L
Lewguitar
Guest
So...for my birthday I gave myself a "new" guitar: a late 80's dual humbucker made in Japan Fender Strat!
Fairly light alder body, maple neck, rosewood 24 3/4" scale fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets. The guitar has a Les Paul scale length...not the traditional Fender Strat/Tele scale length.
Vintage style Fender vibrato and I installed Graph-Tech saddles.
One 500K volume and one 500K tone control and I replaced the .047 cap and installed a .02 Mallory tone cap to leave more mids in the signal when the tone control is turned down.
So I installed the Phat Cats, put on new strings, set the string ht. and intonation, and adjusted the Phat Cats polepieces to match the arch of the fingerboard and adjusted them close to the strings: about 3/32" away form the strings when the strings are held down at the 22nd fret.
Plugged the guitar into my Fender Princeton Reverb and had at it.
I liked the bridge pickup right away: more output and more powerful than I thought it would be. Easy to get pinch harmonics and easy natural overdrive. Felt invited to rock out on some ZZ Topp style blues and boogie riffs. Great sustain and tone...almost like a humbucker, and truthfully, the tone reminded me more of a paf humbucker than a P-90.
But the neck pickup sounded a little muddy to me...particularly when I turned down the guitar's volume to clean the tone up for ryhthm.
So I did the 50's mod. I disconnected the tone control from the input of the volume control and reconnected it to the middle terminal of the volume control.
The change in sound was dramatic! The biggest improvement in tone of any guitar or pickup set that I've ever done the mod too and the tone became brighter and clearer and more lively, even when the volume and tone controls were set to "10".
I went from feeling like I'd be replacing the Phat Cats to really liking them.
The neck pickup now has alot more pop and pluck to the tone. It's clearer for chords and more fun for leads too...and the same thing applies to the bridge pickup.
IMO, though, the Phat Cats do not sound exactly like P90's...they sound better. I've always felt that vintage P90's lacked the output of humbuckers and lacked the chime and sparkle of Strat single coils.
But the Phat Cats push my amp into overdrive beautifully - unlike the vintage P90's and vintage P90 replicas I've owned.
They have a tone that reminds me a lot more of a really good humbucker, but with less mud and more clarity...especially from the neck pickup.
I was talking to Christian yesterday and told him I wasn't really liking the Phat Cats. But now that I have everything set up the way I like it, I'm loving them.
So the final verdict is: they don't sound like vintage P90's, although they do have a lot in common with the sound of P90's. IMO, the Phat Cats sound better than P90's and the diff between them and vintage P90's I consider an improvement.
They have more output in terms of pushing my amp and they're not as thin. The Phat Cats seem thicker and pluckier.
I'm loving them, and I doubt I'll be removing them from Birthday guitar.
But the 50's mod, at least for me, is a must with the Phat Cats. It made all the difference in the world.
One more thing: the neck and bridge model Phat Cats are perfectly balanced. When I switch to the bridge pickup there's even a little lift in terms of volume! Very, very cool. And they sound killer combined.
Many smiles!
Lew
Fairly light alder body, maple neck, rosewood 24 3/4" scale fingerboard with 22 medium jumbo frets. The guitar has a Les Paul scale length...not the traditional Fender Strat/Tele scale length.
Vintage style Fender vibrato and I installed Graph-Tech saddles.
One 500K volume and one 500K tone control and I replaced the .047 cap and installed a .02 Mallory tone cap to leave more mids in the signal when the tone control is turned down.
So I installed the Phat Cats, put on new strings, set the string ht. and intonation, and adjusted the Phat Cats polepieces to match the arch of the fingerboard and adjusted them close to the strings: about 3/32" away form the strings when the strings are held down at the 22nd fret.
Plugged the guitar into my Fender Princeton Reverb and had at it.
I liked the bridge pickup right away: more output and more powerful than I thought it would be. Easy to get pinch harmonics and easy natural overdrive. Felt invited to rock out on some ZZ Topp style blues and boogie riffs. Great sustain and tone...almost like a humbucker, and truthfully, the tone reminded me more of a paf humbucker than a P-90.
But the neck pickup sounded a little muddy to me...particularly when I turned down the guitar's volume to clean the tone up for ryhthm.
So I did the 50's mod. I disconnected the tone control from the input of the volume control and reconnected it to the middle terminal of the volume control.
The change in sound was dramatic! The biggest improvement in tone of any guitar or pickup set that I've ever done the mod too and the tone became brighter and clearer and more lively, even when the volume and tone controls were set to "10".
I went from feeling like I'd be replacing the Phat Cats to really liking them.
The neck pickup now has alot more pop and pluck to the tone. It's clearer for chords and more fun for leads too...and the same thing applies to the bridge pickup.
IMO, though, the Phat Cats do not sound exactly like P90's...they sound better. I've always felt that vintage P90's lacked the output of humbuckers and lacked the chime and sparkle of Strat single coils.
But the Phat Cats push my amp into overdrive beautifully - unlike the vintage P90's and vintage P90 replicas I've owned.
They have a tone that reminds me a lot more of a really good humbucker, but with less mud and more clarity...especially from the neck pickup.
I was talking to Christian yesterday and told him I wasn't really liking the Phat Cats. But now that I have everything set up the way I like it, I'm loving them.
So the final verdict is: they don't sound like vintage P90's, although they do have a lot in common with the sound of P90's. IMO, the Phat Cats sound better than P90's and the diff between them and vintage P90's I consider an improvement.
They have more output in terms of pushing my amp and they're not as thin. The Phat Cats seem thicker and pluckier.
I'm loving them, and I doubt I'll be removing them from Birthday guitar.
But the 50's mod, at least for me, is a must with the Phat Cats. It made all the difference in the world.
One more thing: the neck and bridge model Phat Cats are perfectly balanced. When I switch to the bridge pickup there's even a little lift in terms of volume! Very, very cool. And they sound killer combined.
Many smiles!
Lew
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