Get Surfshark VPN at Surfshark.deals/CSGUITARS and enter promo code CSGUITARS for 83% off and 3 extra months for FREE! What exactly are P90s? How do they differ from humbuckers? Are Soapbars and Dogears the same thing? We discover the answer in this Too Afraid To Ask episode. P90 kits were supplied by Alegree - www.alegree.co.uk/ Time Codes: Introduction - 00:00 History - 00:39 Construction - 02:07 Sponsor Ad - 04:41 What I've Wound - 06:30 Sound Samples - 08:09 Tone Discussion - 09:57 Conclusion - 11:02 This video contains paid product promotion from Surfshark VPN. #P90 #Soapbar #sponsor More from CSGuitars: Gain access to exclusive content at: www.patreon.com/csguitars Join CSGuitars Discord - discord.gg/d7b6MY8 Buy CSGuitars Merchandise - www.csguitars.co.uk/store Website - www.csguitars.co.uk Contact - colin@csguitars.co.uk
P-90 pickups have a tendency to be VERY NOISY. I recently changed the P90s on my 2015 LP Less Plus (original Gibson Lead P90 860-13006-L for the Bridge, and Gibson P90 SR 860-13005-L for the Neck). I installed a pair of Lindy Fralin Hum-Cancelling P-90 Soapbar, and they're simply amazing: same P90 sensitivity response, real nice and solid P90 tone, and of course NO HUM. The 2015 LP Les Plus uses Gibson Quick Connect Plugs for to install the pickups, which in fact are "Molex PicoBlade" plugs (so you don't have to pay ridiculous prices for cheap micro plugs).
You don't know how educational this is, especially for a person who's living in a Third World country like me. New day, new knowledge. Thank you, as always!
@@letroon4164 Pretty sure those active pickups are low-impedance pickups. I could be wrong though. In the late 60s Gibson released the Les Paul Professional and the LP Personal, both with low-impedance pickups for less frequency loss over long cable lengths. The p-90 is high-impedance, a big loud pickup but you still lose a lot of frequencies throughout signal transfer.
A good follow-up would be Gibson mini humbuckers since Gibson developed theirs specifically to be able to put humbuckers into bodies that had already been routed for P90's. The mini humbucker was the result of that. They fit perfectly in a P90 routing b/c that's what they were made to fit. That year, that was Gibsons solution to be able to offer hb's on a guitar model that otherwise would've been available only with P90's.
I believe mini humbuckers were originally an Epiphone design for jazz guitars. If I recall, the mounting ring that houses the mini in a LP Deluxe is just a soapbar p90 cover with a hole cut in it.
Yeah. It's basically a high pass filter towards the amp. As you lower the overall volume by directing more of the pickup output to ground on the volume control, the treble frequencies above the treble bleed cutoff point remain unaffected and stay at the same volume. The treble bleed provides a bypass for the signal to go to the amp without going through the volume pot. This makes them relatively louder compared to the rest of the signal passing through the volume pot. This counteracts how increasing the resistance on the volume pot acts as a low-pass filter.
Three or four years ago you made a 7 minute video for the shred guitar build on pickup winding which got me interested in the subject. After trying my hand at it I found It is kind of tricky to make a GOOD pickup winder from scratch and requires a little bit of engineering prowess and creative thinking. After attempting to use an electric drill, hand cranked drill, and an electric motor with a superglued plate on the driveshaft, I finally settled on an old Industrial transformer winder from the 50's. After printing a 3d printed a plate for the bobbin at my school, and just kind of jumped into it. I was able to wind a few single coil pickups, but the motor inside produces enough torque to snap 42 AWG if you are not careful. It took me 7 tries to produce 3 pickups, and my final pickups ended up having a slightly looser coil than usual. I couldn't do more than 7800 turns (I know that's more than most single coils) which from my calculations at the time should have been around 7 k-ohms but only produced a 6.2 k-ohm coil. The pickups don't have that signature Stratocaster sound with my setup but at least they don't buzz! I ended up consulting two electrical engineers and learned that transformer winders are geared for winding thicker wire, usually 38 AWG or thicker, and due to the wider and more uniform coil experiences a lower shear force on the wire due to the more consistent winding pattern which spreads the tension on the wire reducing the chance that the wire will shear. But one of the engineers proposed an interesting idea to me. Why not use a lower gauge of wire, like 38-41 AWG? Sure, you may not be able put as many winds on the coil, and the coil density would be a little lower, which would reduce the area for skin effect in the wire, but the increased thickness of the wire would make for a more reliable wind, and would be a bit cheaper in an industrial setting. Maybe that could be an interesting experiment, testing lower wire gauges to see if their is a noticeable difference?
I always explain P-90's to folks by telling them "It's basically what happens when you wind a single coil pickup like a humbucker." But there's much more to it than that. This video really lays it all out there. Thanks man.
Colin is the most knowledgeable person on RUclips regarding the electronics surrounding electric guitars and accompanying equipment. We are very lucky to have him available for free to help us guitarists understand our instruments and accompanying equipment. Thank you Colin.
Awesome video. I really wish that you could play the P90's and give a comparison between a standard single coil and humbuckers as well. I have only ever played on single coil and humbuckers in my life. I like the way you made your P90's have a humbucker mode. The rest of the P90 you answered a ton of questions I could have. So a P90 is basically an over wound single coil.
i started on single coils an soon switched to buckers, and was sold for years! was buying strings at local shop a a p90 equipped guitar hanging there, and thought why not! wasn't expensive! well made though! i had a gibson standard, a PRS! So How's about something different! i couldn't put the thing down! i loved the sound! set at 8 starts breaking up, roll it back plays clean with a richness lacking in strat single coil's! not as loud as a bucker but harmonically, so much fuller! crank it to 10 and it gritty and raw! I LOVE THEM!
I ordered a P90 neck pickup from Bootstrap called the Screwdriver with Alnico 2 magnets for my Tele and it's also above 9K... actually 9.4K; it totally kills the previous Strat and Tele PU's! P90s paved the way for humbuckers and can make any guitar sound fat and I'm looking forward to swapping out a humbucker for one in an entry-level Maestro Les Paul Junior!
I've always preferred the sound of single coils over humbuckers because of the brighter tone, but humbuckers suit the higher gain hard rock that i play. I have a '72 tele deluxe reissue and the "wide range humbuckers" were too muddy, so i swapped them out for seymour duncan sp90's. Best music gear decision i've ever made. Still have the sound of single coils but enough output to play with the amount of distortion that i use and not have to change settings when i switch to another guitar with humbuckers. It's my go to guitar now.
A few years back I found a Gibson 120th anniversary LP Melody Maker brand new for $375 because the store just couldn't sell it, so I bought it on a whim. I'd never used p90s before and they're probabily my favourite pickup now.
I used to be a P90 naysayer but I have seen the light. Now I am fully convinced that the holy grail of tonal variety can be achieved with a P90 at the neck and a hum at the bridge.
Completely agreed! I did a mod with my hum bridge/Humsized P90 neck similar to a 4 way tele mod but with a 5 way switch. Seperated the coil lead from the base plate and gave it it's own lead before attaching a lead to the baseplate/cover for grounding. POS 1 is the bridge, which can be split. POS 2 is bridge and neck in parallel, POS 3 is neck, then POS 4 is useless, While POS 5 (When the bridge is split) puts the bridge and neck in series. I plan on switching to a 4 way switch eventually to get rid of the useless 4th position but it works super well for now.
@@Barcarus I have a les Paul that I changed out the pickups on. In the neck is a Bare Knuckle “Mississippi Queen” hum-sized P90 and a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the bridge. I can tell you, it is FANTASTIC! Some amazing tones can be had.
Agreed! If you're going for variety, the combo cannot be beat. It's what I have in my "jack of all trades" telecaster, with a coil split on the bridge humbucker and a phase swift switch. On my main guitars, I tend to run P90s in the neck position and a strat style single coil in the middle position angled like a strat bridge single coil and out of phase to the neck (and bridge if I'm using a single coil in that position). For bridge pickups, it can vary depending on what I'm shooting for tonally, but it's usually a hot P90 or a slightly cooler humbucker. I firmly believe not having middle pickup is wasted real estate.
Great video. I learned so much. I have one guitar that has a P-90 and a PAF (Seymore Duncan): a Yamaha PAC 611. Now I have a little more knowledge of how to use the volume and tone pots.
Perhaps a video about how string gauges and looseness (due to downtuning) of the strings change the sound of the guitar from a science-y and music-y perspective could be some nice infotainment :D
This is literally the second one of your videos I've watched, and the instant I saw you "hand" winding the P-90 I was like "Oh shit, this just got really real, lemme sub real quick...."
My technical brain was just recoiling from your so random process for building these pickups. Yet I also know that's what's called creativity, and beat my brain into submission, to stop it getting so wound up about it :-)
Hey Colin. Can you do a TATA on covered vs uncovered humbuckers and show their Sonic differences on your oscilloscope? Would that be possible? It'd be pretty sweet if ya could! 🙏🤞👍 Edit: frequency analyzer, not o-scope, as pointed out below 👍
Ok so I used a crappy FFT on my phone to look at the difference between just my neck & bridge pickups. Neck is the stock Alnico 5 humbucker and bridge is Seymour Duncan Alnico 5 '59 Model hb. The difference audibly is pretty stark so when I looked at them on the FFT, you really could see a pretty big difference in which frequencies stood out on the 59 vs the stock with had a lot less. So now I'm really curious to see what it would show with and without a cover on a single pickup.
I love P-90s. I've been a humbucking guy for a long time, but since I played some Seymour Duncan P-90s, I can't play anything else. They sound so twangy and they have that single coil clarity, but it's dirty and growling once you turn up the gain.
I have a P90 in the neck of my Gibson Les Paul Tribute and I really enjoy using it in combination with my bridge humbucker. Sounds very full, creamy and thick, both clean and distorted.
@@kremepye3613 It actually came with two regular soapbar P90's. I swapped out the bridge P90 for a Dimarzio P-90 sized Super Distortion. Caps are the same to my knowledge.
Those pickups sound terrific. I've been a big fan of P90's for a long time. My one specific question is the sound difference (if any) between "standard size" P90's versus "humbucker size" P90's? The latter are really useful since so many guitars are routed for humbuckers and you therefore don't need to modify the guitar body. Is there a tone price to be paid for this convenience, though?
What are the advantages to winding your own pick up? Would pedals or amp settings do the same thing as number of winds or magnet strength ? This video was awesome. Thanks.
I like this idea. Isn't a phase difference between the coils what makes humbuckers (somewhat) noise cancelling? If so, most humbuckers would technically be out of phase.
I just realised that my statement is inaccurate. The polarity of the magnets are reversed. The phase is probably the same. If it was opposed, the signal coming from them would start cancelling itself out - possibly causing the Peter Green tone.
@@schmoemi3386 there isn't a single out of phase pickup however two pickups could be wired out of phase to eliminate Hum this is how humbuckers are made so the outside noise that will be the same for both coils will get cancelled and the normal signal even stronger.
I can honestly recommend Alegree Noiseless P90's - just fitted a pair on my 80's Greco guitar an they sound great. Both coil split with 3 way switches. Loads of tones and 3 gain levels to choose from. And only £40. Insane.
Love the P90 sound! TY for showing how they are made. For those wanting to tryout P90s but are worried about reworking their guitar to get them to fit they make humbucker sized P90s.
I’ve got a pickup question for a future episode. Zebra humbuckers vs PAF vs Burstbucker, and does having a metal cover change the tone from an uncovered pickup?
Whoa. First. Pafs as well as every other humbucker come in zebra color combo so you need to do some more research and understand that zebra isn't a type of pickup. It's a color. And it makes zero difference in how they sound. That's straight out of the mouth of the man who invented them. Burstbuckers are just a model of humbucker from Gibson. Just like a Slashbucker. Those are Slash Signature humbuckers. Burstbuckers are just another of their humbucker models. They needed a name to distinguish them. Burstbuckers are available in zebra color combo also. As well, all humbuckers come as reverse zebra color combo, also. Now covered vs uncovered is a good test. There are Sonic differences when you compare a metal covered pickup vs an uncovered pickup. That would definitely be something Colin would be good at explaining and showing differences on his oscilloscope.
You might want to watch Rhett Shull's "What is that PAF sound?" and 'history of the PAF' so you have a better understanding of this all and can ask meaningful questions next time. There are other sources for this info and you would do yourself a favor to use them. Don't rely on just a single source aka Colin. Expand your knowledge. Help yourself here. You can't compare a type of pickup(PAF) to a color of pickup(zebra) to another model of PAF-style pickup(burstbucker). Their design is based on the original PAF pickup so you'd basically be comparing 2 of the same type of pickup. You can note differences in materials and sound but by design, they are basically the same.
JC, the kind of question Jonathan has asked is EXACTLY the kind of thing TATAs should be about! People hear all these words and don't know what the difference or distinctions are. Is a zebra pickup a different thing from a PAF is a legit question to ask for someone who has just started looking into all of this. I think this will make an excellent topic and is something I'll cover in a PAF TATA episode.
Helpful & informative…but since I have no direct experience with P90s, I’ll have to watch more videos to get a better idea how they they perform in truly clean sound. I realize that the segment at 8:08 is probably intended to show their “clean” sound, but the definition of “clean” is (evidently) relative to individual preferences. The “clean” at 8:08 isn’t my kind of clean…but that’s actually not uncommon these daze. Otherwise, great video, and a good place to start my investigation of P90s.
Essentially a humbucker made by a different company around the same time as the PAF, but didn't get as much attention so didn't become the standard. Dimensionally smaller, brighter sounding, but pretty much equivalent in the ways that matter.
It's worth noting that while true, original Filtertron are constructed in different way than typical humbuckers, there are also many pickups that looks like Filtertron, and are even branded as Filtertrons, but in the inside they are just regular humbuckers, maybe with slightly different dimensions. DylanTalksTone probalby have some videos about them.
Until I got my hands on my Gibson BFG, I never understood the need for P90s. This combination of the Bare knuckle HB in the bridge position & P90 at the neck tonally makes so much more sense to me. Now to modify the stupid master tone & kill switch to something more traditional & useful next.
I have a 70s Gibson SG Special that came with mini-humbuckers than sounded quite shite. After a few years u sold the pickups and bought a cheap P90 from eBay. The P90 came across like a nun that had a bottle of Iron Bru and discovered that steel-toe workboots are the best form of persuasion known to man.
Great video, my favorite pickups. My Epi '56 Reissue has been my baby for 10 years now, along with a P93 Riviera I bought last year. Unfortunately the P93 is being repaired, haven't been able to play it for a little while now.
Your videos are very weel done, full of precious infos, many thanks for sharing wit us. One question, Fender Jazzmaster guitars are provided with pickups that look like a P90, but that are not built like a classic Gibson P90. They have magnetized poles like a classic single coil and do not have screws with an underlying magnet like a real P90. I tried them and I have to admiti that the neck pickup is awesome, it sounds like a really fat single coil, keeping the tonal characteristics of a single coil, but with a fatter tone (but not muddy), while the humbucker does not sound at all like a real P90, and in my opinion it is too thin even if it is a 9K 6H pickup. Are these fendere pickups considered P90s or not? Thanks
OK, so now I'm curious. If you cut a full sized pickup in half then wound those individual halves then put the two halves together then wound them as one pickup. What would that create?
Thanks for the info, great video! Can you show us how to configure a soapbar pickup to raise higher off the body and closer to the strings? I came across a beautiful Tokai LS98 with Soapbars however the pickups do not rise high enough. Thanks!
P90s usually are elevated by foam blocks between the pickup and the guitar body. If you want the pickups to raise up higher, use taller foam blocks (and perhaps longer mounting screws).
Wow everything you need to know about P90's for sure. This is proof of why Scottish engineers are renowned throughout the world and beyond! Stellar. :-)
Get Surfshark VPN at Surfshark.deals/CSGUITARS and enter promo code CSGUITARS for 83% off and 3 extra months for FREE!
What exactly are P90s? How do they differ from humbuckers? Are Soapbars and Dogears the same thing? We discover the answer in this Too Afraid To Ask episode.
P90 kits were supplied by Alegree -
www.alegree.co.uk/
Time Codes:
Introduction - 00:00
History - 00:39
Construction - 02:07
Sponsor Ad - 04:41
What I've Wound - 06:30
Sound Samples - 08:09
Tone Discussion - 09:57
Conclusion - 11:02
This video contains paid product promotion from Surfshark VPN.
#P90 #Soapbar #sponsor
More from CSGuitars:
Gain access to exclusive content at: www.patreon.com/csguitars
Join CSGuitars Discord - discord.gg/d7b6MY8
Buy CSGuitars Merchandise - www.csguitars.co.uk/store
Website - www.csguitars.co.uk
Contact - colin@csguitars.co.uk
@CSGuitars, dude, those pickups sounded AMAZING. I wish you would sell me a pair of those P90’s.
P-90 pickups have a tendency to be VERY NOISY. I recently changed the P90s on my 2015 LP Less Plus (original Gibson Lead P90 860-13006-L for the Bridge, and Gibson P90 SR 860-13005-L for the Neck). I installed a pair of Lindy Fralin Hum-Cancelling P-90 Soapbar, and they're simply amazing: same P90 sensitivity response, real nice and solid P90 tone, and of course NO HUM.
The 2015 LP Les Plus uses Gibson Quick Connect Plugs for to install the pickups, which in fact are "Molex PicoBlade" plugs (so you don't have to pay ridiculous prices for cheap micro plugs).
I really loved this ad LMAO!
You don't know how educational this is, especially for a person who's living in a Third World country like me. New day, new knowledge. Thank you, as always!
congrats 69 likes
Third World is an illusion, and you are better off in a lot of ways.
Whereabouts in Canada are you
Im literally you
You could just say P90s are spicy single coils and boneless humbuckers
... that do not buck the hum...
@@schmoemi3386 Humbringers
@@aaronwebb1548 Humbringers OF DOOM!
To me those trendy super expensive active pickups that djenters swear by are just p90s
@@letroon4164 Pretty sure those active pickups are low-impedance pickups. I could be wrong though.
In the late 60s Gibson released the Les Paul Professional and the LP Personal, both with low-impedance pickups for less frequency loss over long cable lengths.
The p-90 is high-impedance, a big loud pickup but you still lose a lot of frequencies throughout signal transfer.
Excellent video. Building a P90 from the baseplate up definitely helps demystify these things.
A good follow-up would be Gibson mini humbuckers since Gibson developed theirs specifically to be able to put humbuckers into bodies that had already been routed for P90's. The mini humbucker was the result of that. They fit perfectly in a P90 routing b/c that's what they were made to fit. That year, that was Gibsons solution to be able to offer hb's on a guitar model that otherwise would've been available only with P90's.
But only with that plastic ring. The mini humbucker itself has no way the outline of a (soapbar) P-90... 🤔
I believe mini humbuckers were originally an Epiphone design for jazz guitars. If I recall, the mounting ring that houses the mini in a LP Deluxe is just a soapbar p90 cover with a hole cut in it.
9:26 that tone is delicious
A topic for another TATA: treble bleeds, how do they work and what they do exactly. Are they some sort of high pass filter?
Yeah. It's basically a high pass filter towards the amp. As you lower the overall volume by directing more of the pickup output to ground on the volume control, the treble frequencies above the treble bleed cutoff point remain unaffected and stay at the same volume. The treble bleed provides a bypass for the signal to go to the amp without going through the volume pot. This makes them relatively louder compared to the rest of the signal passing through the volume pot.
This counteracts how increasing the resistance on the volume pot acts as a low-pass filter.
@Nicko Lps yeah, that's bullshit.
Treble bleed caps help maintain the treble when the volume is turned down instead of losing the treble without the bleeds.
Three or four years ago you made a 7 minute video for the shred guitar build on pickup winding which got me interested in the subject. After trying my hand at it I found It is kind of tricky to make a GOOD pickup winder from scratch and requires a little bit of engineering prowess and creative thinking.
After attempting to use an electric drill, hand cranked drill, and an electric motor with a superglued plate on the driveshaft, I finally settled on an old Industrial transformer winder from the 50's. After printing a 3d printed a plate for the bobbin at my school, and just kind of jumped into it. I was able to wind a few single coil pickups, but the motor inside produces enough torque to snap 42 AWG if you are not careful. It took me 7 tries to produce 3 pickups, and my final pickups ended up having a slightly looser coil than usual. I couldn't do more than 7800 turns (I know that's more than most single coils) which from my calculations at the time should have been around 7 k-ohms but only produced a 6.2 k-ohm coil. The pickups don't have that signature Stratocaster sound with my setup but at least they don't buzz!
I ended up consulting two electrical engineers and learned that transformer winders are geared for winding thicker wire, usually 38 AWG or thicker, and due to the wider and more uniform coil experiences a lower shear force on the wire due to the more consistent winding pattern which spreads the tension on the wire reducing the chance that the wire will shear. But one of the engineers proposed an interesting idea to me. Why not use a lower gauge of wire, like 38-41 AWG?
Sure, you may not be able put as many winds on the coil, and the coil density would be a little lower, which would reduce the area for skin effect in the wire, but the increased thickness of the wire would make for a more reliable wind, and would be a bit cheaper in an industrial setting. Maybe that could be an interesting experiment, testing lower wire gauges to see if their is a noticeable difference?
The old UK black/white rotating thing to highlight the incoming ad was a nice touch ;)
Never I thought I would willingly watch an add. well done, sir
Damn, most people would simply buy a P-90 and then take it apart for a video like this. You build your own. Classy dude.
I always explain P-90's to folks by telling them "It's basically what happens when you wind a single coil pickup like a humbucker." But there's much more to it than that. This video really lays it all out there. Thanks man.
I like the cream covers
I love when folks play White Room with a P-90 equipped guitar.
Ooooh ooooh the sound....!!! Cannot get tired of that sound...great sound balance. Thx!
Colin is the most knowledgeable person on RUclips regarding the electronics surrounding electric guitars and accompanying equipment. We are very lucky to have him available for free to help us guitarists understand our instruments and accompanying equipment. Thank you Colin.
Awesome video. I really wish that you could play the P90's and give a comparison between a standard single coil and humbuckers as well. I have only ever played on single coil and humbuckers in my life. I like the way you made your P90's have a humbucker mode. The rest of the P90 you answered a ton of questions I could have. So a P90 is basically an over wound single coil.
I've never meet a Scotsman I didn't like. Bravo Sir.
i started on single coils an soon switched to buckers, and was sold for years! was buying strings at local shop a a p90 equipped guitar hanging there, and thought why not! wasn't expensive! well made though! i had a gibson standard, a PRS! So How's about something different! i couldn't put the thing down! i loved the sound! set at 8 starts breaking up, roll it back plays clean with a richness lacking in strat single coil's! not as loud as a bucker but harmonically, so much fuller! crank it to 10 and it gritty and raw! I LOVE THEM!
You made some rock and roll P90s, and that tone made my day.
Ever do a video on pedals with subminiature tubes?
The best description and details about P-90’s. Thanks.
Your advertising and acting abilities are really good. Also your ability to explain and communicate technical detail. Not bad for a "soap shy weegie".
".. to wind a couple myself.."
wow.. that's THE content. Gonna dive deep into this channel I guess
I love p-90s, especially in the neck. They have a bit of bandpass in them and just have that vibe.....
That was some serious tone out of those! Rock on!
I ordered a P90 neck pickup from Bootstrap called the Screwdriver with Alnico 2 magnets for my Tele and it's also above 9K... actually 9.4K; it totally kills the previous Strat and Tele PU's! P90s paved the way for humbuckers and can make any guitar sound fat and I'm looking forward to swapping out a humbucker for one in an entry-level Maestro Les Paul Junior!
I've always preferred the sound of single coils over humbuckers because of the brighter tone, but humbuckers suit the higher gain hard rock that i play. I have a '72 tele deluxe reissue and the "wide range humbuckers" were too muddy, so i swapped them out for seymour duncan sp90's. Best music gear decision i've ever made. Still have the sound of single coils but enough output to play with the amount of distortion that i use and not have to change settings when i switch to another guitar with humbuckers. It's my go to guitar now.
A few years back I found a Gibson 120th anniversary LP Melody Maker brand new for $375 because the store just couldn't sell it, so I bought it on a whim. I'd never used p90s before and they're probabily my favourite pickup now.
I used to be a P90 naysayer but I have seen the light. Now I am fully convinced that the holy grail of tonal variety can be achieved with a P90 at the neck and a hum at the bridge.
Completely agreed! I did a mod with my hum bridge/Humsized P90 neck similar to a 4 way tele mod but with a 5 way switch. Seperated the coil lead from the base plate and gave it it's own lead before attaching a lead to the baseplate/cover for grounding. POS 1 is the bridge, which can be split. POS 2 is bridge and neck in parallel, POS 3 is neck, then POS 4 is useless, While POS 5 (When the bridge is split) puts the bridge and neck in series. I plan on switching to a 4 way switch eventually to get rid of the useless 4th position but it works super well for now.
sounds awesome, what guitar is that? i am currently looking for this combination because of your comment here :D tell me more please! @Freddie Ellis
@@Barcarus I have a les Paul that I changed out the pickups on. In the neck is a Bare Knuckle “Mississippi Queen” hum-sized P90 and a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates in the bridge.
I can tell you, it is FANTASTIC! Some amazing tones can be had.
Agreed! If you're going for variety, the combo cannot be beat. It's what I have in my "jack of all trades" telecaster, with a coil split on the bridge humbucker and a phase swift switch.
On my main guitars, I tend to run P90s in the neck position and a strat style single coil in the middle position angled like a strat bridge single coil and out of phase to the neck (and bridge if I'm using a single coil in that position). For bridge pickups, it can vary depending on what I'm shooting for tonally, but it's usually a hot P90 or a slightly cooler humbucker. I firmly believe not having middle pickup is wasted real estate.
My favorite too ... Eddie Cochrane btw ...
Thanks Colin; yes, I was too afraid to ask!
I just recently installed bare knuckle warpig humbucker sized p90s and absolutely love the tone it gives me
I think those cream p90s look very beautiful on that black shield! Keep them on!
Great video. I learned so much. I have one guitar that has a P-90 and a PAF (Seymore Duncan): a Yamaha PAC 611. Now I have a little more knowledge of how to use the volume and tone pots.
Despite knowing what a P90 is I come for the entertainment value 😆 "it's one of these things!" 😅
I really love the sound of the neck pickup!
This was ace. Glad I found the channel mate. I'm getting into playing and need as much education as possible. Cheers
Holy fuck! I'm late to the party here, but Colin has a decent haircut finally.
Perhaps a video about how string gauges and looseness (due to downtuning) of the strings change the sound of the guitar from a science-y and music-y perspective could be some nice infotainment :D
Can you do a TATA on Mini Humbuckers and TV Jones style, and compare them tonally to a PAF or High Gain pickup in a metal context?
P-90's have become my faves... love the tones!
Ha, ha always informative and fun. The production is top class, do you have a team producing this?
Just me, I do all my own stunts
Man that set of ALnico 2 abdd 4 P-90s souded AMAZING!! Well done!!! I want a set!!
This is literally the second one of your videos I've watched, and the instant I saw you "hand" winding the P-90 I was like "Oh shit, this just got really real, lemme sub real quick...."
Really great informal video thanks so much!
So neat you build your own pickups, wish I was smart and handy like that lol!
Cheers!
My technical brain was just recoiling from your so random process for building these pickups. Yet I also know that's what's called creativity, and beat my brain into submission, to stop it getting so wound up about it :-)
This SurfShark ad was so good, I actually watched it XD
Liking the white/black advertising bars. Takes me back to ITV back in the day!
Hey Colin. Can you do a TATA on covered vs uncovered humbuckers and show their Sonic differences on your oscilloscope? Would that be possible? It'd be pretty sweet if ya could! 🙏🤞👍
Edit: frequency analyzer, not o-scope, as pointed out below 👍
That’s beyond the capabilities of an oscope. What you want to use is a frequency analyzer in your DAW 👍🏻
@@arsenicjones9125 that's what I meant! I just couldn't think of the name. 👍 Thank you!
@@arsenicjones9125 modern digital scopes can do FFT too
@@skarfie123 that’s neat, still the wrong tool.
Ok so I used a crappy FFT on my phone to look at the difference between just my neck & bridge pickups. Neck is the stock Alnico 5 humbucker and bridge is Seymour Duncan Alnico 5 '59 Model hb.
The difference audibly is pretty stark so when I looked at them on the FFT, you really could see a pretty big difference in which frequencies stood out on the 59 vs the stock with had a lot less. So now I'm really curious to see what it would show with and without a cover on a single pickup.
This is a great explanation of P90 pickups.
love the headstock! i like the one on the Fender Fire Bird also....
Another awesome video Colin! Thank you for doing these!
Thanks for adressing questions i wasn't aware i had
helluva great video, nice pickups, love that sound
I wasn't still sure I got it until the outro explained everything.
My first electric was an Epihone Wyldkat semi-hollow with Alnico V P90s. It Metaled pretty well! (until it got jacked, ugh!)
Incredibly interesting and helpful ! Thanks Colin
A really informative video, I have gained a much greater understanding of what these pickups are all about, many thanks. They sound awesome as well
Having said that. Is it a good idea to have a combination of P90, single coil and humbucker on a guitar?
Great video, thanks ... and b.t.w. Laphroaig - exactly my taste
Have a video on coil splitting and coil tapping ? Educate me more on the difference in pick ups please ?
That pretty much covered every aspect of the P90 great vide as always Colin.👍🏾🔥👏🏾
My favorite pickups! No other pickup has that growl when pushed.
I love P-90s. I've been a humbucking guy for a long time, but since I played some Seymour Duncan P-90s, I can't play anything else. They sound so twangy and they have that single coil clarity, but it's dirty and growling once you turn up the gain.
I have a P90 in the neck of my Gibson Les Paul Tribute and I really enjoy using it in combination with my bridge humbucker. Sounds very full, creamy and thick, both clean and distorted.
Hey ive got one of those too! Did you route a full sized p90 in? Or get a hum sized p90? Also did you change your cap? Cheers!
@@kremepye3613 It actually came with two regular soapbar P90's. I swapped out the bridge P90 for a Dimarzio P-90 sized Super Distortion. Caps are the same to my knowledge.
Those pickups sound terrific. I've been a big fan of P90's for a long time. My one specific question is the sound difference (if any) between "standard size" P90's versus "humbucker size" P90's? The latter are really useful since so many guitars are routed for humbuckers and you therefore don't need to modify the guitar body. Is there a tone price to be paid for this convenience, though?
What are the advantages to winding your own pick up?
Would pedals or amp settings do the same thing as number of winds or magnet strength ?
This video was awesome. Thanks.
That grungy sound gave me goosebumps ❤
i don’t even need the noti bell i’m just on here all the time
TATA idea: "Out of phase pickups -- huh? how? and why?" (Bonus points if you use the keywords "Peter Green" and "Brian May"!)
I wonder if there's really an out-of-phase pickup out there... 🤔😏
I like this idea.
Isn't a phase difference between the coils what makes humbuckers (somewhat) noise cancelling? If so, most humbuckers would technically be out of phase.
I just realised that my statement is inaccurate. The polarity of the magnets are reversed. The phase is probably the same. If it was opposed, the signal coming from them would start cancelling itself out - possibly causing the Peter Green tone.
Within the pickup it would be even worse. More cancelling out of the signal than with neck & brigde PU signals...
@@schmoemi3386 there isn't a single out of phase pickup however two pickups could be wired out of phase to eliminate Hum this is how humbuckers are made so the outside noise that will be the same for both coils will get cancelled and the normal signal even stronger.
Sounds excellent. Best Regards and Thanks
Great job! Those pups sound way better than my og p90's set on my lp.
Nice sound 👍
Nice and clean explanation!
Pd: where can I listen to the theme you use at the end of your videos?
It was specifically written as the intro/outro theme, so that's the only place it exists.
Great tone! Did you use 500k pots?
hellz yeah! great video man! you rock!
clean clear concise...same as always!
I can honestly recommend Alegree Noiseless P90's - just fitted a pair on my 80's Greco guitar an they sound great. Both coil split with 3 way switches. Loads of tones and 3 gain levels to choose from. And only £40. Insane.
Pure ecstatically the cream boys look great in the friedman. The tone is your thing (but I like it also)
Love the P90 sound! TY for showing how they are made. For those wanting to tryout P90s but are worried about reworking their guitar to get them to fit they make humbucker sized P90s.
I’ve got a pickup question for a future episode.
Zebra humbuckers vs PAF vs Burstbucker, and does having a metal cover change the tone from an uncovered pickup?
Whoa. First. Pafs as well as every other humbucker come in zebra color combo so you need to do some more research and understand that zebra isn't a type of pickup. It's a color. And it makes zero difference in how they sound. That's straight out of the mouth of the man who invented them.
Burstbuckers are just a model of humbucker from Gibson. Just like a Slashbucker. Those are Slash Signature humbuckers. Burstbuckers are just another of their humbucker models. They needed a name to distinguish them. Burstbuckers are available in zebra color combo also. As well, all humbuckers come as reverse zebra color combo, also.
Now covered vs uncovered is a good test. There are Sonic differences when you compare a metal covered pickup vs an uncovered pickup. That would definitely be something Colin would be good at explaining and showing differences on his oscilloscope.
You might want to watch Rhett Shull's "What is that PAF sound?" and 'history of the PAF' so you have a better understanding of this all and can ask meaningful questions next time. There are other sources for this info and you would do yourself a favor to use them. Don't rely on just a single source aka Colin. Expand your knowledge. Help yourself here.
You can't compare a type of pickup(PAF) to a color of pickup(zebra) to another model of PAF-style pickup(burstbucker). Their design is based on the original PAF pickup so you'd basically be comparing 2 of the same type of pickup. You can note differences in materials and sound but by design, they are basically the same.
JC, the kind of question Jonathan has asked is EXACTLY the kind of thing TATAs should be about!
People hear all these words and don't know what the difference or distinctions are.
Is a zebra pickup a different thing from a PAF is a legit question to ask for someone who has just started looking into all of this.
I think this will make an excellent topic and is something I'll cover in a PAF TATA episode.
@@ScienceofLoud thanks for pointing that out, Colin. I wasn't thinking about it from that POV. I appreciate it, brother!
Awesome video! Great information!
How do you adjust the height of soap bar P90 pickups?
Really liked the bridge one sounded.
Helpful & informative…but since I have no direct experience with P90s, I’ll have to watch more videos to get a better idea how they they perform in truly clean sound. I realize that the segment at 8:08 is probably intended to show their “clean” sound, but the definition of “clean” is (evidently) relative to individual preferences. The “clean” at 8:08 isn’t my kind of clean…but that’s actually not uncommon these daze. Otherwise, great video, and a good place to start my investigation of P90s.
Superb content right here. - Thanks a lot. Keep it up.
What are filtertron pickups?
Essentially a humbucker made by a different company around the same time as the PAF, but didn't get as much attention so didn't become the standard.
Dimensionally smaller, brighter sounding, but pretty much equivalent in the ways that matter.
It's worth noting that while true, original Filtertron are constructed in different way than typical humbuckers, there are also many pickups that looks like Filtertron, and are even branded as Filtertrons, but in the inside they are just regular humbuckers, maybe with slightly different dimensions. DylanTalksTone probalby have some videos about them.
Until I got my hands on my Gibson BFG, I never understood the need for P90s. This combination of the Bare knuckle HB in the bridge position & P90 at the neck tonally makes so much more sense to me. Now to modify the stupid master tone & kill switch to something more traditional & useful next.
I have a 70s Gibson SG Special that came with mini-humbuckers than sounded quite shite. After a few years u sold the pickups and bought a cheap P90 from eBay.
The P90 came across like a nun that had a bottle of Iron Bru and discovered that steel-toe workboots are the best form of persuasion known to man.
Here’s a thing, very early Tele bridge pickups (some of which were taken from lap steel guitars) sound very much like p90s to my ears.
Thanks for aclarations. Inspiring.
I didn’t know I wanted a telecaster with dual P90’s until now
Great video, my favorite pickups. My Epi '56 Reissue has been my baby for 10 years now, along with a P93 Riviera I bought last year. Unfortunately the P93 is being repaired, haven't been able to play it for a little while now.
Your videos are very weel done, full of precious infos, many thanks for sharing wit us. One question, Fender Jazzmaster guitars are provided with pickups that look like a P90, but that are not built like a classic Gibson P90. They have magnetized poles like a classic single coil and do not have screws with an underlying magnet like a real P90. I tried them and I have to admiti that the neck pickup is awesome, it sounds like a really fat single coil, keeping the tonal characteristics of a single coil, but with a fatter tone (but not muddy), while the humbucker does not sound at all like a real P90, and in my opinion it is too thin even if it is a 9K 6H pickup. Are these fendere pickups considered P90s or not? Thanks
Wow, those sound good! I’m “H-S-H” guy or both humbuckers with split coil capabilities.
OK, so now I'm curious.
If you cut a full sized pickup in half then wound those individual halves then put the two halves together then wound them as one pickup. What would that create?
Great show! Thanks! ⚡
Thanks for the info, great video! Can you show us how to configure a soapbar pickup to raise higher off the body and closer to the strings? I came across a beautiful Tokai LS98 with Soapbars however the pickups do not rise high enough. Thanks!
P90s usually are elevated by foam blocks between the pickup and the guitar body. If you want the pickups to raise up higher, use taller foam blocks (and perhaps longer mounting screws).
Love your TATA's. Can't wait to see more TATA's in the future.
When're we gonna get an active pickup episode?
Wow everything you need to know about P90's for sure. This is proof of why Scottish engineers are renowned throughout the world and beyond! Stellar. :-)
You’re talking about the same guys that invented bagpipes….
Aye! Ye did a good job lad! \m/