Swapping Gibson P90s for Lollar P90s or others?

PhilKing

Are they P-100's?  4 wires + ground implies 2 coils.  I'd eexpect a maximum of 3 for a P-90, though usually they just have the braided cable.  You need to find out the wiring code on them, then you can figure out what you want to do

Funkfingers

barnsleyboy said:
each pickup has 4 wires (green, white, black and red) and a ground connected to the quick connect plugs

PhilKing said:

Are they P-100's?  4 wires + ground implies 2 coils.  I'd expect a maximum of 3 for a P-90

Could be Gibson P100. Could be their "Alnico" model - essentially, rod magnet polepieces in place of bar magnets and filister screws. Could be Seymour Duncan STK-P1 stacked coil jobbies with block connectors retrofitted. Kinman does noise-cancelling P90-style pickups. I do not recall whether the output cable permits the second coil to be split.

Gibson "legacy" product page for this model reports P90 pickups. The trainspotter specification statistics mention one coil resistance value per pickup.


At this point, I would like to see photographs of the pickups under discussion. They do not conform to the published model specifications. 

My sweeping generalisation is that almost any true single coil P90 will sound juicer than a two-coil, noise-cancelling lookalike.

barnsleyboy

Hmmm - as far as I'm aware, they are the stock pickups. I'd presume the stacked coil would would reduce the noise? They are still noisy when played through a cranked amp! I'll talk it through with the guy that's going to be doing the mods.

Funkfingers

Trying to imagine why a single coil pickup would require more than 2-con + shield output cable. The only serious contender would be coil taps for under-, regular and over-wound outputs. This would require some fancy mode switching.

Returning to the opening post question, does Lollar offer replacement P90s with the correct SG Special mountings.

ellangus

Thanks all, I've decided to stick with the original Gibson's, they're fine - I think it really is a case of the greener grass syndrome.

Thanks all

Funkfingers

Good thinking, Batman.

Slim-bodied, all-mahogany electric guitars tend to suit P90s. If your two pickups are of similar D.C. resistance values, it maybe necessary to adjust the heights so that the bridge/Treble pickup is very close to the strings whilst the neck/Rhythm pickup is set considerably lower. The other alternative is to perform bar magnet swaps in the pickups. 

roberty

A word of warning, the P90 covers that Gibson use have different radius corners to pretty much everyone else in the known universe. Your aftermarket replacements may not fit the routes if your Gibson guitar has body mounted pickups

SteveRobinson

Edited, as I am an idiot

roberty

SteveRobinson said:

As I understand it, Gibson P-90s have a sharper radius so any aftermarket P-90 should fit okay even if it has a bigger radius on the corners.

I had problems fitting aftermarket P90s into a 2016 Gibson LP Special. The corners of the covers wouldn't go. I ordered some covers from Sweetwater I think and they fit okay. Wasn't a huge deal, but a bit of a headache to track down and expensive to ship

SteveRobinson

Oh you are right sorry off course the Gibson P-90s have softer radius!

My favourite pickup too, blame it on old age

Jonathangus

Following with interest as Steve confirmed my suspicion that the P90s on my '97 Special are in fact P100s, so I'm wondering about changing to the 'real thing'.  Looking at the Iron Gear Platinum 90s, but they definitely look a different shape from the existing ones.  Am I likely to have this problem?  Or might the old covers fit?  TBH, would quite like to keep the existing covers as they're nicely aged.

normula1

Funkfingers said:

 Kinman does noise-cancelling P90-style pickups. I do not recall whether the output cable permits the second coil to be split.

I don't think the Kinman's allow for splitting or phase swap. they're also quite a bit deeper than a standard P90 and only just fit in my 2012-ish LP Special. I had to remove the pickup mounting bracket and dowel the clearance holes it had for the adjustment screws.