P-94 R coil geometry

[DreX]

I bought a guitar that came with a P-94 that I intended to replace, and it gave me a chance to see what's under the hood of a P-94. I wondered how Gibson was going about trying to recreate a P-90 tone with PAF HB sizing, and it turns out the coil is taller and thinner, meaning the two AlNiCo bars are further from the strings and not as close to the coil. This layout is rather similar to a MIM Strat single coil, with the two smaller ceramic bars hugging slugs instead of the larger A5 bars in the P-94.

I googled "p94 uncovered" and nothing came up, so I'm posting this FYI. I don't feel qualified to remark on the tone since I haven't played a guitar with an actual P-90 in quite a while. I do have P-Rails in another guitar though, and I did like the sound of the P-Rails P coil a lot more than the P-94R, the P-Rails seem to have that "wider" sound that makes a side-by-side coil humbucker sound distinct from a typical single coil, where as the P-94 has the 'narrow window' sound that's common with slim single coils.

P-94R

P-90

 

[Chocklit_Thunda]

Re: P-94 R coil geometry

Thanks! I've also searched for an u covered p94 to no avail...

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: P-94 R coil geometry

I once installed a P-94 R/T pair into a mostly maple Gibson ES Thinline. The resultant sound was bright and jangly à la shoegazer Indie genre. No bluesy P90 goodness to speak of at all.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: P-94 R coil geometry

I once installed a P-94 R/T pair into a mostly maple Gibson ES Thinline. The resultant sound was bright and jangly à la shoegazer Indie genre. No bluesy P90 goodness to speak of at all.

I own a P-94 set and the tonal footprint is reminiscent of a "Strat in steroids", SRV-ish, specially the neck p'up.

HTH,

 

[DreX]

Re: P-94 R coil geometry

I own a P-94 set and the tonal footprint is reminiscent of a "Strat in steroids", SRV-ish, specially the neck p'up.

HTH,

I actually ran across your mentions of P-94s on a few other forums. Based on the shape of the tall narrow coil, it's no surprise that it would be Strat like overall, which is disappointing, that's not what people think of when they think P-90. I wonder if you were to put one of these in the place of a P-94R how many guitarists would be able to tell the two apart blindfolded

I wasn't sure what I expected though, since the clearance on edges is so narrow, there's no way to fit a wide coil unless it somehow were wound taller only at the ends, but an odd coil shape would probably cost a lot to wind. They go for $140 new, that seems to be quite a rip off considering that they didn't do anything too exotic to more closely maintain a true P-90 coil/string/ magnetic field relationship. Saying the P-94 sounds like a P-90 is not unlike saying a Little '59 sounds like a '59, they get the coil to a peak resonance that's similar, but then treat the whole magnetic circuit as a triviality.