#Inexpensive humbucker-sized P90 set for a Strat?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

dull summit
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I'm looking for some inexpensive humbucker-sized P90s to put into my Strat.
I'm looking for

  • As close to a proper P90 tone as possible
  • No more than $50 per pickup
  • A set with one or the other in RWRP
  • I don't want hum-canceling pickups
brave lichen
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Tonerider rebel 90s, strongly depends on if you're in europe or not but i can get a pair for less than 90 bucks

indigo pilot
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$50, as close to P90 tone as possible, good luck pepelol

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even $100 humbucker sized P90s rarely truly mirror their P90 counterparts

sweet dirge
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Roswell has cheap ones and they sound fine but I don't know how close that gets to actual P90s.

solid briar
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Weirdly enough ...one of the cheapest sets I could find are bareknuckles... Over budget for OP but I bet they are pretty sick

dull summit
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The bareknuckles seem to be generally the most expensive

solid briar
dull summit
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I said $50 per pickup because in my experience people tend to try to triple your budget

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I was expecting people to recommend $75~100 pickups

solid briar
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this set in particular

dull summit
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They're full size meow

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I really don't want to try and chop up the body and a pickguard to fit soapbars in a strat

dull summit
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Dragonfire pickups seem generally high-regarded, how are those?

brave lichen
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In can again recommend the toneriders, you wont find something better until like 3 times the price.

indigo pilot
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your best bet are boutique pickups

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again, it's hard for companies to even get a humbucker sized P90 to sound fully like a P90

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if you want an actual proper P90 tone, you're gonna dish out more money for ones that have a lot of R&D put into them

dull summit
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Look, to be blunt, I don't have boutique pickup money

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I can't realistically chop up the guitar body and a pickguard cleanly for a soapbar pickup, unless I'm greatly overestimating the difficulty and tools required for such a task

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It's not even that I can't do that, it's that the mod's not realistically gonna get done if it's that much

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The thing that attracts me to P90s is how they sound very balanced in clean, with clarity but also mellowness

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And especially how with distortion they get super aggressive and gritty

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I don't really care about emulating a certain person's or guitar's tone; as long as they have that kind of sound, I'm good

indigo pilot
indigo pilot
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if you've never played a P90 guitar thoroughly you might not hear a difference

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so i'd say just get either any regular set of PAF humbuckers

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or any humbucker sized P90 that fits your budget

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most pickups in this price range aren't really all that different anyway, most of them are made by Artec and then sold as white label to other companies to resell them

brave lichen
dull summit
# brave lichen ^^^

Hmm, I don't know about those; they seem really good but I'm not really after a vintage sound

brave lichen
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Then why get p90s at all. You're not gonna find something modern and humbucker sized anywhere near your budget

indigo pilot
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most well made humbucker sized P90s are trying to emulate a vintage P90 because thats what the gold standard sound for them is

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if you want something contemporary, just get a hunbucker

brave lichen
dull summit
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Yeah I'm not very knowledgeable about toanz, as you've probably gathered

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I've played humbuckers and never really liked them; always found them too dark and muddy

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I'm wary of anything "vintage" in general because I find it's usually just old, worse versions of stuff sold to people who want to sound exactly like X blues guitarist from the 60s

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In those pickups it's just the low output and Alnico II I'm not crazy about; I like playing with distortion and I think Alnico V would be better suited in general
Hence the Dragonfire P90s

indigo pilot
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dark and muddy isn't usualyl what people call paf humbuckers

indigo pilot
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there are no famous "overwound high output P90s", most people are trying to emulate the classic '50s voiced P90

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for future reference, usually the higher output something is, given same magnet type, it usually means the darker it sounds

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because to make something higher output, you need to overwind it, which reduces treble and increases mids

indigo pilot
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and alnico 5 is also just easier to get for manufacturers since it's the most used magnet for pickups in general

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havent look at dragonfires catalog in ages

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it looks like they've upped their prices

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makes sense, tariffs probably are whacking them, and price of copper has increased

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time to up my prices too then 33

dull summit
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Last time I was in a guitar store I wasn't paying that much attention

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I was shopping for a piano anyway

dull summit