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Humbucking P-90s...


arneyz

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So I had this idea since I decided to turn my Epi Casino into my modification guitar with the purchase of my new SG. I'm going to have it set up, put new electronics, pots, etc., new tuners and new pickups (Gibson American made P-90s), and a Bigsby as well to replace the trapeze tail piece.

 

Back to the point, my idea was to see if I could have the P-90s wired in sequence so when both pickups are selected it becomes a split humbucker. I know you can do this with fender style single coils. Not so sure about P-90s. I think those stacked H-90 (?) humbuckers have received bad reviews on this forum. Is it possible to do this? Is it a bad idea tone wise?

 

Regards,

Zach

Hooray for the Moon
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You could do this with a push/pull pot. I have done this mod on my bass.

 

This will only work if the pickups are a 'matched pair' ie one is reverse-wound compared to the other. If they are, they'll be humbucking when both on in parallel - you don't need to go to series wiring. You can buy matched sets from Seymour Duncan etc.

 

Wiring in series puts the signal of one through the other. This outputs more gain (louder), a bit more bass, a LOT more mids and curtailed treble. I've also done this with humbuckers (too much).

 

The 4 position switch for Teles also does this.

 

G.

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Would this push pull pot just eliminate hum or would it also give a fuller sound, like HBs do. I know P-90s have a fuller sound than Fender style single coils but I just thought the idea of a humbucker composed of to p90s would be cool.
Hooray for the Moon
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...This will only work if the pickups are a 'matched pair' ie one is reverse-wound compared to the other. If they are, they'll be humbucking when both on in parallel - you don't need to go to series wiring. You can buy matched sets from Seymour Duncan etc...

 

Guitar Fetish P90s can also be purchased as reverse wound matched pairs.

 

You will need to use the covers from your stock pick-ups to maintain a stock appearance. I don't think it is difficult to remove these from "dog-ear" P90s.

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If you have 'em wired-up for a wired-in-series option, they'll sound more or less like a big, bold humbucker together that way. You'll still get some hum reduction in parallel if one is reverse-wound/reverse-polarity in respect to the other.

 

I've read that some folks have gotten cool results from those Gibson P-100 stacked-humbucking soapbars when they wired 'em for selectable coil-splitting, that is, operation of the lower, upper, or both coils; the deal was that the lower coil of the stacked-humbucker design sounded all vintage-soapbar/single-coil by itself, while the upper-coil sounded more modern single-coil, leaving the humbucking dual-coil mode unused. Unless you're gonna do some experimentation like that, I'd steer clear of the Gibson P-100's...

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...if I could have the P-90s wired in sequence so when both pickups are selected it becomes a split humbucker. ...

 

Regards,

Zach

 

The Duncan Fat Cat pair of humbucking form factor P-90 is set up that way. Middle position on your pickup selector switch creates a big humbucker.

 

Bill

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