Transforming a guitar’s sound with a new set of pickups is exciting, but it’s not always easily doable without routing. We’ve assembled 10 options designed to serve up delicious P-90 tone, but sized to slip right into your humbucker-routed guitar.
H90 Standard
These low-wind pickups offer snappy and brighter single-coil tones for those in need of more chime and less power, and can be ordered with custom wood tops.
P90 – Humbucker
Boasting clear lows, thick mids, and percussive highs, this vintage-voiced P-90 was designed for versatility, clarity, and snarly midrange, and is available in a number of finishes.
Dream 90
These P-90s are reported to provide fat, warm-yet-crunchy body, and can offer full humbucking performance when both pickups are selected, because the neck pickup is reverse wound.
Heavy House P94
Based on the company’s House Special P-90, this pickup brings all the power and tone of a true P-90 but in a humbucker package—measuring 7.4k for the neck and 7.8k for the bridge.
Humbucker Sized P-90
A faithful recreation of a vintage P-90, these pickups feature spec plain enamel wire, alnico 4 magnets for the neck for clear and fat sounds, and alnico 5s for the bridge for bite and grind.
Pro-90
For those chasing authentic tone, these pickups duplicate the construction, materials, and growl of a vintage ’50s-era P-90 by using the company’s proprietary Vintage Core specifications.
Hum-90
Housing alnico 2, 4 , or 5 magnets and 43AWG coil wound around its humbucker-sized P-90 bobbins, these pickups are said to offer single-coil tones with clarity, presence, and a defined voice.
Fat Bastard
These single-coils are designed to offer plenty of crunch by capturing the classic P-90 tone of the 1950s with “a little South Texas funk” thrown in.
V-90
Regardless of your style, these degaussed alnico 5 pickups were made to be touch sensitive, respond well to pick attack, and provide tight lows, grinding mids, and singing highs.
Phat Cat
Constructed to serve up the cut and edge of a classic P-90, these handbuilt pickups utilize a pair of alnico 2 magnets for more sustain and a compressed attack, and vacuum wax potting for squeal-free operation.
Huge shocker incoming: Zach Broyles made a Tube Screamer. The Mythos Envy Pro Overdrive is Zach’s take on the green apple of his eye, with some special tweaks including increased output, more drive sounds, and a low-end boost option. Does this mean he can clear out his collection of TS-9s? Of course not.
This time on Dipped in Tone, Rhett and Zach welcome Tyler Bryant, the Texas-bred and Nashville-based rocker who has made waves with his band the Shakedown, who Rhett credits as one of his favorite groups. Bryant, it turns out, is a TS-head himself, having learned to love the pedal thanks to its being found everywhere in Texas guitar circles.Bryant shares how he scraped together a band after dropping out of high school and moving to Nashville, including the rigors of 15-hour drives for 30-minute sets in a trusty Ford Expedition. He’s lived the dream (or nightmare, depending on the day) and has the wisdom to show it.
Throughout the chat, the gang covers modeling amps and why modern rock bands still need amps on stage; the ins and outs of recording-gear rabbit holes and getting great sounds; and the differences between American and European audiences. Tune in to hear it all.
Get 10% off your order at stewmac.com/dippedintone
Hats off to Carmen Vandenberg of Bones UK, our celebrity Question of the Month respondent.
Guest Picker - Carmen Vandenberg, Bones UK
The cover of Soft, Bones UK’s new album, due in mid-September.
A: My favorite method these days (and to be honest, from when I started playing) is to put on my favorite blues records, listen with my eyes closed, and, at the end, see what my brain compartmentalizes and keeps stored away. Then, I try and play back what I heard and what my fingers or brain decided they liked!
Bone UK’s labelmade, Des Rocks.
Obsession: Right now, I am into anyone trying to create sounds that haven’t been made before—bands like Queens of the Stone Age, Jack White, and our labelmate, Des Rocs! There’s a Colombian band called Diamanté Electrico who I’ve been really into recently. Really anyone who’s trying to create innovative and inspiring sounds.
Reader of the Month - Sam C. Schiff.
Sam spent endless hours trying to learn the solo Leslie West played on “Long Red,” off of The Road Goes Ever On.
A: The best way to learn guitar is to listen to some good guitar playing! Put on a record, hear something tasty, and play on repeat until it comes out of your fingers. For me, it was Leslie West playing “Long Red” on the Mountain album, The Road Goes Ever On. I stayed up all night listening to that track until I could match Leslie’s phrasing. I still can’t, no one can, but I learned a lot!
Smith’s own low-wattage amp build.
Obsession: My latest musical obsession is low-wattage tube amps like the 5-watt Fender Champ heard on the Laylaalbum. Crank it up all the way for great tube distortion and sustain, and it’s still not loud enough to wake up the neighbors!
Gear Editor - Charles Saufley
Charles Saufley takes to gear like a duck to water!
A: Learning by ear and feel is most fun for me. I write and free-form jam more than I learn other people’s licks. When I do want to learn something specific, I’ll poke around on YouTube for a demo or a lesson or watch films of a player I like, and then typically mangle that in my own “special” way that yields something else. But I rarely have patience for tabs or notation.
The Grateful Dead’s 1967 debut album.
Obsession: Distorted and overdriven sounds with very little sustain—Keith Richards’ Between the Buttons tones, for example. Jerry Garcia’s plonky tones on the first Grateful Dead LP are another cool, less-fuzzy version of that texture.
Publisher - Jon Levy
A: I’m a primitive beast: The only way I can learn new music is by ear, so it’s a good thing I find that method enjoyable. I’m entirely illiterate with staff notation. Put sheet music in front of me and I’ll stare at it with twitchy, fearful incomprehension like an ape gaping at the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’m almost as clueless with tab, but I can follow along with chord charts if I’m under duress.
The two-hit wonders behind the early ’70s soft-rock hits, “Fallin’ in Love” and “Don't Pull Your Love.”
Obsession: Revisiting and learning AM-radio pop hits circa 1966–1972. The Grass Roots, Edison Lighthouse, the Association, the Archies, and Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds—nothing is too cheesy for me to dissect and savor. Yes, I admit I have a serious problem.
