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My "beater" guitar is a blonde 1983 Ibanez FG 100 that I use for jams and outdoor playing or taking with me on holidays. It's a nice guitar that was well built but somehow I find the amplified sound somewhat dull, trebly and generally lacking in character. My FG 100 has the "famous" Super 58 pups on it but I don't get the big deal (people raving about them on the internet) about them so far. My Gibsons sound much better.
I was thinking of equipping the guitar with humbucker sized P90s but I am not sure if that would do the trick. I did notice in the "Doug Raney on Jazz" vid that Doug did the same to his Ibanez in the 80s.
My questions:
1. Will a P90 improve/warm up the sound of the guitar? In other words, is it worth while changing the pups? Any experiences would be welcome.
2. What would be the best P90 that fits in a humbucker slot price/quality wise? I love the old Gibson P90s ...
DB
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08-18-2020 07:00 AM
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I’ve a Gibson DC which had 2 identical Gibson P90s. Could get a nice warm sound when they were rusted (!) but the noise was too much. Now I have Kent Armstrong Stealth P90s. They’re quiet. They get rave reviews but they leave me a little cold. Maybe I should change my pots-they were crackling and I sprayed them but not so much response from tone pots. Of course the guitar body and strings don’t help but I thought the original P90s sounded much warmer 10 years ago. I’m quite impressed with the Kinman P90s range. Expensive though. DiMarzio have P90s in humbucker housing, I’d say be prepared to try a few.
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I can't speak to the "will it arm up my guitar" part, but the Duncan Phat Cats get very high ratings, as do the GFS Mean 90s (believe it or not). I've owned both, in a Epi Broadway, and the Mean 90s are as good as the Phat Cats.
If you "love the old Gibson P90s", then the MEAN 90s is what you want (out of the GFS models), don't let the name fool you. The MEAN ones are the ones closest to vintage output, the "Clean" 90s are pretty underwound, and are clearer but not as warm.
If I were looking for a P90 to put in a HB slot today, I'd buy the Mean 90s over the Phat Cats, because they sound just as good and are quite a bit less expensive.
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1. P-90s are way cool for jazz! and
2. Klein and Lollar make excellent humbucker-sized P-90s!
If it's your "beater" guitar, you have nothing to lose! Go for it!
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Fg-100 is a really nice guitar for a beater... I must say..
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On the one hand, we tend to make a big deal out of minor differences.
Originally Posted by DB's Jazz Guitar Blog
On the other hand, yeah, pickup swaps can really make a frustrating guitar more fun to play and hear.
The same pickup can sound great in one guitar and not-so in another. For example, a rare pre-Bartolini Hi-A set sounded amazing on a semi but were lukewarm on my PartsoKlein. Gibson P94s on the Kloin (with the same strings!) are bold, clear and warm with a deliciously firm bottom.
Here is a Premier Guitar humbucker-size P90 writeup which is pretty helpful, with sound samples that actually help. Even though it's a few years old it's well worth the time. Originally Posted by DB's Jazz Guitar Blog
FWIW I've had good results in different guitars with Duncan PhatCats (in a long-scale semi-hollow) and P94s (PartsoKlein as noted).
My advice is, don't get wrapped up in how much those pickups sound exactly like P90s. Be open to what they have to offer as they are and see what you like.
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I replaced the humbucker in my Epiphone Zephyr Regent Re-Issue with a Seymour Duncan PhatCat P90-in-humbucker and have been very happy, though I have ZERO past experience of P90 pickups to make my opinion very authoritative. I might have a clip of the guitar being played somewhere... Originally Posted by DB's Jazz Guitar Blog
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I think it depends on what you mean by "warm". To my ears and sense of "warm" (i.e., mids and the upper end of the bass range more prominent), no, a P90 would not be warmer than a PAF style humbucker. It would be brighter (more trebles, less bass). I think you have the comparison pretty much in your hands, though. You have an ES350 and a Tal, right? Do you perceive the 350 as warmer? Originally Posted by DB's Jazz Guitar Blog
Sorry, I can't help with this question as I have not tried any of the humbucker sized P90s. Originally Posted by DB's Jazz Guitar Blog
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I haven't tried one of Pete's humbucker sized P90s, but I have one of his humbucker sized Charlie Christian pickups (the HCC, built as a Johnny Smith mounted floater) and it's aces:
Vintage Vibe Guitar Pickups: Single Coil Pickups
The HCC night be a reasonable option as well, since Tal replaced the neck P90 in his ES-350 with a Charlie Christian pickup. I don't know if that was the setup on "The Swinging Guitar of Tal Farlow" recording but IIRC it's the way the guitar was set up on the cover of the album (if not that album, then shortly after).
Pete is very reasonably priced and very easy to deal with. Talk with him about the tones you want and he'll give you good advice. When I contacted him I had been thinking about a floating P90, but after talking with him about the sound I wanted (a bit more acoustic quality than electric quality, like Jim Hall's late 50s/early 60s records with Art Farmer and Sonny Rollins, some of the Paul Desmond records too) he recommended the HCC instead. It seems to have been good advice.
But just for variety if I had an archtop with a set-in pickup I'd probably go with a P90. I love the sound of P90s. My favorite Jim Hall tones are when his ES-175 still had the P90, not that the later tones were bad (although I do prefer his ES-175 with P90 > ES-175 with humbucker > Sadowsky > D'Aquisto although that might have been changes in amplification more than in guitar).
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I don't consider myself a tone fiend especially since I have average ears. I have a Strat partcaster with two P-Rails (Seymour Duncan's hybrid approach to P90) and a Tele with DiMarzio Bluesbucker (has ceramic magnets interestingly) on the neck position. Bluesbucker was at some point endorsed as a good P90 alternative by Jim Soloway who used it in some of his guitars. I like how both these sound in my guitars. The difference I can hear is more attributable to strings and the rest of the circuits (caps, pots etc) in my opinion. The prices were right for me too.
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I second the Vintage Vibe HCC pickup. It sounds very good to me.
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IMHO the use of Alnico vs. ceramic magnets in a pickup has less to do with the sound than people think. The magnet itself makes no direct contribution to tone- all it does is magnetize the string, so that when the string vibrates over the coil a signal is generated. The strength, size and shape of the magnetic field contribute in that way and that can be different with different magnet materials, but that can also be controlled and shaped to be practically identical. You can build a bright and hard sounding Alnico pickup and a warm and soft ceramic pickup. The advantages of ceramic magnets, as I understand it, is price and magnetic stability (although most of the Alnicos are also quite stable as well).
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One of the advantages of Vintage Vibe pickups is that they ship with two sets of magnets, your choice of type, and it's very cheap and easy to buy replacements of any type. Changing magnets is easy, by design.
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Very happy with the Bare Knuckle Manhattan I put too my Epiphone Joe Pass - much clearer and more articulate than the stock humbuckers. Definitely worth looking at.
Our hsp90 Pickup Range | Bare Knuckle Pickups
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doug raney has a real dogear p90 in that video lesson...they didn't make humbucker sized p90's back then!
most pickup companies make a p90 in humbucker mount these days...they are never quite the real article, due too different size & design...
it also changes the position of the pole pieces (if you are a 24th fret node believer)
the premier guitar humbucker sized p-90 shootout mentioned ^ is still a good starting point for info
cheers
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gfs mean 90's are well rated..especially at the price point... Originally Posted by ruger9
the other type they sell is not clean 90..it's dream 90...and that's basically a strat sized pickup in a humbucker shell...not very p-90 at all
cheers
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BG Pups Pure90 sounds remarkably close the real deal. I previously had a Pure90 in an Eastman AR371. When my 1954 ES-125 arrived I was floored by how similar they sounded. I have a Pure90 on order now for my new single pickup Seventy Seven Hawk Deep in an attempt to get close to a 50s single P90 ES-175.
No connection to BG Pups, just a satisfied customer. The Pure90 is an actual P90 with a trimmed baseplate and bobbin so that it fits in the humbucker route:
“What I came up with is a set of my Vintage P90s shaved down to fit a humbucker route.
This set of pickups started out basically as a set of BG Pups Vintage P90 soapbar pickups.
After the coil is wound the bobbin and baseplate is trimmed to fit inside a humbucker cover. The only part used that is not used in my Vintage P90 set is the cover. Though I decided since true P90s use a plastic cover, I would use a plastic humbucker cover.”
Pure90 | BGPups
Before I bought the Seventy Seven, I found this clip of a dude playing a an ES-165 with a Pure90:
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your playing is superb DB! I can’t imagine improving that guitars tone. But hey, we can try!
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I just put in my Gibson L5 CES, a Seymour Duncan '59 humbucker. I love how it brightened up the guitars tone without getting overly bright. While it is a humbucker, it resembles my P90 guitar tones in a hollow body, and a semi.
And, no hum. But as a bonus, the pickup allows more of the guitar's tone to come through, the full range - rich, harmonic and sweet. It allows me to change amp settings and ALWAYS get a very good tone whereas before, I had to dial in a sweet spot (if I could find it) and that was it - no options or variations. I had my treble on the amp on 8!!! to get the tone. Now I can turn the treble to 0 and just use the Mid control, and believe me, it IS SWEET.
Just in case you want to keep a h/ber in there.
Good luck.
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if you want a bright single coil sounding humbucker sized pup..thats still dual coil humbucking..look at dimarzio eric johnson..he tried to capture strat like high details in humbucker mount
cheers
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Yes, the 350 sounds a lot warmer and woodier. Same for my 125. Both have P90s. But then, my other Gibsons with humbuckers (Tal Farlow and ES 175) sound way warmer too! Of all my archtops, the FG 100 I like the least sound wise because it sounds more trebly and less fat somehow than my Gibsons. Originally Posted by John A.
Maybe it's that I do not like the Ibanez Super 58 pups. That is kind of strange because for some these are the holy Ibanez grail. This is what I found about the early Super 58 Ibanez pups that are on my FG 100:
Maybe a classic 57 Gibson humbucker on the FG 100 would do the trick too!Moving one to the pickups, these are, quite possibly, the most desirable humbucker pickups to come out of Japan - The "Dry Z" as it is known, named after the "Z" stamp on the baseplate, utilize alnico III type magnets and fetch top prices on the market due in part to their design and PAF replication. Alnico III's are best described as airy, transparent, low output and clean - great for rounded fat jazz applications, which makes a great deal of sense regarding the selection of these for the FG-100. The output on the neck pickup is rated at 7.52k and the bridge at 7.42k.
DB
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LOL. Thank you 2born. Yes, that's my FG 100. It's all relative of course and it is a pretty good guitar but I am so spoiled by the sound of my Gibsons that I want it to sound like them a bit more .... Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
DB
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For what it's worth, here's my Epiphone Zephyr Regent Re-Issue (like ES165) with the SD PhatCat, through a Princeton Reverb Reissue.
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The FG-100 has a maple neck? I am a fan of P90 pickups, but my guitars with P90s (ES-125, custom telecaster, Framus thinline) have mahogany necks.
Just a thought:
My Epiphone Sheraton - all maple construction - warmed up considerably after changing out the SD59 humbucker for a Stewmac Golden Age humbucker. The mid-scooped and somewhat bright nature of the SD59 pickup did not suit the same mid scooped and bright character of the guitar (which I believe is due to the all maple construction). The more mid focused Golden Age pickup warmed op that guitar considerably in a good way.
I doubt if a P90 (in humbucker format) will really "warm up" that guitar..... I tend to think it will bring more clearity and brightness (but could sound really good). I love P90s in guitars with mahogany necks, in maple guitars I like somewhat darker pickups. But...... no real on hands experience changing humbuckers to P90s in maple guitars sorry.
Another thing: the only real way to know is to try it out, is my experience.....
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I think Jasper is right; a maple neck does tend to make the sound slightly brighter - but then, many higher-end Gibsons have maple necks and they don't sound thin. About P90s; I have had a P90 pickup made by a specialist that actually sounds thicker and fatter than a comparable gibson HB pickup - I have the comparison clip somehwere, which i could dig out. But, at the expense of clarity. So, it is possible to 'fatten' the sound with the right P90 recipe.
My feeling is that there are some things a pickup can do, and some things they can't. A pickup's inductance can change the relative balance of frequencies that you can get from the pickup; for example, more midrange, for a fatter sound, or more scoop, or whatever. Different magnets can also appear to change this frequency balance. But whast a pickup can't do is change the complex interaction of vibrations from the gtr itself, that is responsible for the basic tonal 'recipe' that you get from that instrument. The large number of spare pickups in my pickup box will bear this out.
So, whilst the right P90 or other pickup might give the Ibanez a fatter or more attractive sound, it's not a Gibson and won't ever sound exactly like a Gibson. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, it might be - it's just that there is no knowing until you try. But who cares? The guitar sounds good in the clip, and the tiny differences in tonal nuance are nothing compared to what's being played. I've pretty much abandoned pickup changes unless they are faulty, and take the hype surrounding pickup marketing with a large pinch of salt. I too have an old Ibanez beater guitar, an 1860, and on a gig ( as far as i can remember
) it can sound close enough to my old gibson, with the right amp settings. Some people prefer the sound ( unless they notice the logo..).
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