Humbucker Sized P-90 to Pair With a 59?

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Re: Humbucker Sized P-90 to Pair With a 59?

However, the P-90 in the bridge with a little distortion or overdrive gives such a great classic rock tone with way more clarity and bite than you can expect from most humbuckers. It is a superb tone for 60s rock..

well, the answer here is obvious... you need four guitars. one HxH, one PxH, one HxP, and one PxP.:fingersx:

seriously though, if you want the classic p-90 sound either a mean-90 or a phat cat with a5 magnets swapped in will get you the classic p-90 tone, neck or bridge.

personally, i've got a pearly gates and phat cat that i've tried together in just about every H-H guitar i've owned with just about every type of alnico out there. they're both bridge models so i switched them between spots every now and again, but usually ended up going with the PG in the bridge and the PC in the neck. mostly because i like the bridge to be a bit fatter and the neck to have more clarity, and because i can work with both pickups without having to re-eq my settings because of the neck pickup being too dark. however, you might like the opposite with a warm smooth neck sound and a bright clear bridge sound. just experiment with it, there's really no right or wrong when it comes to this kinda stuff.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Humbucker Sized P-90 to Pair With a 59?

Ah, that's different. Yes, P-90's have a 'delicious' bright, open quality that you just can't get from a HB.

Have you been using roughcasts, and if so, how do you like them?

I haven't used any yet. But I appreciate your reviews of them. I'm not sure where I would use them...I like the bright to edgey sound in the bridge that I get from P-90s or minihumbuckers. That has become my mainstay. But occasionally I use the neck PU (either Pearly Gates or '57 Classic) when I need mellow, smooth, creamy leads. The A2 mag works fine for me in these. Would a roughcast offer me any improvement on that tone?

I want to keep the bridge nice and bright, so I can't see a use for it there, for what I want. I know you really like to smooth out the bridge tone with 250k pots and roughcast mags, but I personally like that PU to be bright.