Neck or Bridge Pickup for LP junior style guitar

[stevely]

I have a PRS SE One (LP junior style) and thinking about changing the stock Asian P90 pickup for an SD P90Antiquity. However unsure whether to use a neck or bridge pickup. I believe Eastman uses a Lollar 50s wind neck pick up (approx 7.7k output) which would equate to the Antiquity neck (Antiquity Bridge is hotter at 8.6K). Not sure what Gibson do.

Does anyone know what is typical for these style guitars?

 

[hamerfan]

Welcome to our Forum. In short: If you want it brite and bitey, take a neck. If you want it bold and full sounding, take a bridge.

Postscriptum: I think i have heard, that the P90 of the asian PRS have a non standard dimension, so they might be not compatible with aftermarket P 90. Maybe anyone else could chime in.

 

[switchman]

Hi - is there something specific about the current pickup you want to change? Or can you describe the sound you're going for and a bit of your amp and gear setup? Suggestions would depend on that. It's not a guitar with a lot of examples of swaps probably. If you're looking at Antiquity and Lollar I'd guess you're not trying to play high gain...

I found the Antiquity and regular Lollar P-90's somewhat dissimilar.

Basically the Ant's are using actual Gibson 1950's style construction with lower output and weaker magnets to sound clean(er) if you want. But still true to what a classic P-90 tone with amps of 60's and 70's..

Lollar purposely deviates from that design to make a more efficient pickup which to my ears means louder. I don't remember where but I read or heard him describe it that way. There's no metal baseplate and a more Fender-like bobbin construction still using bar magnets and screw polepieces. I've tried most of their winds. They all have a degree of what I call their signature midrange grind - even the Alnico polepiece version. I thought they sounded great with a small amp turned up loud but not at lower volumes.

Also consider that Lollar doesn't recommend treble bleed on the volume pot with their pickups and your PRS most likely has it. And the guitar is only a single 500K volume pot. It will naturally give a slightly brighter tone to any pickup compared to a guitar with a second 500K tone pot loading the circuit more.​

 

[freefrog]

Postscriptum: I think i have heard, that the P90 of the asian PRS have a non standard dimension, so they might be not compatible with aftermarket P 90. Maybe anyone else could chime in.

When I've mounted a Kinman P90Hx in a PRS SE One, I had to deepen the cavity because of the thickness of the new pickup, but I don't recall different lenght / width dimensions for the stock single coil : it could be fit with other P90 covers without an issue. If memory serves me, its screw poles were shorter than in a regular P90, though.

For the record, my favorite PU for a PRS SE One is... a vintage correct Dynasonic (with high setting screws for each AlNiCo rod and so on). It required to route the cavity even deeper than for a noiseless stack and was a bit tricky to mount but it cooperated very well visually and sonically with this hybrid scale instrument.

Also, there's enough room to mount a tone pot next to the volume control in the existing electronic cavity of a SE One - and yes, the stock 1nF treble bleed is a bit harsh...

Regarding Lollar P90's, I remember them as having no keeper bars: the magnets touch directly the screw poles. It's not that rare (the same thing can be found in stock Asian P90's of Hamer XT's) but it's effectively not vintage correct.

FWIW.

 

[jeremy]

if it was me, id go bridge model to have a bit more output and mid range. a single pup jr usually has plenty of bite already

 

[elelpe]

Personally I'd go with neck version in the bridge. That's the classic sound. Back then there were no bridge and neck version. The bridge version is modern solution to compensate output imbalance.
I had SP90-1N in my LP special style and now have Antiquity in it (pairs well with SM-1N). SP90-1N was good but I love more dynamic I've got from Antiquity. More versatile. A friend of mine plays harder music. He has SP90-3B in his SE One. It fits the cavity.