Triple P90 Guitar: Good or Bad

WoodGrain67

WoodGrain67

New member
Does anyone have experience with a triple P90 setup?

I'm thinking of getting a pre-routed body blank from Warmoth and making my own custom guitar this year. I've seen but never played a 3xP90 guitar -- like a Reverend for instance. Reverend's also have a "bass countour" pot, which sounds interesting.

I have a strat, super-strats. LP's and an SG, built no true P90 setups. If I make my own guitar, a 3xP90 seems like a nice direction for exploring the unknown. It would also probably dictate what wood to pick?

I'd like to make a guitar that is kind of like a strat, but with a third ball, if that makes sense. Honest strong cleans on the neck, interesting middle rhythm, and a nice ballsy sound on the bridge.

It would be nice to go from decent clean tones to classic rock grind, and getting close to a brown sound would be a bonus. Brutal stuff would not be in this guitar's vocabulary.

Lastly, I'm debating if I should get the body routed for triple humbuckers, so I could use humbucker-sized P90s, but have the freedom later to use real humbuckers if things don't work out.

So much to think about...:banghead:
 
Re: Triple P90 Guitar: Good or Bad

P-90s can surprise on the heavy end. With a noise gate, I've heard thrash metal done and sound amazing. Incredible attack and bite, with a solid punch.

Don't forget that Tony Iommi used them all over early Black Sabbath.

Concensus on middle humbuckers is generally dismal, the pickup poles are just in the wrong place and they sound muddy and bland. Middle P-90 works just fine, a few people are messing with Humbucker/P-90/Humbucker setups and giving glowing reviews.

P-90s are fairly forgiving on woods, I'd lean towards warmer woods to beef them up, but tastes vary.
 
Re: Triple P90 Guitar: Good or Bad

I'm assuming that this is a Strat type body.

I'd get it routed for three hummers and get a pickguard cut out for two P-90s. Try it like that and see how you like it. It might just give you everything you want. If not, just get another P-90 and another pickguard cut for 3 P-90s.

I've got a 3 pup SG with a middle position P-90, but honestly, I really have no use for the middle pup. It doesn't have any special character in that spot. It just kinda gets in the way. But I really really love a P-90 bridge pup sound. Very tasty crunch with bite and yet smooth, rich mids. The best qualities of a single and a hummer combined into one package.
 
Re: Triple P90 Guitar: Good or Bad

I've got a Riviera P-93 (335 that comes with triple dog ears), and also have an HHH SG Custom and a Hamer 335 that have Phat Cats in the middle.

I think a P-90 works better in the middle slot than an HB, that being said, I use the bridge and neck PU's more than the middle one. After some experimentation, what works best for me in the middle slot is a bridge P-90 (neck models are a little on the weak side), with twin A4's in it. That gives it more body than A5's and better output than A2's. With that, you get usable tones from all three PU's.

As has been mentioned, middle HB's leave little room for picking, but middle P-90's are better in this regard. Middle HB's definitely don't seem to line up right with string nodes and vibrations (and sound nothing like they do in the bridge or neck slot), and again, P-90's handle this somewhat better.

Would I want a triple HB guitar, no. Triple P-90, yes.
 
Re: Triple P90 Guitar: Good or Bad

i love my p90 guitars. although a p90 in the middle is 100 times more usable then a humbucker in that position, i rarely bother with it. i think the only reason i ever use the middle p90 on that guitar is because the other 2 pickups are humbuckers. try GuitarDoc's idea, that way you can try all the different combos and not be stuck with something you dont like / never use.
 
Re: Triple P90 Guitar: Good or Bad

I had an Ernie Ball Music Man Albert Lee model with a 3-P90 configuration and it was pretty great. I never really got along with the sound of the bridge pickup by itself, but that had more to do with the MM90s being a little weaker than I typically want in a single coil than anything inherent to the 3-P90 setup.
 
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