Les Paul style Guitar - PAF or P90?

TeleMaster

Sassafras said:

P90s.
I don't like humbuckers on any guitars.

Really? I have humbuckers on all my guitars more or less. 2 have single coils. 

Grumpyrocker

Humbuckers.

P90s are ugly as sin. 

Danielsguitars

Something like these 2 are my suggestions, my telepaul has pretty much made my LP style redundant, much more versatile too

Firebird neck was just superb and I never tried that before but another is on the list

Telepaul has all the jangle and balls rolled into one package

LastMantra

fretfinder said:

P90s are probably my favourite pickups, but I love PAFs too. If you think PAFs have “no dynamics” in your set up, then I’d be looking at the guitar, pedals and amp to try to understand why that might be. In my experience good PAFs are very versatile and very dynamic when paired with the right amp and pedals. Good luck with the search for ‘that’ sound, we’ve all been there!

I posted a vid a while back where I was using my t-top loaded The Paul and someone asked if it was p-90s. IMHO it was to do with how I had my guitar, pedals and amp set up.

skay

Turn the guitar volume down a notch or two, this will stop it pummelling the pre amp, and give you some ‘dynamics’ back when playing chords/riffs.

This has the added bonus of having ‘somewhere to go’ when it comes time to take a lead guitar break!

LastMantra

That's what I do ^. Also a "transparent" type overdrive helps. 

keir

I had mules and then stormy Mondays in my 335, mules were good but I wanted a little more ( probably could have kept them and been happy to be honest). Went the wrong way with stormy Mondays as they were supposed to be the quintessential bareknuckle pickup for a semi hollow. But like you I felt thy just didn’t have any punch. 

Recently had a chat with Bare Knuckle themselves and described what I was looking for, same sort of clarity with some more aggression and bite. 

They said Riff Raffs were what I was describing and were more 60s sounding (not sure what that means, but I like it), apparently Noel Gallagher has some in his semi acoustics….

As soon as I have the spare cash I’ll be getting them installed. 

They also talked me through wiring options and said you can get Peter Green and BB King style out of phase sound with a push pull pot but that coil splitting wasn’t really worth it as they are quite low output already

Ive never really got the Tele in steroids analogy, I have a tele as well and would prefer the 335 to sound different. 

Rocker

Wrong guitar for your music - it has to be a decent Telecaster for the sound you are craving .....

impmann

Rocker said:

Wrong guitar for your music - it has to be a decent Telecaster for the sound you are craving .....

This.

Or an SG with Mini Humbuckers or P90s. 

p90fool

Grumpyrocker said:

Humbuckers.

P90s are ugly as sin. 

It's a fair point well put.

mbe

Try a scooped humbucker e.g. SD Custom 5

10thumbs

Have you considered humbucker sized p90s ?
 I have a LP Special with humbuckers  , I swapped them out for a BK Mississippi Queen and a Kent Armstrong Ragtop in the bridge,  and it sounds awesome.


I keep saying I'm going to put humbuckers back in it, as all of my fave guitars now have p90s in them , but I can't bring myself to do it , it sounds so good.

breakstuff

Winny_Pooh said:

PAF in the bridge, p90 in the neck.

I'm doing it wrong!......

 

Cirrus

I should have put a picture up really.

To be honest, I started off thinking that P90s wouldn't look right, but visually they're growing on me now - especially realising that unless you're quite close, you probably wouldn't noticve that they weren't just uncovered humbuckers.


Well... band practice tonight, so I'll see how they do.

professorben

I’d recommend a Humbucker sized P-90. 

Oil city do a good one. 

TTBZ

The ideal for me is one of each if there was only one then humbuckers. I'm not a huge fan of the low wind PAF types but something "vintage hot" like the Bare Knuckle Black Dog is great. Granted I'm not playing edge of breakup indie stuff though, far from it. I'd probably go for the P90s in your situation.

PrecisionGuided

P90s are very versatile and have a real snarly growl. Everything from Ramones to Live at Leeds.
Humbuckers - low output PAFs are too polite for what you want and real high output HBs are too flat and dark.
Hotter PAFs are what you want - SD SH6 Distortion or SD Pearly Gates are excellent.
Also 500K pots - Gibson had a phase of fitting 330K pots which rob some snarl...

A bit of clean/treble boost and a bluesbreaker type distortion

wellsyboy

Try an eq pedal on your board? 

Winny_Pooh

breakstuff said:

Winny_Pooh said:

PAF in the bridge, p90 in the neck.

I'm doing it wrong!......

 

Hey old man..Do you play both Country and Western music?

Jez6345789

I might be missing the point a little here but if you like the noodling tones you get at home but it does not have enough edge for the band is the simple answer to get a well dialled in EQ pedal for the band. Far easier to control than trying to get it right From the pickup end.