Dream pickup configuration!

[Giovanni97]

Hi everyone,

I just subscribed to the forum and i never built a guitar, but is my dream one day to do so and I'm already imagining how it would turn out. I have this general idea of a pickup configuration in mind and I don't think I ever seen a guitar exactly like it, i wonder why, and that's why I would like to ask you what you think.

I would love a single coil in the neck position, a P-90 in the middle and a hambucker in the bridge, with a 5 way switch strat style: neck, neck and p-90, p-90, p-90 and humbucker, humbucker, with the humbucker being splittable (so that i could combine p-90 and split humbucker, or just a split humbucker in the bridge for that twang).

What do you think? is it stupid? there's already guitars with this configuration out there?

I think it would be just so versatile!

Thank you very much in advance!

Giovanni

[Bizman62]

Hi and welcome!

1 hour ago, Giovanni97 said:

is it stupid?

Not at all. Your configuration is basically a SSH which is a very common option. A P90 is "just" a fatter sounding single coil, the wiring is similar.  That's a good start for a nice sounding guitar.

[Giovanni97]

On 3/22/2021 at 5:36 PM, Bizman62 said:

Hi and welcome!

Not at all. Your configuration is basically a SSH which is a very common option. A P90 is "just" a fatter sounding single coil, the wiring is similar.  That's a good start for a nice sounding guitar.

Nice! Thank you for the kind answer. I was wondering why I've never seen a P90 in the middle position. Do you think there's a reason in particular?

[Bizman62]

2 hours ago, Giovanni97 said:

I was wondering why I've never seen a P90 in the middle position. Do you think there's a reason in particular?

There's guitars with three p90's where one clearly is in the middle. And there's been some single pickup models where the P90 is in the middle position rather than in the more common bridge position. There's nothing wrong with a P90 in the middle, it'll be a bit brighter than the neck but not as brittle as the bridge position.

One reason for big middle pickups not being too popular is their size, players may want to strum between the pickups rather than above them.

[mistermikev]

not stupid at all... but i do see some potential for issues.  the p90 is a very fat sounding pickup... and even with moderate dcr they tend to sound 'louder'.  as such... in order to match well with a neck pickup... the p90 would have to be really low output while the neck pickup would need to be very high output - IMO.  otherwise... the p90 will just dominate the sound.  might put a sep vol for the p90 so you can back it off.

sm issue with splitting a humbucker with a p90.  a split humbucker tends to be pretty weak unless it's a super high output humbucker.  Further, combining a humbucker that isn't split with a p90... is gonna result in hum as it's an odd number of coils.  no big deal if you go in knowing that.

The other issue - is that when pickups are mismatched in output... they don't cancel hum as well.  again not the biggest of deals if you go in knowing that.  

If I had to make this work... I think either a vol pot specific for the p90, or a 3 way toggle to serve up a few different fav resistance values for the p90 should get you there.