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Vintage threads from the first ten years

P-90s in Les Paul

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12/8/1997 1:52 PM
Joe R.	P-90s in Les Paul I have a routed 74 Les Paul Deluxe,and I was wondering what P-90s would sound like in it,and if they would fit.I also play a strat,and I'm happy with single coils,so that's no big deal. Any opinions?.Thanks,Joe R.

12/9/1997 10:06 AM

Joe:

A friend of mine recently purchased a reissue gold top Les Paul with soapbars, to round out his tone arsenal. He got it at a Sam Ash store. If there are any Gibson dealers near you, check to see if they have one of these guitars in stock and go try it. You'll get to hear what it sounds like to you.

I've heard that an open (no cover) humbucker will fit a P90 routed cavity if the folded flange on each side of the humbucker baseplate is ground off (done in a disassembled state, of course). So if this is true, the P90's should fit down into the humbucker-routed cavities, but will show gaps between the wood & the long sides if the soapbars. To my knowledge, there aren't any trim rings to fit around soapbar pickups to mask the gaps. I don't know how close the rout size is between the P90 and the mini-humbucker found on the deluxe.

Doc

12/9/1997 11:21 AM
Jason	I have a 75 les paul deluxe that had mini humbuckers in it originally. I replaced them with P-90's. Perfect fit! Hope that helps, Jason

12/9/1997 5:43 PM

Gibson makes a P-90 style pickup in a humbucker-sized housing. Here's what they have to say in their website:

" The P-94™ is a unique combination of the best of two worlds; a vintage sounding single coil style pickup, made to emulate Gibson's famous P-90 pickups, but housed in a traditional humbucker housing so that it can be mounted into guitars that originally accommodated humbucker pickups, and requires no routing or other damaging modifications to the guitar. They can also be used along with standard humbucking pickups for unique tonal combinations. "

The blues, roots, and rockabilly players here in Southern California prefer P-90's in a hollowbody. Not too many people have used them in a solid body, but one luthier I know made one himself. It has a mahogany neck and body, maple top, and a Bigsby. He's happy with it, and I'm sure whichever P-90 you use in your Les Paul, the results will be worthwhile.

12/10/1997 6:09 AM
Joe R.	Thank you all for your opinions; I think when Christmas is over and I recover from all my kids toy expenses I'll dig around and try this. Anybody know how the output level matches up with humbuckers? I thought about just replacing the bridge p.u. and leaving the neck bucker alone (It's an old PAF and sounds pretty good). Thanks, Joe R.

12/10/1997 11:56 AM

I built a guitar with a P-90 in the neck position and a PAF in the bridge position. Both are the Gibson reissue pickups available at Stewart-MacDonald.

The P-90 is the one I use more - it's slightly louder subjectively than the humbucker despite the humbucker's expected higher output. I attribute this to the P-90 being in the louder neck position (greater string excursion = higher output.)

The P-90 is God's pickup, IMHO. I want a Goldtop for Christmas, by the way. (Original, of course - I'll even take one with a trapeze!)

cf. "Freddy King Sings And Plays."

I have a buddy who is always reminding me that "Live At Leeds" is recorded with a P-90 equipped SG. And let's face it, there's some tone on that album. Whoa yeah.

-j

12/10/1997 12:11 PM

My main guiatr is a '72 LP Deluxe Gold Top. It has mini-humbers (factory engraved) set into P-90 plastic covers, like most Deluxes. I assume your was routed out later for full-size humbuckers (though some Deluxes were made at the factory with full-size humbuckers).

I love my mini-humbuckers, to me they just have an incredible sweet spot right between fender single-coils and Gibson humbuckers. But I do have both pickups wired with plastic connectors so I can pop one or both out and pop in a couple of P-90's I have (the mounting bar at the bottom of the cavity is tapped for either pickups screws. Anyway I digress.

The P-90 is a very powerful, fat sounding pickup. Output is very consistant with PAF's and such (a P-100 on the otherhand is very weak in comparison). And the "dark, gritty" tone just works great for blues. I like it best at the neck position.

-Y.
(wyatt poist)

P.S. I saw John Fogarty in concert this summer and he used a P-90 ladden LP extensively.

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