P90's => Humbuckers

ledhed43

Has anybody swapped out P90's for humbuckers in their guitar. I have a LP Jr. and I have been thinking about making the switch for a while. I have thought about switching them all or maybe just the bridge. I'd like to know any experience or thoughts ya'll might have. Thanks.

lucylespian

I haven't done the swap, but I have an LP with two Burstbuckers, ans the BFG with a P90 neck, and Burstbucker 3 in the bridge.
I like both combinations. The P90 is a bit different for me, all my other guitar are just humbuckers, partly for the tone, but also cos I play a lot of ghigh gain stuff, and once I discovered humbuckers, I never looked back.
I guess really at the end of the day, there is no "better", maybe just "better suited". Changing pups is ceratinly the cheapest way into a fresh sound, much cheaper than a new guitar, so it is worth it just for that.
Humbuckers certainly have a fatter sound, which is traditionally favoured for rockier, higher gain tones and styles, but for me works very well on clean tones as well.
For sure I can get some gorgeous clean tones from my LP's, and some wild wooly blues tones from my ESP.

ianvomsaal

In LP's, P90's generally sound thinner and airyer than Humbuckers (but they do have a really cool tight bite/vibe for blues, and you can get good controllable feedback).
I have many LP's, including a GoldTop with P90's that I use sometimes. Works great in the right venue.
Cheers . . .

- Ian C.T. vom Saal

samquigley

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the bridge pickup IS the only pickup in an LP jr. And, unless you're a metalhead, you'll only be disappointed by swapping that P90 for a humbucker. Time to start looking elsewhere in your chain for the problem, methinks.

moster78

Plus, if you do make a switch, you're probably going to have to do some routing work on the guitar's body to get the humbucker to fit, as they're generally not the same size as a P90.

ianvomsaal

Both Gibson and Duncan make a P90 in standard Humbucker size:

Gibson - P94T
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Gibson-P94T-Humbucker-Sized-P90-Bridge-Pickup?sku=306913

Duncan - Phat Cat SPH90-1
http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/imagepages/phatcat.shtml

Cheers . . .

- Ian C.T. vom Saal

ledhed43

biffhardon wrote:

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the bridge pickup IS the only pickup in an LP jr. And, unless you're a metalhead, you'll only be disappointed by swapping that P90 for a humbucker. Time to start looking elsewhere in your chain for the problem, methinks.

i definately have 2 pickups. i have never seen another jr. like mine so maybe its not a jr, but i couldve sworn it was. i'm no metalhead, but i would like to have a better high gain sound. when i play chords with a lot of distortion there is not a lot of texture, particularly in the bridge pickup. that is why i wanted to just change that one, and keep the neck pickup for the tight blues sound. i dont know how they would sound together but i hardly ever play it with both pickups on, so it wouldnt matter much.

who's_pearljam?

I've never swapped on any of my guitars, but I have for other people.
You would have to route out the cavity, unless


haha,,,


You use one of these Duncans, or many other Mini Humbuckers out there.
At the bottom of the page are 3 models as an example:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/specializeddescr.shtml

That way you could switch back if you wanted.
I can't even remember what model pickup I put in as it was a while ago, but I didn't have to cut any wood. I just had to improvise to make it fit.
That's a good time to split the wiring up so that the neck and bridge pickup are independent.

lucylespian

ledhed43 wrote:

i definately have 2 pickups. i have never seen another jr. like mine so maybe its not a jr, but i couldve sworn it was. i'm no metalhead, but i would like to have a better high gain sound. when i play chords with a lot of distortion there is not a lot of texture, particularly in the bridge pickup. that is why i wanted to just change that one, and keep the neck pickup for the tight blues sound. i dont know how they would sound together but i hardly ever play it with both pickups on, so it wouldnt matter much.

Hey, I figured you know what guitar you have, so I ignored teh "JUnior ionly have one PUP", but faded DC JUniors defintely have 2 P90's as do 1960 Custom shop re-issues, so it probably is a junior.
There are plenty of P90 size mini hummer sout there. Routing out the cavity will increase your options though. You don't need to be a metalhead to want humbuckers. The BFG wiht P90 neck, and humbucker bridge is my only guitar I really play with both on, so you gain there, not lose .

ledhed43

turns out i have a les paul junior special. it may or may not have P-100 pickups. P-100's are stacked humbuckers that look just like P-90's, so i have no idea how to tell which i have. its my first and only electric, i got 6 years ago before i knew anything about guitars. the model has been discontinued so i dont know how to find out what pickups i have. i dont want to re-route anything so i guess i'll just keep what i have, but it'd be nice to know what that is.

Pacomc79

ledhed43 wrote:

turns out i have a les paul junior special. it may or may not have P-100 pickups. P-100's are stacked humbuckers that look just like P-90's, so i have no idea how to tell which i have. its my first and only electric, i got 6 years ago before i knew anything about guitars. the model has been discontinued so i dont know how to find out what pickups i have. i dont want to re-route anything so i guess i'll just keep what i have, but it'd be nice to know what that is.

I'm about 99.9% certain that's a stacked humbucker the P100's but it's meant to be a noiseless P90 in terms of sound and output, and they look exactly like a P90. Most Mini Humbuckers should fit the route that you have in the guitar.

samquigley

Yeah, I had an LP Special briefly. Mine was a '95 and still had the P90s but I think they switched to P100s in '96 or '97. Those aren't great pickups. They're not the worst in the world, they're just not one of Gibson's finest efforts. There's a reason that guitar was discontinued shortly thereafter. I think a set of mini-humbuckers would be a step in the right direction but, again, they're more of a crunch pickup rather than a high-gain specialist.
I can't help thinking that unless it's the best playing guitar you've ever laid your hands on, you'd be better off keeping it all original and selling it to pay for something with traditional humbuckers.

who's_pearljam?

aHA!

So first we have to figure out what the pickups are!

There are a couple of ways to tell.
A P-90 is a hot single coil pickup, and P100 was a humbucking silent version of the P90 that had a stacked second coil under the top one to quiet the hum of the single coil. I never liked those pickups. They're not quite P90s which I love, and the dummy coil doesn't quite make it a real humbucker.


So,,,, first test:

Turn that sucker up and put it near your amp and is it quiet? Or is there a hum?

If it's noisy, you have probably have a p90 and if not, you have a P100.

You can also unscrew and take a pickup out and look on the bottom, where there should be a sticker to tell you.
You can actually mod a p100 and disconnect the bottom coil to get a better p90 sound if you're adventurous. That takes a bit of doing, and you have to take the pickup cover off and change two wires, but it's the cheapest mod you'll get.
You might actually like the rude P90 sound aka Pete Townshend, or Leslie West.


THEN we talk pickups! Like Biff says, if the guitar is marginal, consider another one, but I'm all over keeping good ones and customizing them.

You can route the cavity for a full on humbucker if you want, but don't route the neck pickup towards the neck, go towards the bridge. You don't want to take any more wood away from the neck joint in those guitars.

ledhed43

they must be P-90's cause the amp definately hums. i will probably save up and buy another guitar. i can't imagine selling this one. it was the first guitar i didnt borrow from someone, so i dont think i can get rid of it. that and for somethings its sounds really good. i have played with the setup a lot and gotten it to feel like i want. the slim neck and low action helps my small hands. if i had big hands i'd own a fender.

who's_pearljam?

ledhed43 wrote:

they must be P-90's cause the amp definately hums. i will probably save up and buy another guitar. i can't imagine selling this one. it was the first guitar i didnt borrow from someone, so i dont think i can get rid of it. that and for somethings its sounds really good. i have played with the setup a lot and gotten it to feel like i want. the slim neck and low action helps my small hands. if i had big hands i'd own a fender.

Those have the 60's slimmer neck which I like.
I'd keep that guitar, like you say. It's what you started with, and you ought to keep it!
You want to tinker, and that's a great one to play with down the line. :cool:
My hands aren't that big, and I love Strats. You have to choose the thinner style necks. The ones I don't like are the bat sized Les Paul necks. My hands barely fit, but I do a lot of finger stretches with jazz now, and the thinner necks are better for that for me, anyway.

lucylespian

Without actually disagreeing with anyone here, could you all please stop referring to P100 as "stacked humbuckers", and call them "stacked singles" cos that's what they really are. Calling them humbuckers is just confusing. I'm sure none of you would refer to Fender noiseless single coils as humbuckers, even though they use the same principle.
They might be low hum, but they aren't a humbucker as far as tone goes, which is where the thread started.

who's_pearljam?

lucylespian wrote:

Without actually disagreeing with anyone here, could you all please stop referring to P100 as "stacked humbuckers", and call them "stacked singles" cos that's what they really are. Calling them humbuckers is just confusing. I'm sure none of you would refer to Fender noiseless single coils as humbuckers, even though they use the same principle.
They might be low hum, but they aren't a humbucker as far as tone goes, which is where the thread started.

haha,,,, ok, well, I think the proper term would be:
"Single coil stacked on a dummy coil to counteract hum"
Sorry, I was trying to figure out how to explain it on the fly before I had to work!
There is only one coil doing the work.

You can disconnect the black wire on the dummy coil on them and solder it to the ground, and tape the two white wires together wires and turn it back to a hot single coil for kicks.
It's a little complex, but if you can solder, it's rather easy, and it costs nothing. To my ears, P100's don't have a whole lot of liveliness to them.
Of course they are noisier after you do this. If you don't like it, you can always get it back, too.

We still have to determine what he DOES have in there! P100's or P90.
If you turn your guitar to the amp and wave it back and forth a bit, does it hum a lot and change as you move it? I'm still trying to get an idea which ones they are.