SmokeDaddy
New member
Hey guys, here's a good question for all the fellow tone freaks: Many years ago, I bought a standard cheapie MiM Fender Telecaster for the purpose of modifying. And modify it I did: what I did was have the guitar routed and put a full-sized P-90 in the neck, and a Harmonic Design Super 90 in the bridge (which the website describes thusly):
"The ultimate power pickup for converting your Tele to a P-90 sound.The Gibson-style adjustable pole pieces and powerful P-90 magnet assembly combine to crank out a fat, crunchy tone from any Tele without modifying the guitar. This is THE rockin' pickup for Teles.
The high-output Super 90 combined with the vintage-type steel Tele bridge gives a great "Tele-Paul" tone, and with the later-style polished-chrome bridge, it's output is fully equal to a P-90! These are way too powerful to match with a wimpy stock type neck pickup pickup, use with our Vintage Plus neck pickup or a humbucker."
Sounds great, right? I just wanted to beef up my telecaster, make it handle distortion awesomely but still retain the tele quack. In my mind at the time, P-90 style pickups seemed like the route to go to achieve that; 'not as much output as a humbucker, but more than a single coil! What can possibly go wrong?'
Fast forward to now, years later: While the guitar looks unique and cooler than cool, I've never managed to get myself to like the general sound of the guitar now. I even preferred the stock tele pickups to this setup! In the immortal words of Gob from Arrested Development: "I've made a huge mistake!" The true P-90 in the neck doesn't sound like I hoped it would; I wanted to beef it up, to basically just have a tele with more snarl. What I ended up with, however, is a dark pickup that doesnt handle distortion all very well, can't get a good level of distortion (even the single coils did it better) and at the same time doesn't handle cleans the way I hoped either. It's dark, muddy-like, unusable for any of the sounds I like to make. I enjoy P-90s in other guitars (SG's with P-90s in it for example = true love), but on my tele, it doesn't work. The Super 90 bridge pickup on it is fairly good, kind of midrangey and upper high-y and distorts decently, I guess, but now it's lost the trademark tele twang that I adore so much. It's a decent pickup, but not the best in the world, and I kind of miss that twang, which was my whole reason for buying the tele anyway. :2:
(Side note: I play rock n roll, this guitar would be for various stuff, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Violent Femmes, Prince, etc.)
The stock pickups had that twang, but were shrill, no bass in the lower end, and icepick highs, no body to it. So here is where I ask you, my fellow countrymen: What P-90 soapbar-sized humbuckers are available and good out there, for the neck position? The description above stated that the bridge Super 90 is equal output to a P-90. I play thru a Fender Deville with a power attenuator so I can crank it up and use tube overdrive for my distortion. I need a P-90-sized humbucker (or do p-90 sized non-p90 single coils even exist??) that will sound good for my telecaster. What would you guys recommend?
And also: I'm not sure if I should change the bridge pickup for it as well, but I'm open to it. So in that vein, what single coil-sized pickup for the bridge of a telecaster is good and would work with whatever P-90 sized pickup (that will not actually be a P-90) do you recommend me?
Thanks!
"The ultimate power pickup for converting your Tele to a P-90 sound.The Gibson-style adjustable pole pieces and powerful P-90 magnet assembly combine to crank out a fat, crunchy tone from any Tele without modifying the guitar. This is THE rockin' pickup for Teles.
The high-output Super 90 combined with the vintage-type steel Tele bridge gives a great "Tele-Paul" tone, and with the later-style polished-chrome bridge, it's output is fully equal to a P-90! These are way too powerful to match with a wimpy stock type neck pickup pickup, use with our Vintage Plus neck pickup or a humbucker."
Sounds great, right? I just wanted to beef up my telecaster, make it handle distortion awesomely but still retain the tele quack. In my mind at the time, P-90 style pickups seemed like the route to go to achieve that; 'not as much output as a humbucker, but more than a single coil! What can possibly go wrong?'
Fast forward to now, years later: While the guitar looks unique and cooler than cool, I've never managed to get myself to like the general sound of the guitar now. I even preferred the stock tele pickups to this setup! In the immortal words of Gob from Arrested Development: "I've made a huge mistake!" The true P-90 in the neck doesn't sound like I hoped it would; I wanted to beef it up, to basically just have a tele with more snarl. What I ended up with, however, is a dark pickup that doesnt handle distortion all very well, can't get a good level of distortion (even the single coils did it better) and at the same time doesn't handle cleans the way I hoped either. It's dark, muddy-like, unusable for any of the sounds I like to make. I enjoy P-90s in other guitars (SG's with P-90s in it for example = true love), but on my tele, it doesn't work. The Super 90 bridge pickup on it is fairly good, kind of midrangey and upper high-y and distorts decently, I guess, but now it's lost the trademark tele twang that I adore so much. It's a decent pickup, but not the best in the world, and I kind of miss that twang, which was my whole reason for buying the tele anyway. :2:
(Side note: I play rock n roll, this guitar would be for various stuff, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Pixies, Sonic Youth, Violent Femmes, Prince, etc.)
The stock pickups had that twang, but were shrill, no bass in the lower end, and icepick highs, no body to it. So here is where I ask you, my fellow countrymen: What P-90 soapbar-sized humbuckers are available and good out there, for the neck position? The description above stated that the bridge Super 90 is equal output to a P-90. I play thru a Fender Deville with a power attenuator so I can crank it up and use tube overdrive for my distortion. I need a P-90-sized humbucker (or do p-90 sized non-p90 single coils even exist??) that will sound good for my telecaster. What would you guys recommend?
And also: I'm not sure if I should change the bridge pickup for it as well, but I'm open to it. So in that vein, what single coil-sized pickup for the bridge of a telecaster is good and would work with whatever P-90 sized pickup (that will not actually be a P-90) do you recommend me?
Thanks!
