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Does Gibson vary their P90 pickups?


Jazz+

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And are all the Gibson P90 pickups basically made to sound the same or did they vary them tonally for different guitars such as for a Les Paul Junior or for a hollow body jazz guitar?

If I buy a used one do I consider what guitar model the P90 came from?

 

I would love to put one in the neck position of my Epiphone Casino Coupe for traditional jazz. I wonder if it would be a "drop in fit" ... I don’t keep a pickguard on the guitar so that wouldn’t be an issue.

Edited by Jazz+
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All Gibson P90's are not the same. Over the years materials & build procedures have changed. That said, I like the current Gibson P90's as much as Lollars, Fralins or Duncan's. Maybe more because they're the Originals that came with my Guitars...

 

The Epiphones that are in your Asian Guitar are Metric sized as opposed to Gibsons which are Std. USA size.

 

That said, I do like the Fralins if I were going after market....

Edited by Larsongs
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I bought a pair out of a r4 that really sound good in my black p90 les paul standard. When I got the guitar, someone swapped em for cheap pups and messed with the wiring. I ended up with new pots, caps, switch, braided wiring and did it 50's wiring. I love em. I did buy an antiquity from a friend for the bridge prior and wasn't jazzed about it. I think stock p90s are great! Not sure of the year, but owning a tribute 50's from 2010 I automatically wanted stock p90s for this one. Hope that helped

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Gibson officially introduced the P-90 in 1946 and used the exclusively till they introduced the Humbucker in 1957. The P-90 mostly used Alnico v3 magnets in the beginning until the v5 was introduced, in addition occasionally ceramic magnets were used. I saw a video where the early assemblers claimed that they just wound the bobbins until they were full, not counting the turns. Anyway the point is that to try and duplicate the original 50's sound on P-90's is difficult as there was a lot of experimentation and inconsistency in early production.

 

In the early 70's Gibson P-90 production was almost non-existent, until a few famous players started performing with old Jr's and Specials getting that distinctive growl that cuts through almost every other type of guitar pickup.

 

Aftermarket Fralin's are probably the most widely talked about for getting "The Desired Sound", there are a ton of custom builders like Duncan making high quality P-90's. Mojotone builds a very low noise Quiet Coil, that is a carefully wound single coil, for those that can afford them.

 

I use GFS P-90s in a couple of my guitars, affordable and I like their sound. Also a Kent Armstrong noiseless in a Jr that sounds pretty good but he gain is down a tiny bit. I have 4 Epiphone's using P-90 Pro's that I love the way they sound, noise wise they are a little quieter than my Gibson LP Special DC and BluesHawk... In all fairness the current Gibson P-90's sound great and are built more substantially than most other P-90's I have seen....

 

Experimenting I have put Gibson P-90's into Epiphone's an visa versa in the bridge position with no fitting problems. But most of the Epiphone neck pickups have smaller pole spacing, which I have also found to be typical on a lot of aftermarket neck P-90's.

Edited by mihcmac
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Fralin makes a great pups. I have a set of Pure PAF's in my LP.

 

I totally agree.. I played an original Fano with them a few years ago & have been sold on them ever since.

 

I have a couple Casinos with USA Gibson P90's & one with Asian P90's that I don't particularly care for the sound of. I'm eventally going to put them in it bcause I like everything else about it including the Bigsby..

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And are all the Gibson P90 pickups basically made to sound the same or did they vary them tonally for different guitars such as for a Les Paul Junior or for a hollow body jazz guitar?

If I buy a used one do I consider what guitar model the P90 came from?

 

I would love to put one in the neck position of my Epiphone Casino Coupe for traditional jazz. I wonder if it would be a "drop in fit" ... I dont keep a pickguard on the guitar so that wouldnt be an issue.

 

I used a set of Kent Armstrong dog ear chrome P90s on my Epi Casino. They were drop-in They use 42awg coil wire and A5 magnets. KAs are respected by jazz players. They are made in Korea. Mine were 8.1ko and 8.15ko. They cost half what Gibson P90s cost but sound daringly similar

Edited by Zentar
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  • 4 years later...

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