What Are P90 Pickups? | Too Afraid To Ask

welcome to cs guitars the science of loud can you do a tattoo on b90s is a question that i'm getting a lot lately but every time i ask well what specifically is it you'd like to know about them i get the response i don't know as unhelpful as that is i can only think that people are so alien to the concept that they can't quantify what they don't know which has left me no choice but to wind a couple of p90s for myself show you exactly what they're made from what they sound like and i'll give you a little bit of history so you can understand the seemingly elusive pekka [Music] the year is 1952. gibson are collaborating with musician and inventor les paul to create a brand new solid body electric guitar to rival fenders telecaster this new high quality instrument would need pickups that sounded louder thicker and fuller than the competition's twangy little single coils gibson opted for a pickup design that they had developed a few years earlier to replace the early blade single coils on their es150 models this new pickup was the p90 a squatter wider coil wound to significantly higher inductance giving it a more powerful output and a darker sound the earliest versions of the p90 were quite inconsistent varying greatly in output due to different numbers of turns on the coils and different magnet strengths as the 50s progressed gibsons standardized their pickup manufacturing techniques with machines that would shut off after a certain number of turns were reached and settling on all nickel 5 as a preferred magnet strength however the dominance of these loud thick pickups was short-lived by 1957 the humbucker had been invented which could produce a similar output level and sound to a p90 but without the mains frequency hum that plagued the p90 and all single coil pickups despite humbuckers becoming the standard pickup for not only the les paul but a great many guitars from that point on p90s are still a favorite of some players due to them striking a unique balance between the power and bite of a humbucker and the character and clarity of a single coil here are the components of a p90 pickup we have a nickel base plate on which sets two all nickel bar magnets with like poles facing each other the steel spacer between the magnets which will retain the pole piece screws prevents the magnets repelling each other a squat wide plastic bobbin sits on top onto this is wound thin enameled copper wire approximately ten thousand turns of it equating to a coil with dc resistance somewhere in the region of eight kilo ohms and an induction of 7.5 henries these p90 kits were kindly supplied by allegory.co.uk for this video they have a plethora of different pickup winding kits at really good prices as well as their own fully wound pickups if you'd rather someone else did the hard work for you if you fancy having a go at winding your own p90 check out the link in the description for allegory.co.uk when wound a p90 is a powerful single coil pickup the bobbin dimensions inductance and high wind count make this sound much different from fender tele and strat coils it's a darker fuller sounding pickup with a lot of clarity and character associated with single coils it's a coil that generally cleans up well when backing down the volume control and there's enough inherent output to start driving clean channels into breakup they get raunchy under distortion too but just like all single coils they are susceptible to 50 or 60 hertz hum from lights and power sources throwing out mains frequency emi the plastic cover which encapsulates the finished coil can be one of two shapes which dictate the most common nicknames for these pickups the soap bar which looks like a bar of soap particularly when in this cream color these have screws that pass through the bobbin mounting the pickup directly to the instrument it's worth noting that the term soap bar while originally used to describe this fashion of p90s no longer has that exclusive meaning many entirely encapsulated pickups particularly active base pickups with no visible pool pieces can be referred to as soap bars the dog ear a wider cover with ear like tabs on the side from mounting screws these also have a slightly different base plate to accommodate the ears these are more likely to be found on hollow body electric guitars as this mounting arrangement is more practical for a hollow instrument in either case the pickup beneath the cover is usually the same when it comes to physical size p90s are larger than both strat coils and humbuckers they require a larger route carved into the guitar so keep this in mind if you want to add p90s to a humbucker equipped guitar ah now that the world is opening back up again i can't wait to travel and use my internet devices in all sorts of exotic locations but colin aren't you concerned about your internet security you're right barry what if someone where to intercept my data or use my ip address to target ads or fix prices on services i want to use what you need is the security of a vpn from server surfsharkvpn allows you to secure all of your online activities in a simple and easy to use way by connecting to a virtual private network which is guaranteed to be securely encrypted protecting you when using public wi-fi or if you're just a wee bit paranoid that government agents are out to get you moreover if you are traveling to a country that's perhaps a little stricter about what sites and apps get censored within its borders surf shark allows you to connect to many different locations across the globe so you can continue using the sites you rely on as if you were sitting at home connecting to a different location also allows you to bypass region locked content on streaming sites as well as defeat the price fixing on many sales sites that might charge you more depending on where you're accessing them from so vpn could just save you some money if you fancy being extra sure that your internet usage is secure then you can get surf shark at surfshark dot deals forward slash cs guitars and enter promo code cs guitars to get 83 off and three months free there's also a 30-day money-back guarantee so if you try it and don't like it there's nothing to lose thanks barry a vpn will keep me protected now i know and knowing's half the battle check out the link in the description for surf shark vpn and enter the promo code cs guitars for extra peace of mind when using the web i've wound these two soap bars to the pre-getting their together gibson spec where i'm not too worried about a specific coil count or resistance reading i guess you could say i'm a bit laid back about it i'm aiming for something around the 8 kilo ohms mark with these but i'm happy to be surprised by something slightly over that i've also taken into account gibson's basic requirement of anything magnetic rather than any specific magnet strength i've chosen a nickel 4 and a nickel 2 rather than the standard anarcho 5s all round i was originally planning on putting the fours in the bridge and the twos in the neck but i thought why not mix them so i've got one of each pear pickup it's entirely possible if not highly probable that the earliest soap bars mixed magnets of different strengths so i'm going to try that and see how it sounds these are wax potted of course single coils will be noisy enough without unwanted microphonics p90s particularly will generate feedback in close proximity to the amp even when properly potted so i don't want to further add to this with any loose coils that are able to move around these test out on the digital multimeter to be just above 8k and the neck and around about 9.5 k and the bridge so a little hotter than anticipated but not out with the realms of possibility for an early 50s p90 some of those were clocking in above 9k too i'll be installing them with their cream covers into my friedman vintage tee for testing this color combination doesn't make any sense but it'll be visually important for the purposes of this video the pickups coming out of here are friedman p90s and they'll be going back in again after i've tested this cream set unless of course i'd end up liking the cream set better [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] um [Music] i'm very impressed with the sounds from this set they've got a satisfying driving rock sound under the distortion from the marshall-inspired channel on the victory kraken richly detailed both a melanis and those high frequencies that just rounds off the sound and prevents it becoming too piercing the bridge pickup has a quackiness that counterbalances nicely the much warmer and softer sounding neck pickup the middle position has these two pickups working in a humbucking configuration due to the neck pickup being wound reverse wound reverse polarity with respect to the bridge adds a extra piece of functionality to this instrument i really do enjoy the way these clean up with the volume and tone controls allows me to go from a detailed single coil style sound to a thick saturated rock sound to rival a humbucker with a tiniest turn of the knobs i like leaving them around about eight so get that nice rhythm tone and give me somewhere to turn into when i want extra bite and grit from the amp for lead sounds i can see me keeping these pickups in here although changing back to the black covers to fit the look of the instrument they've just got that extra little bit of juice that the previous set didn't have and i'm kind of enjoying it there you have it a crash course on p90 pickups you have learned what they are what they're made from and what they sound like if you're still confused by the concept please do ask a specific question in the comments below and i'll see if we can get around to answering it in a future video don't forget to click all the buttons you're supposed to to make this video viable to the ever-changing whims of the youtube algorithm that's all for now keep it loud and stay safe [Music] it's one of these things

Channel: CSGuitars

Views: 96,163

Keywords: CSGuitars, Colin, all the gain, guitcon, scotland, victory, pickups, science, will it shred, whats the difference, studio, recording, guitar, amplifier, pedal, scottish, metal, cs guitar, cs guitars, collin, p90, soapbar, pickup, dogear, p 90, single coil, humbucker, les paul, gibson, 52

Id: UohcH9myxJQ

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Thu May 13 2021