Gison ES-175 - PAF vs P90 tonal differences

[Herbie]

(...) someone commented that a P90 requires a better playing technique because they are less forgiving than humbuckers. I do recognize that.

Oh, now I understand why Joe Pass choose a guitar with humbucker!

[Herbie]

Thanks!

The Blues Deluxe (and Hot Rod series) is a nice amp, but with some difficulties (too much bass, shrill on high volumes). I changed the values of the caps and resistors of the tonestack, phase inverter and negative feedback to blackface specs with a couple of bucks worth of parts and that made the amp one of my best! I can give you more details if interested, but then we would hijack this thread....

You are right, the clips sound fantastic.

I did just one mod to mine: soldered a short lead somewhere in the bass pot which helped to extreme boominess.

Let's go back to the subject!

Last night I gigged first time with a P90 in my ES-175. The biggest thing I remember is the buzz. The stage lights made my rig buzz. I didn't know that our band had so many so quiet songs! During them I sweared for myself that I'll go back to a humbucker!

[Little Jay]

Yes, the P90 buzz can be pretty annoying. It's less when you don't fully open the tone and volume controls, though.

[Herbie]

Yes, the P90 buzz can be pretty annoying. It's less when you don't fully open the tone and volume controls, though.

Yeah, that's true but I like to play knobs on 10 and adjust the volume with my playing touch. Turning the vol or tone makes me feel restricted, kind of asthmatic. Apparently we all got our burden to carry...

[Jack Black]

When I was a young man, my very generous parents bought me a really nice Gibson.

I wanted a guitar with the "new, improved" pickups (the humbuckers). Why have those old-fashioned "hummy" single coils, right?

I remember changing the strings every month to get closer to that fresh-string sound.

Many, many years later, I bought my first single-coil guitar in a long time.

I noticed that the tone did not change hour-to-hour after changing the strings.

So I no longer have to keep doing that to maintain that “real guitar” sound.

I know that many guitarists get excellent sound out of humbuckers, but I can no longer tolerate them; I can’t get the sound I have in mind out of them.

They are too muddy, and they get muddier the longer they stay on the guitar.

Now, if you’re looking for that muddy sound for a jazz tone, fine. And you’ll save a small fortune (and a lot of inconvenience) by not having to change the strings all the time.

But nothing sounds like a “real guitar” to me than one with P90s (actually, I prefer the Rowe DeArmond (now Gretsch DynaSonic) design).

Of course, Gretsch FilterTrons are an exception; they sound like single-coils to me. But I really don’t love the tone.

I have a 1980 Guild X-500 with humbuckers; those pickups sound much superior to the Gibson PAFs, to my ear. But you still spend all your time changing strings.

By the way, I have not found "hum" to be a problem.

[Jimmy Mack]

Jack, I also love the P90 effect, plus I have a 1961 Guild Starfire III with those D R Dynasonics. My current "axe" is a thin top Casino with Gibson P90's. That guitar! I swear it can talk. Very responsive. And I keep my strings on for a long time !!!

I just sold a "Lucille" with hum buckers that were upgraded, so before parting with it, I had to re-string it, and play it. After the P90 equipped guitars, playing the the Lucille - it sounded so thick and heavy, almost congested.
So I hear ya.

[entresz]

I struggle with most humbucking pickups. All the PAF based pickups I've tried have been (as Jimmy Mack so aptly put) 'congested' sounding. You dial out some bass to get rid of the mud, then they become shrill and harsh. Can't seem to win with them. My idea of the 'perfect' jazz sound is more in the 40s-50s era, ie. early Tal, Herb Ellis, George Barnes, Johnny Smith.... PAF style pickups just don't really do those sounds.

There are a couple of exceptions - some humbuckers are less muddy than others.

The Bill Lawrence L-90 is good in that it still has the fat/warm sound but the wound strings still sound clear. Not muddy.
This is my Greco ES-175 clone with BL L90s.


The humbucking pickups Gibson fitted to the L6-S model sounded far cleaner than a typical PAF style pickup. DC resistance was an unusually low 6k or so. Ceramic magnets too. I used to have a 1977 L6-S with these, at first I thought they might have actually have been single coils. Ironically these were also designed by Bill Lawrence. This photo is NOT of my guitar- but it looks very similar to the one I used to have.


These are my favourite pickups- the Low Z pickups from the LP Recording. These ones are technically humbucking- rather they're stacked humbucker. They're as far removed from a PAF as you could get. The sound is more like a single coil. I would love to buy one of these to fit in an archtop guitar. They sound fantastic in my Les Paul Recording.

[gggomez]

Have recently had Lindy Fralin humb cancelling P90s in a humbucker put in my ES175.

I find it gives me the extra something I was looking for.

Gone is that humbucker compression and in is an increase in clarity. Like when you turn a valve amp up it has greater clarity and more punch, to my ears.

[Jack Black]

This is funny to me:

That guitar my parents bought for me was an ES-355TD with Stereo and Varitone.

I always played with the Varitone switch in the #4 position.

It wasn't till many years later that I found out that the mid-cut in that position was meant to emulate the sound of a single-coil.

So I preferred single-coil pickups all those years ago, without even realizing it.

(When played in position #1, the guitar has a HUGE mid-range hump, very thick and muddy (also, the volume is considerably louder, played wide-open like that).)