Gibson P90 mag swap ?

[dazco]

In the thread i linked below someone says they swapped the mag in a gibson P90 bridge pickup and it became beefier. 3 questions

1-gibsons use A5 in thier P90's right?
2-he mentioned using an A8 and a A4 in the bridge....never swapped a p90 mag, do they have 2 mags, one on each side of the poles?
3-is there a universally accepted mag type(s) to use in the gibson P90 bridge?

Heres my goal....the bridge has a nice tone on 10. I use a amp with vintage style OD, not a ton, then use the guitar volume to clean up old school style. But as soon as i turn the volume down the tone of the bridge pickup gets very narrow and thing. Please no recommendations for tone controls and treble bleeds, i already know all that stuff and tried it all. But it's simple the nature of the pickup and trying to fix it with a bandaid isn't what i'm after. I always find if it's not there w/o playing with tone controls and treble bleed it's not going to work for me, trust me on that. I want it to be less middy so that when i turn down it has a much fuller clean tone. As it is stock it's so middy when turned down it sounds like you ran it thru a EQ with a steep reverse V. So i really need to fix this via magnets or look at other pickups, and i'm really not interested it gambling on pickups at this point. I already have several sets for sale and it gets old selling them and taking a loss. So i just want some thoughts on mag swaps by those who've done this with gibson P90's. Thanks.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

1 - Yes.
2 - Yes.
3 - No.

The forumite employing mixed magnet types was hoping to combine sonic qualities of both within one pickup. blueman335 claims to do these mag swaps on P90s. GuitarDoc has mixed A8 and A N Other in P-Rails pickups. Kojak has tested the majority of magnet permutations. PM one (or all) of them.

 

[dazco]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

Thank you ! I will see if they reply and if not i'll pm them. Thanks.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

In the thread i linked below someone says they swapped the mag in a gibson P90 bridge pickup and it became beefier. 3 questions

1-gibsons use A5 in thier P90's right?
2-he mentioned using an A8 and a A4 in the bridge....never swapped a p90 mag, do they have 2 mags, one on each side of the poles?
3-is there a universally accepted mag type(s) to use in the gibson P90 bridge?

Heres my goal....the bridge has a nice tone on 10. I use a amp with vintage style OD, not a ton, then use the guitar volume to clean up old school style. But as soon as i turn the volume down the tone of the bridge pickup gets very narrow and thing. Please no recommendations for tone controls and treble bleeds, i already know all that stuff and tried it all. But it's simple the nature of the pickup and trying to fix it with a bandaid isn't what i'm after. I always find if it's not there w/o playing with tone controls and treble bleed it's not going to work for me, trust me on that. I want it to be less middy so that when i turn down it has a much fuller clean tone. As it is stock it's so middy when turned down it sounds like you ran it thru a EQ with a steep reverse V. So i really need to fix this via magnets or look at other pickups, and i'm really not interested it gambling on pickups at this point. I already have several sets for sale and it gets old selling them and taking a loss. So i just want some thoughts on mag swaps by those who've done this with gibson P90's. Thanks.

So, you're basically asking for a magic wand...

From the description given, assuming you did all those moddings you referred to yourself to the same instrument, I'd say it's time to change those most probably fried pots of yours and start over with a new harness.

I don't think a mag swap will do anything of your liking if the harness is fried.

Anyway, Erick Coleman shows a P-90 here, so you can see what you'll deal with, if you decide to mag swap.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8903114@N07/4714911721/in/set-72157624327654330/lightbox/

HTH,

 

[dazco]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

So, you're basically asking for a magic wand...

From the description given, assuming you did all those moddings you referred to yourself to the same instrument, I'd say it's time to change those most probably fried pots of yours and start over with a new harness.

I don't think a mag swap will do anything of your liking if the harness is fried.

Anyway, Erick Coleman shows a P-90 here, so you can see what you'll deal with, if you decide to mag swap.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8903114@N07/4714911721/in/set-72157624327654330/lightbox/

HTH,

My 40 hours a week is as an amp tech. I have a fairly good idea what is fried or not. Next....

 

[blueman335]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

before I knew anyone had swapped mags in P-90's, and paired up different kinds, I started experimenting myself and reported the results here. That seemed to inspire some people. A number of people feel twin A5's in a bridge P-90 can be bright and mid-scooped. If you EQ the bridge, the neck will probably be dark and muffled. The solution for me was to beef up the bridge with magnets. My favorite is an A8/A4. I also use A8/A5, UOA5/UOA5, and A4/A4. All of these pairs add mids and dial down some treble.

To swap mags: take off the cover and loosen the two baseplate screws. Between the baseplate and coil are two HB magnets, laying side-by-side, repelling. Push one out halfway, and to orient, hold the new mag next to it, so the ends repel and sides attract. Push the old one out all the way and slide the new one in. Do the same thing for the other mag, if you're going to swap that out too. Quick and easy. Tighten the base plate screws and put the cover back on. Because you can pair up any two magnets, you can dial in the EQ you want, more precisely than with a HB.

 

[dazco]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

before I knew anyone had swapped mags in P-90's, and paired up different kinds, I started experimenting myself and reported the results here. That seemed to inspire some people. A number of people feel twin A5's in a bridge P-90 can be bright and mid-scooped. If you EQ the bridge, the neck will probably be dark and muffled. The solution for me was to beef up the bridge with magnets. My favorite is an A8/A4. I also use A8/A5, UOA5/UOA5, and A4/A4. All of these pairs add mids and dial down some treble.

To swap mags: take off the cover and loosen the two baseplate screws. Between the baseplate and coil are two HB magnets, laying side-by-side, repelling. Push one out halfway, and to orient, hold the new mag next to it, so the ends repel and sides attract. Push the old one out all the way and slide the new one in. Do the same thing for the other mag, if you're going to swap that out too. Quick and easy. Tighten the base plate screws and put the cover back on. Because you can pair up any two magnets, you can dial in the EQ you want, more precisely than with a HB.

Thanks for that. Thats the kind of answer i was looking for. I know how, as i've swapped many magnets, just not in a P90 but it's obviously the same basic way. I also do the same to orient them right. Only problem is what i'm looking for is less mids, not more. But I think you may be talking lower mids, just going by what i know A2 sounds like. They DO favor lower mids IMO. Mine have an abundance of high mids. I like them on 10 where the OD tends to be sweet with mids. But cleaned up i need a more open sound. Maybe taking off some top would help because even tho i want to remove high mids, the abundance of everything from the high mids on up is what becomes too much as i clean up. So losing some of either may do it for me. I do have one A5UO i can try, so maybe leaving one of the stock A5's in it and replacing the other with that UO mag might help a bit? If not i'll head to ebay and grab some others. But lemmie ask you one more thing....which combo of mags do you think most sounds like a humbucker? I know nothing will, but which do you think is closest? I like P90 sound and don't want to completely lose it, but i'd like it to lean towards HB sound a bit, as they tend to have a EQ curve more like what i'm after.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

But as soon as i turn the volume down the tone of the bridge pickup gets very narrow and thing. Please no recommendations for tone controls and treble bleeds, i already know all that stuff and tried it all.

Looks like "all" was *not enough*...

I always find if it's not there w/o playing with tone controls and treble bleed it's not going to work for me.

Is a simple '50s wiring part of "all"?

I want it to be less middy so that when i turn down it has a much fuller clean tone. As it is stock it's so middy when turned down it sounds like you ran it thru a EQ with a steep reverse V.

This is *not* normal behaviour in a P-90 instrument. Something in the harness is *not* right... I've seen it in the past at least a couple of times... let me see... right! My notes say "burned/defective pot/s". But what do I know, uh?

My 40 hours a week is as an amp tech. I have a fairly good idea what is fried or not.

Of course it can't be that. I apologize for even suggesting it.

Good luck with the mag swap.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Gibson P90 mag swap ?

Thanks for that. Thats the kind of answer i was looking for. I know how, as i've swapped many magnets, just not in a P90 but it's obviously the same basic way. I also do the same to orient them right. Only problem is what i'm looking for is less mids, not more. But I think you may be talking lower mids, just going by what i know A2 sounds like. They DO favor lower mids IMO. Mine have an abundance of high mids. I like them on 10 where the OD tends to be sweet with mids. But cleaned up i need a more open sound. Maybe taking off some top would help because even tho i want to remove high mids, the abundance of everything from the high mids on up is what becomes too much as i clean up. So losing some of either may do it for me. I do have one A5UO i can try, so maybe leaving one of the stock A5's in it and replacing the other with that UO mag might help a bit? If not i'll head to ebay and grab some others. But lemmie ask you one more thing....which combo of mags do you think most sounds like a humbucker? I know nothing will, but which do you think is closest? I like P90 sound and don't want to completely lose it, but i'd like it to lean towards HB sound a bit, as they tend to have a EQ curve more like what i'm after.

All of the mag pairs I mentioned add some mids and reduce treble, so they all give a little of a HB sound by doing that. And they also still have some of that open P-90 sound too. Since A5's have the least mids of any alnico, you'll probably want to keep an A5 in there. Try an A5 with an UOA5 or A4; both are warm, without an abundance of mids. That'll keep it from getting too thick, and take off some high-end. As far as which will work best for you, it depends on the guitar, amp, etc. Swapping magnets in P-90's is easy and there's no soldering involved. I don't know if it makes any difference which magnet is posiioned closest to the bridge, but you could experiment with that too.