Humbucker bridge and Noiseless P90 neck?

[Vics53]

As the title suggests, anyone here ever try this combination? I'd like to find some new pickups for my Epiphone SG Pro and I'm considering this combination.

Reason being is that neck humbuckers are generally too bassey/droney to me. I've listened to many video's of P90 neck pickups and like what I hear.

If you have tried this combination what are your thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[ICTGoober]

The Gibson Les Paul Futura of a few years back had a humbucker in the bridge and a P-90 in the neck.

 

[Mincer]

I think the problem is that many people feel that stacked P90s don't succeed as well as stacked regular singles. They add a lot of fatness, which takes away from the P-90ness.

 

[Benjy_26]

I had a Custom/Phat Cat combo in a LP for a while. It worked quite well.

 

[jeremy]

i think a p90 neck/bucker bridge is a great combo. i havent heard a noiseless p90 i love but im sure there is a good one out there somewhere

 

[Vics53]

Thanks gang. That Gibson Futura is a guitar I never heard of. Checked out some video's on YouTube and wish they would have demo'd it differently. Would have been nice to hear something played on the bridge and then played the same thing on the neck with a clean tone then with an overdriven tone so I could hear how things balanced out. But everybody was so push/pull/boost happy to the point of it being a distraction. But I'm going to further research this. My thinking (offhand) is that P90's are clearer and not as bass heavy as humbuckers. I have nothing to prove it but it seems like a humbucker bridge/P90 neck might solve things for me.

 

[Juanhanglo]

My next guitar will have 2 p90s. Although, i am considering a humbucker bridge slot so i have options. I could always use an hb sized p90

 

[chadd]

P90s in the neck are great for single note lines, but I find them a bit muddy for other things with my usual settings.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Consider a mini humbucker for the neck, as well. I love the minis in my Ibanez Fireman enough that I got another to go in my Les Paul’s neck. Paired with a T-Top, it trims all the fat and sounds extremely sweet.

 

[Benjy_26]

Consider a mini humbucker for the neck, as well. I love the minis in my Ibanez Fireman enough that I got another to go in my Les Paul’s neck. Paired with a T-Top, it trims all the fat and sounds extremely sweet.

I have a SM1n in the neck of my Alleykat and one in the neck of my Nighthawk and a SM1b in the neck of one of my Teles. FANTASTIC neck tones from all three guitars. This is an underrated set up.

 

[esandes]

I have a guitar with a HB bridge and P90 neck and it is a great combo together. The neck isn't noiseless as I think there's always a tone price to pay for noiseless. So I actually just got the guitar cavity shielded to help reduce the P90 noise.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

I too like P90 neck tone. I don't play with metal-level gain, but never had issues with soupiness on chord parts.

Really disliked Gibson's noiseless p90 substitute, the P100.
Found it lacking in terms of attack & openness, and it didn't seem to have much classic P90 character in the mids either.

Been using a pair of Kent Armstrong noiseless Stealth90s which a previous owner installed in a Hagstrom I bought.
Not bad - perhaps a tad more polite than a true P90.
They still have some bark & bite though, and even a bit of chime.
Five years later I haven't swapped them out.

Please understand, I haven't tried a lot of noiseless P90s. But to my ear these are head & shoulders above the P100.

They're in an F200P, not too different from an SG, so probably it has similarly strong natural midrange.
(This guitar does have a trem though; that likely thins & brightens its voice a bit.)

 

[elelpe]

I find most P-90 is quite bassy especially in Gibson style guitar unless it's underwound. But SG has different neck pickup position (as if it has 24 frets), so it may helps. Firebird mini suggestion is spot on if you need less bassy plus noiseless pickup.

 

[zionstrat]

One of my main guitars currently is a Reverend that has a p90 neck and their hyper vintage pickup in the bridge.

It's one of my favorite two pickup combinations because it has so much versatility.. the p90 does all the warm and clean stuff that you expect while their hypervintage humbucker goes from thin tele-like sounds to thick humbucker sounds. So for me it is a extremely flexible combination.

As far as noiseless p90s, I have less sucess with dual coil approaches and more with dummy coils. I find dummy coils extremely useful and a small amount of the dummy coil is often enough to reject noise.

 

[Bogner]

I have a Nik Huber Krautster that has a p90 neck and Humbucker bridge. The guitar is awesome. I also have other guitars that are all p90. While those are nice as well, I can get a bit more versatility out of the p90/Humbucker combo.

 

[alex1fly]

My SG recently came back from the shop with a HB bridge and noiseless P90 neck - Dimarzio Norton and Dimarzio Virtual P90. It was an experiment. I don't love the contrast between the neck and bridge the way I thought I would. The bridge is balanced and a bit compressed like you would expect from a medium output HB, and it splits into a nice single coil type sound. The neck in contrast is too fat and much less responsive to volume/tone controls, and just plays differently. Somehow the two pickups play a lot more differently than, say, the neck and bridge pickups in a HSS Strat. I can get good sounds out of each pickup, but so far they don't play well with each other with the same EQ settings. I'm giving it some time but chances are good I'll pull the neck pickup and swap for something else around the next string change.

 

[esandes]

The P90 can be overly bassy in the lower strings but dialing back the volume cleans it up so it's more transparent. I use the JB and SP-1. Being SDs they can drive the amp hard. It's nice to be able to have that capability to crank up the guitar volume and send maximum juice to the amp.

Why do people not like linear pots?