P90 Pickups

The Hoff

The Hoff

Active member
I am almost embarrassed to ask because it seems like such a noob question :doh:but for whatever reason, I have never owned or played a guitar with P90s. Same goes for all of my gear buddies. What are the differences as compared to humbuckers? What styles are they typically used for?

From clips/videos I tend to really like LPs with P-90s. I already have two LPs and have been GASing for a SG lately. So, any opinions on SGs with P-90s?
 
I was in the same bucket until recently--could never nail that 70's rock tone because I had NO guitars with P-90's. So, I bought an Epiphone Standard Les Paul on a smashing sale, and installed a set of Seymour Duncan Phat Cat drop-in replacements (P-90 in a humbucker form factor--no modification required). Sounds AWESOME!!! Technically, the P-90 is a single coil, but beefier, like a humbucker without the hum-bucking. (Someone correct me if I'm off). 'Tis a sound like no other... I highly recommend the Phat Cats as well if you want direct humbucker replacements.
 
In short, they are beefier single coils.

I suggest checking out the Duncan P-Rails. Humbucker, P90, and Single all in one. Cool pickups. Wire them to a push pull to switch between configurations.
 
They can be pretty noisy from what I understand being a hot single coil. Some newer designs may have overcome this.
 
Tonally they lie between a humbucker and a typical single coil. Very fat with strong mids...great for overdriving tube amps. Not much in the way of chime or spank like a Strat or Tele, although they can get a bit of that when combined in parallel.

They are noisy, and for that reason not a great choice for high gain amps although you can get around this by actively working your guitar's volume knob.

Good examples of recorded P-90 tone would be early Mountain (LP Jr...think Mississippi Queen), the Aqualung solo (LP Jr), early Santana (SG Special), early Who (SG Special), and NY Dolls/Johnny Thunders (Dbl Cut LP Jr).
 
I have played an SG with P90's. They would complement your humbucker guitars really well. I would not buy as a first guitar, its not your case.

Its good for overdriven sounds for sure, has great cleans. The only thing it can't do high gain.
And yes they tend to be on the noisy side

By the way the SG listed above has a HUGE baseball bat neck. Some like it some don't just sayin'
 
Nico":1h68nfke said:
I have played an SG with P90's. They would complement your humbucker guitars really well. I would not buy as a first guitar, its not your case.

Its good for overdriven sounds for sure, has great cleans. The only thing it can't do high gain.
And yes they tend to be on the noisy side

By the way the SG listed above has a HUGE baseball bat neck. Some like it some don't just sayin'
Click to expand...

Thanks for the note on the SG neck, not a fan of the baseball bat necks myself. Do you happen to know of any Gibson's with P90's and the slim 60's neck.
 
blackba":1h389uec said:
Nico":1h389uec said:
I have played an SG with P90's. They would complement your humbucker guitars really well. I would not buy as a first guitar, its not your case.

Its good for overdriven sounds for sure, has great cleans. The only thing it can't do high gain.
And yes they tend to be on the noisy side

By the way the SG listed above has a HUGE baseball bat neck. Some like it some don't just sayin'
Click to expand...

Thanks for the note on the SG neck, not a fan of the baseball bat necks myself. Do you happen to know of any Gibson's with P90's and the slim 60's neck.
Click to expand...

No I don't know of Gibson with P90's and slim neck... sorry!
 
Some people may look at me like I'm fucking nuts for saying this, but two of my favorite pickups for heavy, hard, groovy rock are P90's and lipstick pickups.

There has been a P90 or lipstick pickup on almost every hard rock track I've written or produced. There's just something special they do to how the guitars fit in the mix, overall.
 
A simple way to explain P90s is like this, think of it as a scale from Tele to Les Paul:



Tele-------P90s LP/SG Special ------ Mini Humbucker on a Firebird or LP ----------LP/Humbucker

So it's almost got the bite of a Tele but is a bit rounder, not as smooth or easy to play as a Les Paul though.
 
hunter":1ojoaapr said:
A simple way to explain P90s is like this, think of it as a scale from Tele to Les Paul:



Tele-------P90s LP/SG Special ------ Mini Humbucker on a Firebird or LP ----------LP/Humbucker

So it's almost got the bite of a Tele but is a bit rounder, not as smooth or easy to play as a Les Paul though.
Click to expand...

In my experience, a good P-90 is more aggressive and ballsier than a Gibson mini-humbucker.
 
rupe":33b3jkop said:
hunter":33b3jkop said:
A simple way to explain P90s is like this, think of it as a scale from Tele to Les Paul:



Tele-------P90s LP/SG Special ------ Mini Humbucker on a Firebird or LP ----------LP/Humbucker

So it's almost got the bite of a Tele but is a bit rounder, not as smooth or easy to play as a Les Paul though.
Click to expand...

In my experience, a good P-90 is more aggressive and ballsier than a Gibson mini-humbucker.
Click to expand...

Doesn't contradict with what I'm saying. Tele being the most agressive and spanky, Les Paul/HB being the smoothest, that's what I was saying.
 
hunter":xh80qgt6 said:
rupe":xh80qgt6 said:
hunter":xh80qgt6 said:
A simple way to explain P90s is like this, think of it as a scale from Tele to Les Paul:



Tele-------P90s LP/SG Special ------ Mini Humbucker on a Firebird or LP ----------LP/Humbucker

So it's almost got the bite of a Tele but is a bit rounder, not as smooth or easy to play as a Les Paul though.
Click to expand...

In my experience, a good P-90 is more aggressive and ballsier than a Gibson mini-humbucker.
Click to expand...

Doesn't contradict with what I'm saying. Tele being the most agressive and spanky, Les Paul/HB being the smoothest, that's what I was saying.
Click to expand...
:thumbsup:
 
The Anderson P-90 sounds great also, but the Lollar is the one that really made me notice them. I've only heard a handful of them, but I love those things...... I just dont have any :(
 
I own a Gibson SG Classic with P90s, the guitar is awesome for blues and classic rock, gainwise, I agree with Nico, its not meant to play even ANY type of metal. However they work very well for lead playing, very very smooth neck pickups and very responsive bridge pickup. In the middle position you can get pretty close to humbucker tone at medium gain settings, if you fool around with volume and tone. In terms of playability, the craftmanship is pretty good, except for minor details regarding the neck binding. The neck has a very flat back all along (rather than round in the neck and flat and thin in the higher register like strats). However its considerably thicker than an ibanez, yet not as big a a les paul's.

I would really recommend this guitar to anyone looking for hotter leads without the need to go past zeppelin gain. Specially for the total AWESOMENESS of the neck pickup. However don't dream of achieving anything brown soundish, SLO past half, Einstein channel 3 or even marshall past 3 o'clock.
 
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