Humbucker to Humbucker sized P90

[Salutemysolution]

OK, I apologize if this has been addressed at some point. For those of you who have switched out Humbuckers for one of the various H-sized P90s on the market...What differences did you notice? How did it affect the tone of your guitar? Was the tone better in your opinion? Thanks

[yoslate]

OK, I apologize if this has been addressed at some point. For those of you who have switched out Humbuckers for one of the various H-sized P90s on the market...What differences did you notice? How did it affect the tone of your guitar? Was the tone better in your opinion? Thanks

 

OK, I apologize if I've addressed this at some point (and I have).... Extremely pleased with the Seymour Duncan Phat Cats in my Heritage 576, which is a discontinued model. It's a deeper bodied (2 3/4") single cutaway 535-type instrument; mine's all maple. It had Schallers in when I bought it used, and didn't think them a bad p'up at all! The Phat cats give me more punch, tone, options, quality, balance, and sensitivity in all three positions: neck bridge, and middle. Smooth, warm, chimey neck tones; fat middle position honk and chunk, great for choppy rhythm work; and a nearly Tele-like bite, without brittleness at the bridge. Just a great pickup. I'll never take the Duncans out of that guitar, and I can rarely leave well enough alone.

[mars_hall]

With Phat Cats, there is a complete change in the dynamics of the guitar vs that with humbuckers.

 

The guitar becomes more sensitive to attack changes produced by the plucking hand.

 

Chord played are more evenly balanced across the neck.

 

The neck pickup is more alive with a greater defined clarity of the each notes coming out. I spend a lot of time on the bridge pickup with humbuckers because most of the time, the neck pickup has just too much bottom end that muddies the differences of the individual notes.

[Salutemysolution]

With Phat Cats, there is a complete change in the dynamics of the guitar vs that with humbuckers.

 

The guitar becomes more sensitive to attack changes produced by the plucking hand.

 

Chord played are more evenly balanced across the neck.

 

The neck pickup is more alive with a greater defined clarity of the each notes coming out. I spend a lot of time on the bridge pickup with humbuckers because most of the time, the neck pickup has just too much bottom end that muddies the differences of the individual notes.

Thanks for the info. The muddiness is something I am having trouble with now (I have 59s in my H-150). Even the bridge pickup sounds muddy to me on the low end. It sounds like Phat Cats or another H-sized P90 may help out a lot.

[Gitfiddler]

Phat Cats in an H-535 sound amazing!

 

The tonal differences have already been noted, but trust me, as a die hard humbucker user, my Cats are staying in my semi-hollow gitfiddle.

[GuitArtMan]

I put Fralin P92s in this and couldn't be happier:

Sweet P90 tone with no hum. Some of the finest pickups I've onwed of any type.

[Blooze]

I've used Phat Cats, Fralin P92's and Gibson P94's. What I found was that the G P94 sounded very similar to modern Gibson P90's (not a good thing in my book.......loud/mud). The Phat Cats were more in the P90 camp and had a nice note clarity with a good bit of mid range punch. The Fralins were my favorite and had an "old school" p90 tone that reminded me of an underwound P90 or even hot single coil pickup.

[Scooter]

I put Fralin P92s in this and couldn't be happier:

Sweet P90 tone with no hum. Some of the finest pickups I've onwed of any type.

Holy smokes, Guitarman! What kind of guitar is that!? That's a BEAUT.

 

I'd really like to order an H535 in the near future and I'm going to seriously consider one with P-90s.

 

One of the knocks I keep hearing about P-90s is that they are too noisy. I still haven't played a guitar with P-90s so I can't say for myself. Anyone want to weigh in on the P-90 "too noisy" factor? Guitarman, you say no hum with the P-92s. P-92s!? Now there's P-92s and P-94s? Great. More homework. Now there's P all over the place! Who's gonna help me clean this up...and help me make sense of all this P!?

[backline]

Holy smokes, Guitarman! What kind of guitar is that!? That's a BEAUT.

 

I'd really like to order an H535 in the near future and I'm going to seriously consider one with P-90s.

 

One of the knocks I keep hearing about P-90s is that they are too noisy. I still haven't played a guitar with P-90s so I can't say for myself. Anyone want to weigh in on the P-90 "too noisy" factor? Guitarman, you say no hum with the P-92s. P-92s!? Now there's P-92s and P-94s? Great. More homework. Now there's P all over the place! Who's gonna help me clean this up...and help me make sense of all this P!?

 

 

I have had good results with Rio Grande "Bastard" and "Fat Bastard" humbucker shaped P-90 style pickups.

Good vintage P-90 sound to my ears, but yes very noisy coming from humbuckers. So the Rx for me was to run a set that has a RWRP orientation: that way, when they're both on, you get a humbucker effect across the two pickups. My Rio Grande setups were always this way.

 

The noise thing is something that can be dealt with in a variety of ways if you have to use one pickup alone in a portion of a song. The rest of the time I just leave both on and it's quiet. On guitars I've had that were noisy with single coils I just got quick on the volume knob between songs.

Orientation to noise sources is something I just become aware of after a while and deal with as an automatic response.

[LH575]

http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant....mbucker-pickups

 

Anyone try these? They seem to be new. Can't find much info at all about them.

 

They say his P90s are great, gotta think his HB sized one would be just as good....

[GuitArtMan]

Holy smokes, Guitarman! What kind of guitar is that!? That's a BEAUT.

 

I'd really like to order an H535 in the near future and I'm going to seriously consider one with P-90s.

 

One of the knocks I keep hearing about P-90s is that they are too noisy. I still haven't played a guitar with P-90s so I can't say for myself. Anyone want to weigh in on the P-90 "too noisy" factor? Guitarman, you say no hum with the P-92s. P-92s!? Now there's P-92s and P-94s? Great. More homework. Now there's P all over the place! Who's gonna help me clean this up...and help me make sense of all this P!?

The guitar is a Grosh set neck. I now have two. Probably the finest 24 3/4" scale guitars I've owned.

http://www.groshguitars.com/

 

The P92s are made by Lindy Fralin and are part of his split single series. They are a humbucking/humcanceling pickup that sounds like a P90 but fits in a full humbucking route. I've yet to hear anybody say they didn't love 'em.

http://www.fralinpickups.com/humbuckers.asp

[tulk1]

http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/merchant....mbucker-pickups

 

Anyone try these? They seem to be new. Can't find much info at all about them.

 

They say his P90s are great, gotta think his HB sized one would be just as good....

Wow!! Very cool. Used to be you had to call Jason to order those. I asked him about those when I was spec'ing the Millie NFH. He told me he made them but because they only "came very close" to a real P90 he wasn't advertising them. Guess he's changed his mind, eh?