Which Humbucker

[Glenn Hutchinson]

I've built a guitar and I need some advice on which pickups I should be looking at. Here's my problem..

For the body I used a very old piece of mahogany that I found in my dads shed. This was the hardest lump of wood I have ever tried to work on.

The neck is a one piece sapele mahogany with ebony fingerboard and headplate

I made the nut from an old piece of bone I found

frets are gold evo medium size (these are harder than nickel frets)

24 fret fingerboard with the neck glued to the body and string through method

Pickups are seymour Duncan Phat Cat P-90's

The whole guitar has been finished with Tru-Oil

current strings on it are 11's

The guitar sounds great but it doesn't sound how I would like it to. It's a very heavy guitar but it sounds a little too bright for my liking.

I'm thinking maybe the P-90 isn't the way to go so I need to know which humbuckers are the best on the market for getting that rich warm bluesy tone.

I'm not looking for cheap pickups I'm looking for the best pickups so if you have any thoughts on this I'd be glad of some help on this.

Thanks guys

[trashman]

well, easiest way is to check out manufactures web pages, seymore duncan, emg, etc. there should be some sound clips for different pickups. pick the ones you like. also google boutuque pickups if money is not an issue. many many many pickup manufacturers out there to choose from, a little sound clip listening will go a long way. duncans, bareknuckle, great choices.

also p-90's to my knowldge require 500k pots, i believe. what do you have installled on the gitfiddle? if im wrong im sure someone will hip us in the right direction

Edited June 5, 2010 by trashman

[WezV]

i was going to suggest looking at pots/electrics. some 300k CTS pots and a decent 0.047 cap will be cheaper than mucking about with different pickups

but, why not try speaking to one of the uk pickup makers.

http://www.axetec.co.uk/axetec%20guitar%20...pickups_074.htm

http://www.catswhiskerpickups.co.uk/

http://www.bulldogpickups.com/

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/

all make very nice pickups that should get you there, it it sometimes helps to speak to the maker... Tim from BKP usually points me in just the right direction

[Glenn Hutchinson]

Thanks very much for your time guys I know you all have your owns stuff to worry about. It's good to be able to come here and chat with people who have been down the road before you and are willing to give up some of their time to help other people.

The pots I've used are 2 x 500k Alpha. I've used 1 x 500k tone pot with a 0.47 400v Sprague (1 inch orange type)

I was thinking maybe some of this bright tone was coming from the bone nut, the hard frets and the ebony fingerboard. Maybe it would be wise to play about with some different pots and caps before I change the pickups

[Samba Pa Ti]

could try gibson pickups in it, either paf's or Ttops quite hard to find though.

[WezV]

The pots I've used are 2 x 500k Alpha. I've used 1 x 500k tone pot with a 0.47 400v Sprague (1 inch orange type)

the spragues are good so stick with that. you do get better, but pay a lot for a tiny improvement... wheras spragues are relatively cheap but massively better than the ceramic discs

Alpha pots are a bit naf so try CTS and i would go for 300K ont he volume to let a little less top end through when turned up full. but the real key here is not killing brightness (which may not happen with the construction), but getting a good quality tone control that lets the guitar be truly versatile. brightness is less of an issue when its easily controllable with the vol and tone

A few years ago i made a guitar with heavy ash body, solid wenge neck & fretboard and a rather bright P-90. it was very spanky as you would expect, but a decent tone control really did save it and make it more usable

Paf type would be good if changing pickups... not so sure i would go with t-tops as they can have quite an extra bite to them

[Glenn Hutchinson]

Thanks for all the help. I think it's gonna be a 300k pot first. I'll let you all know what happens. Cheers