Re: Should I get a custom shop Phat Cat?
That's interesting, Blueman, what have tried and what did you end up liking?
Being a fan of the great P-90 tones of the 1970 era (Leslie West, Carlos Santana, Tony Iommi, etc) I waned to turn a HH guitar into a p-90 one, so I got a pair of Phat Cats, geez maybe 10 years ago or so. They sounded
nothing like P-90's. The neck was powerful and dark with almost no high-end, sounded like it was locked in a closet (and that's with 500k's), while the bridge was under-powered & dominated by the neck. So I put an A3 in the neck to add treble (A3/A2), then an A4 (A4/A2), then an A5 (A5/A2), each getting progressively more high-end and clarity but still not where I wanted it to be. At that point I decided the A2 had to go. I settled on an A5/A4 pair in the neck slot, as it has a little less low end than twin A5's (less chance of being boomy), and is a bit less mid-scooped for a slightly fuller sound. I put an A5/A3 in the neck slot of an Epi SG, and it sounded 'chimey' in that guitar. Forum member Zhang said the neck Phat Cat is wound too hot, and took 1K of windings off of his to brighten it. He described the bridge PC as 'weak and puny' (
so it's not just me!)
The A2's in the bridge PC of my guitar got yanked right off the bat. I tried a few combinations (A4/A4, UOA5/UOA5, etc) and and was most pleased with an A8/A4. The A8 adds warmth, mids, and output; something that I think bridge P-90's can often use, especially as they tend to sit lower than neck p-90's. The A4 moderates things, as twin A8's can be too in-your-face.
I've had no noticeable degaussing from using different strength magnets. The guy at Duncan didn't need to worry. I have a true P-90 set of BG's, and they came with a factory A4/A2 in each. I'd bet there's been mismatched magnets in various P-90's for decades, even if on a small scale. In HB's the Iommi Signature bridge has an A2 with ceramic side bars.
Think about this: in HB's there's 1/2 magnet per coil. In P-90's there's 2 magnets per coil. 4 times the magnet ratio. That gives you the ability to dial in your EQ
much more precisely with a P-90 than a HB (unless you're a pickup winder, which few of us are).
In relaying my magnet experiments here over the years, a number of forum members have used my pairings or come up with their own. I like when people think outside the box.
