Mini humbucker shaped P90

Fatfingers

Humour me – its Friday afternoon.

Has anyone ever heard of or seen a P90 in a mini humbucker shaped package?

ICBM

Fatfingers said:

Has anyone ever heard of or seen a P90 in a mini humbucker shaped package?

If you mean the Gibson mini-humbucker as fitted to the Les Paul Deluxe, it's exactly the same size as a P90. The surrounds were actually made from P90 covers originally.

If you mean a Firebird-size one it's not likely to be possible, or not to make it exactly the same - the sound of the P90 is at least partly due to the bobbin dimensions. @TheGuitarWeasel may be able to help though - if anyone can!

Fatfingers

Yeah - come on Weasel. You're the expert.

OilCityPickups

Physics is your enemy here: you can't get away from the fact that a mini humbucker is about an inch narrower than a P90. An average P90 has around 10,000 turns of 42awg wire, and the bobbin is quite full. if you loose an inch of winding space for each turn, you are left with 10,000 inches of wire you can't get on ... or 833 feet!! You could use a deeper bobbin to gain the space, but that would have a more trebley tone ... you could use a finer gauge of wire, but that would also change the tone. 

If you have routs for mini himbuckers, just fit P90s ... as ICBM said, they are the same size.

Fatfingers

I just fancied this with a custom scratch plate cut for two minis. But I like the sound of the P90 that's on it. 

Still, physics is physics.

All the same, do you have any mini humbuckers yet?

OilCityPickups

Fatfingers said:

I just fancied this with a custom scratch plate cut for two minis. But I like the sound of the P90 that's on it. 

Still, physics is physics.

All the same, do you have any mini humbuckers yet?

Should be in the next two or three weeks ... with the mini humbuckers ... most of the parts are here ... just trying to find time

:-)

Fatfingers

Okay. I might try one in my Les Paul, so please keep us posted.

impmann

Didn't DiMarzio used to make a p90 sized/shaped humbucker
I thought they fitted it to a Yamaha solid body,

WezV

Yeah, it failed at being either

OilCityPickups

impmann said:

Didn't DiMarzio used to make a p90 sized/shaped humbucker
I thought they fitted it to a Yamaha solid body,

It was about 18k and truly horrible! I took a pair out of a Yammy for a customer. They fitted it to a semi acoustic! Yuck 

One like this

Mkjackary

If I recall correctly emg do some p90 sized humbuckers.

I don't see why it couldn't be great, single coil sized humbuckers sound great (not exactly like humbuckers but still great) so what would stop a p90 sized humbuckers from being any different?

WezV

Dimarzio make a range of them between 9-18k, they do supply them to Yamaha for some of their guitars.

I had some in an RGXA2 and they were not terrible, but nothing spectacular. I don't remember those being particularly hot
I ended up splitting them and adding phase switches for a wide range of unspectacular sounds

WezV

Does make you wonder why they fitted them to that semi.

There are some in the jazz crowd who favour powerful pickups, but I doubt many of those would pick that guitar.

impmann

The spec sounds vile to me...

WezV

In theory its not a bad idea... Just a minihumbucker in a P-90 case, but somehow they fail to sound like that as well

WezV

here is a dimarzio and a yamaha RGXA2.  apparently the A2's have "specially designed pickups" that are not (officially) made by Dimarzio 

those bobbins must be pretty close in size to a mini-humbucker

.....

whilst searching for that pic I found a couple of vids I did of the RGXA2 I modded 4 years ago.  Excuse the terrible playing, they were done purely to show the tonal variation offered by the mods - pickups are stock though

OilCityPickups

That cover off view is shocking ... no strain relief for the output lead on the right hand pickup and a god awful taping up job. The bobbins are Gretsch Filtertron size.