I put a Cheap P90 pickup in a Les Paul Studio Guitar
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ธ.ค. 2020
- I like to tinker and experiment with new sounds, so I thought I'd try out a $20 P90 style pickup I found on Ebay (link below). I installed it in a 1988 Les Paul Studio that already has a Gibson P94 in the bridge position. I hope to show how easy it is to replace pickups and try something new.
What You'll Need:
Wire Strippers
Zip Ties (optional)
Solder and Soldering Iron
Screwdriver
Shielding Tape (optional)
Gear in this video:
Guitar Parts Zone Alnico 2 Bar Magnet Humbucker Sized P90 Neck Pickup from ebay - tinyurl.com/y5x5c5wt
1988 Les Paul Studio - www.gibson.com/Guitar/USAYNB3...
Vox AC30 - voxamps.com/product/ac30-custom/
Royer 121 - royerlabs.com/r-121/
Shure SM57 - www.shure.com/en-US/products/...
AxeMount Dual Mic Clip - royerlabs.com/axemount-dual-m...
K&M Mic Stand - www.k-m.de/en/products/mic-st...
JHS Bonzai - www.jhspedals.info/bonsai
Pigtronix Disnortion - www.pigtronix.com/pedals/disn...
UAD Apollo with UAD Plugins - www.uaudio.com/ - เพลง
I have installed these in 3 of my guitars and i love them it is hard to believe these Yibuy $17.99 p_90s sound better than all these expensive humbuckers and i have been playing for a long time .
I changed the bit muddy sounding Roswell Humbuckers of my Harley Benton CST24 to Artec P90 Humbucker sized. The sound is way more open and bright, i looove it. I'm so happy i did this!
Yeah, one of those in the bridge position of an inexpensive teenage guitar with the usual teenage mudbucker bridge pickup really brings the guitar to life. Worked for me.
I just put this in my HSS Strat, and man… did it come alive! The slide tones I can get are wicked.
Those old studios are so amazing. My headstock snapped back in the late 90’s and it kept breaking even after the fix. It was such a great feeling guitar. I loved the plain black and silver bare bones vibe. I have a les paul classic but the early studios with the ebony fret boards had this thing. I miss it and it’s been over 24 years 😢
Those P90’s sound fantastic, you’ve definitely given me an idea. Thanks
Clearer, more cut and bite, faster attack, not as much creamy sustain. Very different vibe, which IMHO is a good thing. If you really wanted a different sound for your LP, this would definitely be a good mod to try. Well done, thanks for posting.
I put a pair of those type pickups in a G 400. They were ceramic and damn hot. Perfect for stoner/doom .
Wow! Thanks for sharing!
This is the great thing about having a cheaper Gibson, or even Epiphone. You can chop it up without fear of slashing its value in half.
Your guitar sounds and looks freaking epic now mate. I'm certainly doing this to my LP Tribute.
Theres a cheaper Gibson?
Man. You know Gibson is doing something wrong when a $20 pickup sounds (a lot) better than their stock pickups.
duncan phat cats sound several times better. It's not the quality of the pickup, it's the type. At low and moderate gain, p-90s sound better than humbuckers. Good p-90s sound better than cheap ones (but not as much better as good humbuckers sound vs cheap ones).
If you are thinking about my response - it leads to the question of "why not compare phat cats to the cheap ones, then?"
It's because the real point of all of these videos is to get you to click on a redirect token (you buy something and the poster gets paid - and you still think you're doing them the favor not the other way around) - not give you the entire discussion.
Now that I've seen more of the video, I see the comparison to the p-94 - the p-94 sounds darker only because it's wound to a much higher output. It was sold at a time when people didn't want 8k bridge pickups, they wanted 14k (like 498T).
comment about the phat cats still stands - nothing sounds as good as the phat cats and lollars - they're smoother than the cheap ones by a lot. Also a lot more expensive.
@@daw162 5 months later and I'm still confused by this string of comments, lol.
I only said the $20 pickup sounded better than the stock Gibson pickup (which was only my opinion) and you replied with 3 comments about how Seymour Duncan's $110 pickup sounds better than a $20 pickup. Lol well no kidding. And then some cynicism about affiliate links? What were you trying to accomplish here?
@@INeverWanted2010self justification for money they've spent. It's natural man
Great video thanks for the info and inspiring playing. I'm in my first 6 months of guitar and it's a steep learning curve all around. Even 1-2 hours a day doesn't seem enough, and it's great that videos like this are available to demonstrate differences
I just ran across this review and I am amazed. A Very good review/
I dug the humbucker honestly. Cool vid ❤️
What a difference, Bravo on the p90 swap.
I like the tighter, less muddy tone of the new P94. You might be able to reverse the magnet in one of those (the new one) to get a true middle-position blend.
oh those 7 chords... like BUTTER! Sounded so flipping good! I love the p90 sound. Thinking of re-routing my MIK Junior to accommodate a p90. Great video! thanks for sharing. The cheaper ones are way more interesting than the humbuckers.
I also stand with Blockbuster video
I've put a set of those pickups in a Hamer double cut and they sounded fantastic.
To my ears there’s absolutely no competition at all - it’s the P90 by laps.
Thanks for this video, the P90, even the cheap one, to me sounds way better than the original Gibson humbucker! I've had an 1986 Les Paul Studio for about 30 years now (bought it in 1991)... and it still has the original PAF humbucker pickups in it... but I think the magnets must have lost some magnetism by now coz they sound really muddy! Or maybe I just got used to the sound of my more recent guitars, a Jazzmaster and Sire S7 Strat type... am def gonna swap out those original humbuckers for some P90's... Phat Cats I think, the Lollar ones a way too expensive! Thanks again! ;)
I followed your video and put one those P-90s in an Epiphone Invader I got for $90. It sounds freakin' incredible through my Stageright 15 watt tube amp when you turn up the gain a bit. Thanks for the tutorial.
Glad to help. That Stageright 15 looks awesome, especially for the price. I haven’t seen them before. Thanks for the heads up!
i have the stageright 15 as well, I adore it! I'm not a gear snob so I'll really play anything, but it's probably the best amp I've ever owned.
Lmao I got a stage right recently and was looking at this pickup as well.just reviving my cheap 100$ epi Jr from a few years back. Painted it tv yellow. Going from a.hunbucker to the p90.put a bigsby knockoff on it. Curious as to what it'll sound like now
Wow, I like the cheap ones more! They are brighter and have a more transparent sound!!!
They do, I agree. Much more usable for me than the darker sound of the stock humbuckers.
Night and Day, P90 is so dynamic and clear the Gibson is mud.
I have a old Japanese Law Suite era Ventura Les Paul I dropped one of those humbucker size p90 in
The $20 P90 is exactly what you got! It's not even close to the humbucker. There is so much more clarity and tone with the Gibson pu's.
I have a set of Guitar Fetish ones that I believe are built by Artec in a Gretsch Committee and they sound great. I’ve been thinking about doing a HSH Strat pick guard with a pair of the P94 copies and a firm wound Strat middle too.
I have been a fan of the cheap Chinese pickup for a few years. They just keep getting better.
Dude I put the same pickups in my Epiphone sg400 and it sounds so freakin good it’s just ridiculous…. Not gonna lie I’ve got lots off these cheap pups and only time I had bad luck was with fake EMGs … but all these others that aren’t trying to mimick big brands , have been legit 💯
i installed that same Yibuy P90 on my ibanez on neck using the bridge pickup and it sounds clean and bright and compared evenly to the iron gear alchemist 90, good for cleans and blues
I bought the same Yibuy p-90s and i am suprised how good they sound going to get some more of these pickups
I prefer the original humbucker. But that’s my opinion. Like the warmth. The new P94 doesn’t have warmth detail. I personally never had any luck in liking inexpensive replacement pickups. They never end up being worth my time.
Yes I agree. Most of the time the more expensive pickups seem to have a charisma to them. In this case, the Gibson Humbucker was too dark for me. Especially in a band setting. I couldn’t cut through. But yeah, now I have this wonderful Gibson Humbucker just sitting on the bench, unused.
Thanks for the demo. I'm pretty sure that if you rewire your guitar and swap the ground wire and the hot wire of the new pickup, it will reverse the phase and it will play properly when both pickups are selected.
Thanks for the tip! Next time I change strings, I’ll give this a try.
@@saturnfivesound I'm almost positive this will work. But I suggest you Google it because I've been wrong once or twice before! I put a new bridge pick up in one of my guitars recently and the instructions say that if it's out of phase with the neck pick up to do what I suggested to you and it will fix it, so, pretty sure.
@@saturnfivesound just to be clear. I'm talking about the way its wired in the control cavity. Take the lead off the pot lug and reconnect it to ground, and remove the existing lead from ground and put it on the lug of the pot. On a 4 conductor pickup, the two leads that are twinned together and grounded for humbucker mode can stay the way they are. I really like to see you fix this because I think it would sound beautiful on that guitar.
6:05-6:23 If you won't use that sound clean, you should resolder your pickup to get it into phase. The sound of two single coils in phase is much more useable than this thin sound. Think Telecaster, Jazzmaster, '55 Les Paul TV Yellow.
I did this to my Standard several years ago with P90 pups from guitar fetish. Mine sounds amazing! This is a huge upgrade from the stock pups.
I tried the PU's from GFS also, 35 bucks and they sound great. Have them in a little Matt Murphy Cort I grabbed cause it was unique, and cheap and it really sounds good (to me) and I've worked on quite a few real P-90 guitars. PU's are a coil of wire and a magnet, there's really only so much you can vary and there is no bad sound unless every single person doesn't like it. Point being tone is totally subjective. The Cort was built in Korea by the people that did the original PRS Korean imports. After working on it was blown away by the quality.
@@bradt.3555 I agree. I have played and worked on some amazing guitars from korea, Japan and Indonesia. In fact I purchased the alnico 2 cream pickups from guitar fetish to install them in a strat and again I was blown away with the clean tones.
@@bradt.3555 Did you buy chance get ones with the Kwik plug? If I'm not mistaken you can just cut the plug and wire it in normally no?
@@NintenDub , Yes it was quick wire, that was the only drawback. I did eliminate the quick wire as one was defective. It was a while ago but I think I just soldered a standard vintage type braided wire to the socket on the PU, eliminating the plug and wire they supplied.
Hi. I m also very happy with my '' chinese cheap'' humbuckers, compared to what I could hear from Gibsons. They have the Vintage sound.
The new one is much more open.
+1 for the Cyndi Lauper blanket! Keeping you warm huh?
They sound nice... definitely less muddy. They also seem to have less output than the original pickups.
That's why they sound so clear
How old were your strings for the humbucker test?
I received a Harley benton guitar with Roswell pickups. I swap the bridge pickup for a Seymour Duncan pegasus and the stock one sounded much better....
literally holding my ebony les paul studio with gibson p94s lol watching install a p94 pickup
Bridge pick ups, always sound different than the neck no matter what,
I put my 7-dollar-a-pair P94 pickups on my 30-dollar-SG guitar.
Yeah - people spend a lot on pick-ups - when it isn't necessary. The same physics work on both expensive and cheap. Unless you are dealing with a totally different design. And most of the time a tweak to the amp compensates for any differences in tone that you might hear. It's a hundred-year-old technology - except for the Fluence design - but even that - a battery powered pickup has been around for decades. AND - tweaking the sound in your amp and pedalboard would be the first thing you would want to try anyway.
Sounds like a $20 pup ta me! IMO GFS makes some of the best sounding P90's, and that includes duncan, dimarzio, Tonerider, etc.
04:53 sounds very similar to the mid/end of Guns N’ Roses “Rocket Queen”. Great review either way!
Mate, what capacitor did you use for that P90?
Unrelated to the awesome pickup... What monitor speakers are those? They look wild with the bass woofer on the side?!
They are Barefoot Sound Footprint01. They are incredible! There are 2 subs per speaker, one on each side. The subs are internally physically attached to each other to reduce vibrations from the sub into the monitor housing and into your floor/monitor stands/console. Go check them out! There is now a smaller version called the footprint02 I think.
I'm putting a set of these in my Squier Bullet Mustang. The HBs that come with the Bullet Mustang are pretty good though, so I'm putting those in my cheap Glarry imitation of a Mustang (GMF HH.)
When people argue in absolutes “tone only comes from the fingers”.
Yeah but not everyone plays their guitars unplugged all the time
Gibson stocks have ALWAYS sucked.
When I was 14 I saved as much $ from MANY lawn-mowing jobs to buy a used wine red LP studio. I finally had a REAL guitar. Only problem: the pickups (490 & 498T?) s u c k e d.
Since then I’ve used/borrowed plenty of GFS pickups that typically go for $35-45 and never been disappointed by their stuff.
I think we often assume that you have to pay $200-300 for magnets. You don’t.
I am going to change to p-90s they do sound a lot clearer
Does the metal ring/casing come off of the p90
Short answer is no. I’m not sure what’s under the casing to support the pickup if you open it up. I wanted that soap bar P90 look as well, but couldn’t find it in a humbucker sized p90. They all seem to have that metal ring or a fully metal top.
I prefer the hum bucker but would've tried to make it brighter with 1M ohm pots maybe (probably got 500k Im guessing). That P90 seems to loose the warmth for my taste but definitely brighter if that is what you're after :). Try with different pickup heights also, makes a huge difference. Thanks for the video!
Lose.
@@ioodyssey3740 Lose is a verb that means “to fail to win, to misplace, or to free oneself from something or someone.” Loose is an adjective that means “not tight.” Only one O distinguishes loose from lose.
😁😁😁
YE GODS! Tune that thing.
I know, me too. Maybe intonate it too.
im sold i just ordered a set for my sg
Swap the swampy brass baseplate for a nickel one and the short pole screws for long nickel screws and it'll be even better.
I'm thinking about putting them into a cheap SG copy from Harley Benton, would you recommend?
My LP seems to have 300k pots in it, so your SG would probably be slightly brighter with the usual 500k pots. That brightness along with an amp that breaks up easy, like an AC30 would be a cool combo. I don't really like the new P90 through my Twin Reverb, which is very clean. So I could be great, but might have limited applications.
@@saturnfivesound this is where an eq pedal would come in handy
im sold hahahaha awesome
I got a cheapo P94 and all it was was a strat pickup bobbin in that ring with cheap magnets around it.. it sounds ok.. but not great.
Sounds identical to the humbucker it replaced to me - at least here.
Alnico?
I just got a Casino USA and I like the guitar but yeah the stock pickups, have no BALLS.. Fine with an OD but straight in the amp cranked. They kind of suck.
Sorry but with this amp's EQ setup both pickup set sound unmusically very dark and muffled.
Most of those p90 humbucker sized pickups are just strat pickups hidden under cover. Still sounds good,just not a p90.
The ones I have are hum sized single coils, they are rated over 7k so they can’t be plain strat sc. mine have metal covers, I haven’t removed them but I could. Strat pups don’t have a bar magnet on the back. Their slugs are the mags. Totally different.
The gibson sounds better. Worth the money
Pot vol v tone? 500 k Gracias
I think Gibson USA electronics from the 80's are 300k. I can't see any markings on the pots that indicate 300k or 500k, but reading on forums it seems that 300k were used during the time this guitar was built.
You Eric Clapton's son?
The cheap one is less hot, not as dynamic, and has less sustain. Original sounds much better to me.
I put a 60's PU in my Aria ..it didn't work....Even with my ear right up on the speaker I could only hear little scritch scritch noises .. like ants working really really busily in tiny little tap shoes. Kind of cool but you really couldn't hear much once the drummer started.
The cheap one kind'a sounds like a, Srat a bit.
1:12-1:14 Amazon? That's not what you wrote in your description. That says eBay!
I have no intent to make the shop killer any richer than he already is...
Can't u just tap in to the stock wires ? Sure lazy but can't u??
Tone is rolled off on the humbuckers obviously.
I've always said humbuckers are crap. This proves my point. A P90 has far more clarity, definition, and tone. Wind it up to 10, and it will stand with any paf thing. My '56 Les Paul Gold Top, eats any humbucker.
I didn't like any of them. I thinks it's your amp.
90% of time you played on tke neck pickup. not a good way to make a review
Sorry but It's not a P90, it's a cheap single coil on a humbucker format. Definitely not a P90.
Yes, you’re right Gus. After doing a little research it seems “humbucker sized p90s” aren’t really p90s at all.
Saturn Five Sound The current humbucker sized P90s are about as close as you can get. The Gibson P94 uses the same 2 bar magnets under the coil as a real P90 does with the bobbin being the only physical difference in construction. I'll add that the humbucker sized P90s coils/bobbins are also shy of about 200-300 winds as compared to a real P90. All things considered, in a Band or Recording Mix they are within 90% of a real P90, and 90% or better is still an "A" Grade.
Thank you for the clarification. I think that the Gibson P94 sounds amazing! For most songs, I prefer it to my LP Standard with burstbuckers. That being said I don’t have a real P90 to compare it to. I wonder now if I should change out the pots for 500k. I believe the pots in that LP are 300k. Perhaps it may give a little more bite.
@@saturnfivesound Changing the pots for a P90 style pickup from 300K to 500K would make a small difference, its worth a try if you're not happy with the current tone. Different capacitors will change the roll-off of the high frequencies as well as slightly altering the overall tone.
If your Les Paul does not currently have '50s style wiring I'd switch to that before changing any of the components.
I used to use a treble bleed circuit on my Les Paul style guitars. I found that once I changed the control circuit from modern to vintage style I no longer needed the treble bleed circuits on the volume potentiometer.
My experience has been very positive with the '50s style control wiring verses the modern circuit design.
Ok awesome man! I’m sold! I’ll give the 50’s style wiring a try. This old guitar has got a whole new life and vibe and it’s only getting better. Thanks!