What if Humbucker with P90 Coils?

[1001gear]

That.

[WRGKMC]

 Someone beat you to it.  Its called the P100. 

I put a set in my Gold top Deluxe back in the late 70's. 

I then bought this 40th Anniversary  LP in 92 which had them.

 

 

[daddymack]

^that...but they do not sound like a P90, and they do not sound like a humbucker. They have their own distinct 'flavor'...

[Phil O'Keefe]

If the OP means side by side coils like a PAF has, then a dual coil P90 based humbucker would be gigantic - it would dwarf even a Fender WRHB. Ditto that for a dual-coil, side by side configuration Fender Jazzmaster style pickup. 

For single coil pickups with large coils, stacked coils is really the only way to go to make a humbucking pickup out of them and still keep the pickup at a reasonable size, but as others have noted, when you stack coils (whether on a Strat or a P90 style pickup) you often lose some of the tonal magic that makes the single coil versions of those pickups so special, and so cherished by so many players to begin with.

 

 

[1001gear]

4 hours ago, Phil O'Keefe said:

If the OP means side by side coils like a PAF has, then a dual coil P90 based humbucker would be gigantic - it would dwarf even a Fender WRHB. Ditto that for a dual-coil, side by side configuration Fender Jazzmaster style pickup. 

For single coil pickups with large coils, stacked coils is really the only way to go to make a humbucking pickup out of them and still keep the pickup at a reasonable size, but as others have noted, when you stack coils (whether on a Strat or a P90 style pickup) you often lose some of the tonal magic that makes the single coil versions of those pickups so special, and so cherished by so many players to begin with.

 

 

Yeah I did mean side by side - PAF style. inspired by the giant Fender HB.

[Phil O'Keefe]

5 minutes ago, 1001gear said:

Yeah I did mean side by side - PAF style. inspired by the giant Fender HB.

I’d have to measure to be sure, but I think it might even be bigger than those triple coil Ibanez pickups... 

 

[1001gear]

There might be some Metal chic to that. Wonder if you could get a coherent tone with something that size.

[Phil O'Keefe]

8 hours ago, 1001gear said:

There might be some Metal chic to that. Wonder if you could get a coherent tone with something that size.

 

The Ibanez IC210 Iceman (used by Steve Miller) had a huge pickup, and in one of the pickup selector's four switch settings, all three coils ran in series IIRC, and gave it a really hot output in that position. The pickup itself was massive - basically similar to having three single coils sitting side by side in a single housing. The pickup ring was pretty huge too, which made the whole thing look even bigger...

 

 

On some settings / songs, it had a decidedly stratish type of sound IMHO. For example... 

 

 

 

[WRGKMC]

The solution to having coils stacked are the P100's The solution to having them side by side is the Mini Humbucker (or Firebird style mini humbucker which is different then the deluxe mini) 

If you try an place two p90's in a side by side configuration, its no longer going to sound anything like the other three. If you compare the tone of a Mini Humbucker, P90 or P100 to that of a full sized humbucker they capture a narrower section of the string and have brighter/thinner, Fenderish tone compared to a full sized humbucker which is fatter and often darker sounding. 

If you place two P90 coils side by side the field would be at least 70mm in string length.  The easiest way to know how it would sound is simply install 2 P90's side by side.  You'd simply need one of them to have a reverse wind and a reverse magnet so the two will hum buck. 

Then the question is why limit your tone by having the two so close together.  A guitar with normally spaced pickups at the neck and bridge can hum buck the same was as they would mounted in the same capsule.   

Long before the internet or knowledge of what might be invented already I wondered what it might be like to have a stereo guitar with a pickup for each string and each string had its own pan knob so you could adjust where you want the string to sit in a mix. 

I later found out if you can imagine something new when it comes to guitars, (or any audio gear) chances are someone has already tried it.

The pickup from this 1968 Sekova Grecian is kind of along this line.  I've seen several modern Humbucker sized Hexaphonic pickups recently as well.   

Could you imagine using 6 different amps with this? 

 

[Verne Andru]

Kent Armstrong will make a hex pickup to order.

SD's P-Rail comes closest to the OP's question, although it's a P-90 and a SC-Rail. The trick I found to making these sound great is to remember to switch tone capacitors when switching between bucker and SC.

The other "close" option is to get a guitar with 2 P-90s and make one of them RWRP to the other - something that's very easy to do on a P-90 as you can physically flip the magnet - and wire them in series. They won't be sitting side-by-side, but gets close enough for rock and roll.