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P90's: who loves them and why?


Travis

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Nice to see my own longtime "in-between-'buckers-and Fenders" opinion validated by others hereon. When I ordered my first-ever custom-made instrument (a '95 R.C. Allen archtop) I selected dog ears, and Seymour Duncan personally wound two for me; they were wound to get what he called "a warm bluesy tone."

And since the grain on some of the preceding guitar bodies shown in this thread is spectacular, here's a rear view of the R.C. Allen, too. Kinda hard to tell but the top and back are bookmatched bird's-eye maple. 

LO-Leader #1004-95.jpg

LO-Leader #1004-95 back-bookmatched birds-eye maple.jpg

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I like 'em for the midrange emphasis. They hold up well with a lot of gain because of that, and aren't too shrill clean. of course there are a zillion flavors out there. I had a Wolfetone P90 in an Artist that to me was the pure representation of that sound. Had two guitars with Lollar "single coil in a humbucker mount" pickups that I think are built a bit like a P90 and sounded great. But I generally like the "in-between" sounds. It's why I like Filtertrons and hot, bassy Strat p'ups and P90s. The sizzle hurts my ears, the boom bugs me. The middle is Goldilocks-right for me.

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22 hours ago, polara said:

I like 'em for the midrange emphasis. They hold up well with a lot of gain because of that, and aren't too shrill clean. of course there are a zillion flavors out there. I had a Wolfetone P90 in an Artist that to me was the pure representation of that sound. Had two guitars with Lollar "single coil in a humbucker mount" pickups that I think are built a bit like a P90 and sounded great. But I generally like the "in-between" sounds. It's why I like Filtertrons and hot, bassy Strat p'ups and P90s. The sizzle hurts my ears, the boom bugs me. The middle is Goldilocks-right for me.

So true!

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I have two P90 loaded guitars... One of those "Tribute" gold tops that I bought as a husk. I loaded it with Lollars and it is amazing. Really expressive. The other is my 90s Special. I've actually never checked what is in that guitar. They're definitely hotter than the Lollars, hotter than most of the things I like actually, but they sound good in that guitar. If I want a straight up rock machine, it's hard to beat. 

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4 hours ago, Marvelicious said:

I've often wondered about those. I have a humbucker loaded guitar that really needs single coils in my opinion. 

They're not crazy hot, and seem to be very sensitive to how hard you play. Not a crazy-spiky midrange. Like 'em enough I specified them in the Moniker I ordered.

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Love the Kinman P90-buckers in my Talladega. 

Actually these are humbuckers, hence no hum. But they sound like P-90 single coils. 

Would like to check out the Fralin noiseless P-90’s and especially the P-92’s. 

In the Hamer Studio GoldTop that I still regret having sold I liked the SD pick-ups more than the Lollar’s, probably because the SD’s were hotter. 

 

Gabe 😀

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It's funny, I hear talk about things people do to avoid hum and I just don't get it. The only time I've every had an issue with hum turned out to be a bad PIO cap. Everything I own, whether single coil or humber, they're all silent. Some of my vintage amps are noisier than others, but the guitar doesn't really enter into it. Am I just lucky? Do I have such a magnetic personality that it defeats RF interference?

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Maybe it's the amps? I know that the U.S. is far worse for hum than the U.K..  Also if you rotate to that one magic direction, the hum goes away.

I've tried noiseless pickups, and they just don't sound the same. It also depends on how they are implemented. I like the Ernie Ball "Silent Circuit" best, which is pretty much an out of phase hum generating dummy coil inside the guitar, so it doesn't compromise the original pickup as much.

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