck to get an even balance closer to a full-size, normal P-90, and an alnico 2 for the bridge to get a fatter P-90 tone, like an overwound PAF with more clarity through the lower frequencies. At £80 a pop they're not actually the most expensive of the boutique winders, but they still cost more than common brands, and if you have to pay large shipping fees on top of that, it can be pretty pricey for what is essentially just two magnets and a length of wire.

If you're not keen to pay out for that, I recommend you skip right down to the 'budget' lines. P-90s are such a simple construction, and there's no coil balancing to worry about, so it's very easy for cheaper brands to put together a very nice pickup, compared to how often they fail at making a nice humbucker.

Irongear and GFS do make a few different P-90s in humbucker housings. For my money, the Irongear Alchemist 90 is better than any of the GFS ones I've tried, but that's mostly a matter of taste. The Irongear P-90 is underwound so it is a little clearer, while all the GFS ones are wound hotter to various degrees, so you can pick pretty much any balance of clarity and power that you like.

The king of the cheaper, hum-sized P-90 is the Tonerider Rebel 90. The neck is an almost exact clone of the SD Phat Cat—only it saves you a few coins—and the bridge is wound just hot enough to give you that P-90-meets-PAF feel that is what hum-sized P-90s are really best for. If you think the price of the boutique Creamery pickups is too high, the Rebel 90s should be your #2 choice. The sensitivity is unmatched until you get to the boutique pickups.
 
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