P-90 pickup height..?

[cheezemaster]

What's the "normal" (ie stock guitar) distance from the strings for a bridge P-90?

On the general duncan FAQs it says bridge pups should be 3/32 away. Theres no way to get a soapbar that close.. unless it's a "taller" model (like the cuatom) and you put tons of stuff under it. Most P-90 axes I've played seem to have the bridge pup lower than the typical Humbucker or Fender setup..

 

[Aceman]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

You raise the poles.

 

[Curly]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

my Hamer GoldTop is mostly 4/32", lower on the bass side of the bridge pickup. I've never tried to raise it using the screws, btw.

 

[cheezemaster]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

You raise the poles.

Yeah, but this will change the tone of the pup, right?.

Here's the long story (warning..rambling ahead.. too much coffee!!)

I just put the Antiquities in my axe (which sound great). I'm just trying to figure out how high I should set the brige pup.

Anyone who's seen the Antiquites will know that the're pretty "short". I had to file down my Gibby covers to get them to be the same size as the antiquity covers (since I wanted creme and Lew only had black). Bottom line, if you raise up the pup too much, you'll see a gap under the cover.

With past Duncan/Gibson P-90s, I've been able to get them pretty close to the strings, since they're taller and have taller covers. I'd just stuff a bunch of the black foam packing stuff in the SD pickup boxes under the pup and screw it down snug. I reckon that the Antiquities aren't supposed to be jacked up this high.. is that correct.

I'm getting an amazingly sweet, creamy tone out of these puppies - it's just less output than I'm used to, even compared to the Phat Cats in my SG (which are aproximately the same output). The main difference I can tell is that the Phat Cats are adjustable and I have 'em right up at humbucker distance from the strings.

If the Ants are supposed to be backed off a bit (because this is how Gibson did it back in the day) that's cool, I just want to make sure I'm doing it correctly.

 

[Alvin Lee Fan]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

I had that same problem with my Les Paul Pro and the Antiquity P90. I bought a bridge model to go with the SD Vintage P90 neck I had in there. The pickup is so short that I had to jack it up to where it was above the surface of the guitar. It looked too weird. I ended up switching place on them, since the Vintage in the neck was actually cranked as low as it would go and I wanted it a touch lower still. Now, both pickups are where I like them and it sounds just wonderful.

Here's a note I got from Jason Lollar when I was discussing P90s with him at one time. His suggestions for how to adjust the buggers

It all depends on the guitar but I would start at the bridge, it needs to be pretty close to the strings or your mids wont be prominent enough in this position. You want to adjust it with the amp set at a volume where it will just start to distort lightly. raise it up to just under the point where if you dampen the strings they don’t hit the pole pieces. If you lower it down a couple turns too much the mids will drop out, subtle but noticeable so set them right before that happens. with the amp turned up like that check the low E string and make sure it doesn’t blat, if it does either lower the whole pickup on that side or lower the pole, often 1/2 to 1 turn of the screw will clean it up.

Then go to the neck and do the same thing. With the volume control on the guitar all the way up its going to be pretty thick sounding with very full midrange, some people confuse the thickness of tone as being louder than the bridge pickup but its just different frequency response, if you play the top strings and switch between the neck and bridge you can tell that they are of equal volume, if you play chords your ear may fool you into perceiving the neck as being louder. The trick to P-90's is to get a clearer sound you roll the volume off on the guitar 10-20% and the mids will drop out and they will clean up. The highs will still remain as long as you don’t roll the volume down too much. So if you want a tight sound in the neck roll the volume down or go to the center position for tight clear rhythm tones.

Jason

 

[cheezemaster]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

Anyone else on this?

I was just looking at some pics of old 50's Goldtops and it does indeed look like the P-90s are a set lot lower than most more modern P-90 guitars. Considering the Antiquities are supposed to be replicas of 50's pups, I'm assuming this is the reason for their "shortness".

 

[Wattage]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

W W B F G D?

 

[cheezemaster]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

W W B F G D?

Probably jus drink a beer, plug in, crank up, and stop worrying about fractions of inches in pickup height!

 

[Aceman]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

Yes - pole only adjusts will change the tone. Have ou thought of just putting bigger springs under the pup? My pups are able to be adjusted pretty close. Also -I think most people put the pups too close to the strings (As high as they can go - I'ts louder man!!!!!) I feel the tone is just soo much better backed off a bit.

 

[cheezemaster]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

I don't have springs under there - just foam padding (serves the same purpose). I just played it again and it sounds great. I have it as high as it'll go without the edge of the cover showing.. there's somewhere betwen 3/16 and 1/4 inch space from the pup to the strings. I think it'll do...

 

[Wattage]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

Probably jus drink a beer, plug in, crank up, and stop worrying about fractions of inches in pickup height!

That would be my guess too.

 

[Aceman]

Re: P-90 pickup height..?

Is that with the strings held down at the 22nd fret????