IronGear Alchemist humbucker sized P90s review

chromatuna

I acquired a set of these used from the forum recently and have installed them in my MiM Fender Thinline ‘72 (see profile pic). The faux wide rangers are a bit naff and I have had a few different pickups in it including a lovely set of Oil City Cow Trons which were great but the bridge didn’t work so well due to the string spacing. I was set to spend quite a bit on proper wide rangers or some more suitable ‘trons but it’s kind of my beater, take to parties guitar and in the end these appeared in the classifieds and I decided to try a less expensive option. So that’s the story...

In summary the Alchemists are really rather good and toneful  EDIT: 10 days later I am just loving them so excellent rather than ‘really rather good’ is my conclusion’ END EDIT and a great option for trying the HB P90 thing. Of course they are not strictly P90s, they lean a just little towards hum buckers in sound. I have some Gibson P90s in my Les Paul Special which I really like and have in the past used Duncan Phat Cats on a totally different kind of guitar which were OK but not great in that guitar. 

The Alchemists are alnico 2 with metal covers so have a tame but clear top end which suits me, a nice bouncy dynamic low end and a warm mid range. Acoustically this particular guitar is quite loud and has a fair bit of low end and a nice bit of twang to it. The Alchemists bring out those qualities, all good alnico 2 stuff, the fairly low wind helps I think. This set measure ~ 6k neck and ~ 7.5k bridge. I had a hunch that P90 types might work in this guitar and they do, I am really enjoying the results in all three positions, kind of fat Tele like EDIT 2: bridge also has some Strat bridge qualities to it - either way fat Fender in my MiM ‘72 END EDIT 2. Of course they fall a little short of hand wound pickups but not very far (I have Oil City's and Wizard’s in other guitars) but in this particular guitar they sound great and I am really enjoying them. 

Postscript.... I am enjoying these so much it has me wondering whether I should just have single coils of some kind in all my guitars, somehow they just seem to suit me more than humbuckers which seem a lot harder to get right, I don’t play heavy overdrive / distortion rock sounds much so maybe that’s why

Tall_martin

Nice review