Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

[Fatty]

Anyone have experience with stacked or otherwise noiseless P-90's? I'm considering ordering a set, but I'm also afraid that some of the P-90 mojo won't be there. (Loss of highs, etc). By the same token, the Custom P-90 in my strat can get downright noisy at times, so you can understand my predicament.

Anyone with experience care to comment?

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

Graet question!
Thinking though exactly the same issues for a mahagony body I want to build- But instead of a true noise canceling pup, I'm strongly considering using a dummy coil, ala a blueshawk- Anyone out there have any experience and can compare and contrast?

 

[big_black]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

The problem with using a dummy coil is that you have to match the coil windings exactly for the noise to be cancelled properly. The Blueshawk uses the same pickup for neck and bridge, with a duplicate as the dummy coil. If you are using a good P-90s that could get expensive- buying an extra just to use as a dummy. The neck and bridge coils would probably also not match.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

BB- Well maybe you just made up my mind for me- No way I will sacrifice a pup for it's coil-

But I'm a bit surprised and had actually considered trying to wind my own dummy coil as I didn't realize that it was this criticle based on what is probably flawed thinking- For example:

-When I roll off the 2nd coil of a regular humb, often it takes very little of the 2nd coil to handle the noise canceing

-There are pups like Dmarzio bluesbuckers that get good reviews and have intetionally mismatched coils (in this case to get more of a p90 sound), yet they apparently noise cancel very well-

-When I noise cancel accross 1 coil of my JB and 1 on a crusier, they are very different coils, yet they noise cancel well

Is the need for exact windings due to the fact that the summy coil is located farther away than the adjacent space? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? I haven't been able to find much in searches for dummy coils on the web-

Sorry Fatty if I hijacked the thread the wrong direction

 

[big_black]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

The coil windings needing to be the same is what I was told by a couple of sources. I am far from an expert and it very well may be wrong or not the whole truth. I was looking into putting P-90s into my Blueshawk, but was told it was not a easy as dropping the P-90s in- the coils had to match. Maybe you should start a thread and get the wiring gurus in on this.

 

[Aceman]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

I have Gibson P-100's (noise cancelling). Now that you've stopped laughing, I agree that they just don't have the same sound mojo as real p-90's that I have heard.

But a dummy coil really does cut noise pretty well. CAn't say about the winding thing....

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

good idea big black! lets see if anyone's home-
thx!

 

[Fatty]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

Sorry Fatty if I hijacked the thread the wrong direction

No worries at all.. I'm actually finding the dummy coil idea pretty interesting.

 

[big_black]

Re: Noiseless P-90's.. sound difference?

Dummy coils work really well if it is done properly. No loss of tone in my experience.