P90 Ignorance

[BlueGuitar]

Re: P90 Ignorance

I LOVE P-90s. Growly and clear.

P90s to me seem to make much more noise than normal single coils. The worst on a PRS SE2 Soapbar, I played a Gibson melody maker that made much less noise but still quite a bit.

Hmmm... I just picked up one of the PRS Soapbar II guitars and thought that it was much quieter than a Faded Cherry LP Jr Special I bought last summer. In the middle position the two pickups are humcancelling (unlike the Gibson). On the Gibson I replaced the Alnico 5 magnets with Alnico 2, and made one of them RWRP so that the combination is humcancelling. The control compartment on the PRS was shielded (I'm not sure about the Gibson).

Gibson has used the P-100 humcancelling stacked pickups on many of their guitars, but they don't have the authentic sound of a P-90. Someone here mentioned that the SD P90 stack sounds like a real P90... and I was waiting for Kinman to make one.

 

[danglybanger]

Re: P90 Ignorance

Hmmm... I just picked up one of the PRS Soapbar II guitars and thought that it was much quieter than a Faded Cherry LP Jr Special I bought last summer. In the middle position the two pickups are humcancelling (unlike the Gibson). On the Gibson I replaced the Alnico 5 magnets with Alnico 2, and made one of them RWRP so that the combination is humcancelling. The control compartment on the PRS was shielded (I'm not sure about the Gibson).

Gibson has used the P-100 humcancelling stacked pickups on many of their guitars, but they don't have the authentic sound of a P-90. Someone here mentioned that the SD P90 stack sounds like a real P90... and I was waiting for Kinman to make one.

I didn't try the middle position on the soapbar II... I usually go either full neck or full bridge (except on my jag where I combine the pickups because the bridge alone is too bright). But... when I played the Gibsons, the hum didn't get in the way of my playing even under fairly high gain (though perhaps, not the domain of a P90. On the PRS, it was almost unbearable even at fairly low gain.Though I have a bit of a feeling it was the particular guitar I tried, because a seperate soap2 I tried a few weeks ago made less noise, but it still seemed excessive even for a P90.

slade

 

[BlueGuitar]

Re: P90 Ignorance

slade: So that was an A/B test in a music store with the same amp? It's hard to argue with evidence like that. :smack: Maybe there is a bad batch of PRS P-90's going around...

I've got several guitars with Gibson P-90's in them, and they all can get pretty noisy- even noisier than a strat. (That seems to be the #1 complaint about P-90's... )

I haven't tried any of the SD P-90's but I don't see how they would be any quieter than the Gibson or PRS ones... unless the coil was wrapped with copper foil tape. [added 3/7: Some Gibson and most of the SD P-90's use ceramic magnets rather than alnico, and that might improve the signal to noise ratio. I had heard that alnico hb's were noisier than ceramic hb's so maybe something like that applies to P-90's?]

The Gibson humcancelling P-100 pickups are terrible, but Gibson isn't well-known for cutting edge designs in the field of guitar pickups. Maybe I ought to give the SD stacked P-90's a shot...

--Thanks!

 

[Breogan]

Re: P90 Ignorance

I have a set of vintage P-90 in a dano U-1 and I have rewided the neck pickup to achieve a humcacelling effect in the middle selection. I like a lot the tone of this position much more than the other two. Lucky me!!