P90's vs P100's

robwright

To follow on from the earlier P90 thread, I have a pair of P100's that I don't know what to do with. Everything I've read says they aren't anything like P90's, more like a humbucker. 

Apparently you can snip the cable to the dummy coil - does that make it a P90? Or should I just buy proper P90's?

WezV

Just buy a proper P-90

Chalky

P100s are good pickups. Hum cancelling versions of P90s, and like all hum cancelling pickups (like all humbuckers!) they take off some of the single coil glassiness and soften the bite. In the right guitar they sound great

impmann

P100s can sound a little different to a P90 but they aren't as bad as the "throw-arms-up-in-horror" reaction you get on some forums. I had a LP special single cut with them and they sounded great.

Trotter

Have a set in one of my LP's. They used to sound great. Ballsy! Unfortunately mine seem to have a few issues now so will be making way for some nice p90's.

ICBM

They seem to have changed the design after the earliest version, but the bad reputation lingers.

I had a 90s reissue LP Junior with one of the first ones, and it was truly dreadful - it didn't have any of the openness and bite of a real P90 at all, just sounded muffled and dead. I ended up just disconnecting the lower coil, which was a vast improvement.

But then later a friend had some sort of Les Paul Special (Smartwood I think) with them in that sounded fantastic, and when we A/B'd it to my PRS McCarty Soapbar (Duncan P90s) there was virtually no difference at all - you wouldn't have been able to tell which guitar was which, blind. (Apart from the hum from the PRS.)

You *could* disconnect the second coil even on the newer ones, but I'd be inclined to do it in a non-destructive way on only one of the pickups and then compare the result with the other pickup, before going any further.

And no, it does not make a P90 because the two P100 coils are each far higher-wound than a P90, to give roughly the same overall impedance when combined.

57Deluxe

There are also P94s, just to add more confusion...

ToneControl

robwright said:

To follow on from the earlier P90 thread, I have a pair of P100's that I don't know what to do with. Everything I've read says they aren't anything like P90's, more like a humbucker. 

Apparently you can snip the cable to the dummy coil - does that make it a P90? Or should I just buy proper P90's?

Do single coils normally bother you for hum?

P90s are noticeably hummier

I hate hum, so would like to try P100s

I have a pair of BKP Mississippi Queens in one guitar, that sound great, but I am not sure which P90 model these are most similar to 

robwright

@ToneControl - do you want to buy my P100's???? Or swap for the Mississippi Queens????

Chalky

The smoke is clearing in my crystal ball...I can see something...I can see...... see some cheap p100s going into the Classifieds...

Chalky

P94s are good and ridiculously hot.

robwright

Chalky said:

The smoke is clearing in my crystal ball...I can see something...I can see...... see some cheap p100s going into the Classifieds...

You're good! 

Madame Chalky - it works!

Blacksheep

P100s were invented by Sauron as a twisted mockery of p90s.