Stacked P90 and Noiseless Gen 4 Fender Amer. Elite StratPU???

[dholm75]

Hi, first post here, ever. I'm American, living in France, so need some familiar technical info in English. It's for whichever unlucky French tech I can find, though, since I am clueless about electronics. Background: I am a natural distortion kinda' bluesey garage guy, but for cleans I prefer the Strat sound. Welcome to the club. I play a cheap NOS Epiphone Wilshire with 2 weak stock humbuckers.

 

Sounds I don't like: super bassy, muddy P90 sounds, but when I strum hard I want that medium amount of distortion. Nor do I like super thin bright Strat sounds with zero natural break-up. I'd like at least a hint of some. But also I know too hot sounds bad.

 

My amp is an amazing Airline 8 watt vintage tube amp. Sold my Les Paul Studio that was too heavy (back probs). But that broke up nicely with this amp. The new Epiphone doesn't at all.FFWD to today.

 

I played a P90 through my amp, Bridge position, and liked it. I had an Epi LP Jr. before I had this sweet amp. I don't want the hum though. So I bought a stacked SD P90. And by accident, got home to France and saw it is a Neck model. My pals say it will still break up, don't know the output difference. is this true? and the pole positions should be fine if I am putting it in the Bridge position? My other question is, it's harder to wire in, 'cause it has 4 wires not two. Any napkin sketch artists out there?

 

Most, most importantly, is that my end goal is to later, get my hands on a noiseless American Elite Fender Strat pickup, the gen4 one I tried, and put it in my neck slot. I think their outputs are about the same in the standard 3-PU set, so if I can find a middle one, or buy a set and sell the other two it'd be great.But does it get much more crazy wiring in a stacked P90 neck in the bridge position, plus a noiseless Fender pickup like this one in the neck? I don't want a ton of expensive trial and error BS. Sorry, but also, I have not been able to hear much diff. between series and parallel demos on YouTube, which can/should I do?

 

The slots I plan to put these pickups are probably best, yeah? When the P90 seems too one-dimensional, I plan to dial up some of the Strat pickup for accentuated highs. And when the Strat my lack some gain, I can dial in some P90-ness.

 

Thanks, sorry for all the questions. I have played awhile, owned amps from a Silvertone piggyback, JCM 800 combo, a couple Airlines, blah, blah.

[badpenguin]

Welcome to the forum Dholm.....

​Ok, the P90, well P100 question about the wiring is easy. White and red wires are tapped together, Black is hot, green is ground. Picture is of a humbucker, but it's the same thing really.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/wiring-diagrams?meta_params=guitar-options,1-pickup,bridge-h,1-volume,1-tone,none,accessory-none

​And you shouldn't have any real issues since it's a neck pickup. A little less in the way of gain, since necks are typically lower in output then bridge pickups, but the same overall tone is going to be there.

​For the other pickups, hunt thru eBay, or any number of other sources. You may never know what is lurking in a small guitar shop down the street.

[WRGKMC]

The only thing you need to check is the string spacing over the poles. Bridge pickups often tend to have greater spacing between the poles then a bridge pickup. I think most P90's have the same spacing so you might be OK. If the string spacing is to great and the strings are too far off center you may wind up having dead strings. I'd definitely check it first because you'll never get an even output if the string don't align with the poles.

 

You can simply hold the pickup over the strings face down in the bridge position where the pickup will mount from below. If the strings align center with all the poles you're good. If they are off a little you may still be good. If its centered on the low string and completely off on the high string, don't waste your time mounting it. You'll have nothing but problems getting an even output.

[r0bo01]

have you heard this demo?

bridge pup series vs. parallel starts @ 3:57.

your mileage will probably vary as you're going to use a neck pup in the bridge position. which might turn out well for you, as the vid's bridge pup sounded on the hot side. serendipity might be trying to help you out!

if the series/parallel thing doesn't really matter to you, wiring the stacker in series will probably put that pickup in bridge territory.

i would try to hook both up in a temporary fashion before soldering to make sure you can live with the levels...

sounds promising though!

[dholm75]

Guys, thanks for the replies. Awesome. So now this guitar has a neck Humbucker, and a stacked P90 in the bridge. 3 way toggle switch, 2 tones and 2 volumes. I bought the bridge stacked P90 and put it in, and it's great. Selling the stacked neck P90. Now, today, my Gen 4 noiseless Strat single coil arrived (neck/middle model). I am taking out my neck humbucker, and I got an adapter ring, so it is time to solder in this bad boy. I heard it on an American Elite and liked it a lot. This pickup has 3 wires. green, black, white. Any takers on where these should be soldered? I will upload some audio if it sounds accurate. So far it sounds good with the stacked P90 already, with belle epoch tape delay, holy grail reverb, vintage Airline 8 watter.