Folks- Ive been reading a lot of P90 talk around the web lately. And even among P90 fans I read that some feel that mahogany guitars with P90s are one trick ponies. Can someone explain this to me? I had an Aria LP copy for a while and it had P90s installed for a bit. I never felt the guitar wasnt versatile. Am I missing something? MCG
Maybe they're saying that P90s won't nail the classic humbucker or "in between" positions on a Strat. IMO, they won't. However, for a single electric guitar to cover a variety of sounds a P90 guitar would be a fine choice. my .02
Maybe they are tallking about single pickup Gibson Les Paul Juniors? While they have insane tone, they don't have a neck pickup. I traded my junior into a les paul special and found the extra pickup makes all the difference in terms of versatility.
For me, a 2 pickup P-90 guitar is the epitome of versatility. You can play jazz (lots of old Gibson jazz boxes have p-90s) rock, r&b, country, blues-----all with a good one. I have a 54 Reissue LP goldtop that just rules on any of the wide-ranging material we play.
Guitars aren't versatile - players are. Now that I've gotten my elitist snobby response out of the way.... Sometimes it's that simplicity that liberates you to play in different ways. I had a single P90 LP Junior reissue in 1986 (that I wish I still had - damn you Floyd Rose!) that I played constantly. Light touch, hard strumming, fast runs - the guitar was perfect.
They are sort of one-dimensional, but heck it's a great dimension. Since using them individually can get annoying under gain, your pretty much stuck using two for the hum-cancelling effect. I mostly use them clean or with split humbuckers under gain, for that one dimension that humbuckers can't give me... The sound I get from a covered bastard with a split SD Invader is one of my favorite tonal variations as of late
I'm gonna give you a big "+1" for your first statement and not offer any such follow-up disclaimer....
I consider my RI Junior a one-trick pony, but that's what I like about it. I guess I'm partly regressing from playing so many "do-it'all" guitars. My old SG special is a bit more versatile with 2 pups, but I still consider it a grind machine...does it's best dirty. Greg
Ok, I think I get whare some folks are coming from, is seems to be the single pup jr's your talking about. MCG
Maybe they are just morons that don't know how to play!! That is a croc of sheet, sorry, that is way to generic of a statement to be made by someone that knows what they are doing. Get a P-90 guitar and prove em wrong.
My thoughts on good P90's {like Lollar, Fralin}: A guitar with three P90's can do anything a Strat can do and more. The only thing they don't do as well is get that chimey Strat tone. For early school blues and jazz tunes they pretty much kill everything. P90's have an airy and sweet tone and make guitar strings sing like piano cables. Very underused guitar pup - probably because they're prone to hum. Noisy they are for sure; it's a negotiable trade off.
