I played strats and humbucker equipped guitars most of my life. The moment i played an LP special with P90s, I understood why they still exist. They are absolutely monstrous. I think they have tonal qualities and an edge that put them above humbuckers any day.
I snagged an LP special on a whim because I missed my Novo Serus J that I stupidly sold and wanted another guitar with p90s. It's a modern USA model with the stock p90s, not a custom shop, nothing fancy... and it's absolutely excellent. It's a keeper and I'm not changing anything on it. The way p90s clean up with the volume knob while retaining clarity - in fact increasing clarity when turned down - is magic. I'll never own a humbucker guitar.
Honestly, they are all close enough that I would need in a back to back to hear the difference. These all sound great. All slightly different, but unless you are searching for a very specific sound any of them would work.
To me, the Stew-Mac and the Duncan Custom had the most important P-90 characteristic: they live right on the edge of respectability, where you can hear the roughness in the high mids just starting to turn into a snarl. The Lollar was well-balanced and punchy, a great-sounding pickup, but without the risk of rudeness that lurks in the best P-90s. The stack had its own sound, maybe a little too glassy for a solo neck pickup, but one that would sit nicely in a band mix.
Curtis Novak and Mojo Pickups both have some really interesting designs. Novak has a pickup based on a pre-P90 Gibson design, a couple based on Kay catalog guitar pickups, Dearmond designs, etc. Mojo has a lot of designs that fit in P90 housings, including gold foils, catalog guitars, Charlie Christian, Dearmond, plus many cool pickups in other shapes and sizes.
Thanks guys, great video. Great playing, great amp choice and settings and the Telecaster worked better than I might have expected. For me, the Lollar P90 was the clear winner there. And the Stew Mac was nice too, did bring out the nice Tele top-end character. I didn't like the Seymour Duncan pickup sound so much, kind of dark, flat and woofy. Before listening, thought I would have preferred this demo with a either a Gibson ES (335/330) or Les Paul bodied guitar. Only because, I suspect the most common group of people considering these are probably people looking to upgrade the pickups in more affordable guitars. To bring them up in sound. Otherwise nice guitars, that can benefit from the leg up. Guitars like the Epiphone Casino, Epiphone Les Paul Special, Epiphone SG and the equivalent Sire Larry Carlton guitars. I'd be interested in hearing the lower end Epiphone Pro P90s and standard issue Gibson P90s thrown into the mix. I'm going to upgrade my Epiphone Casino to Lollars. Mick from TPS had a good before and after demo of that upgrade and the Lollars brought up the sound to such a higher level. That said, your video was super useful in confirming what I heard elsewhere, the Lollar P90s are exceptionally good. A similar demo with the equivalent humbuckers would be most welcome. Thinking of upgrading my Sire H7 pickups, maybe for Lollars, after this shootout.
Agreed about the stack. It's almost like an idealized P90 (to me), rather than a traditional one. But they all sounded good, and I'd be happy with any.
Stack easily favorite because it was least distorted. Maybe I just don't like p-90s? I want a guitar played through a clean Amp to sound perfectly clean, and then any other characteristics I want to add outside the guitar.
I have a Les Paul clone with Lollar P90s and it's fantastic - and a home-built guitar with DiMarzio P90s and it's also fantastic. I want to collect them all now!
They all sounded pretty different. I think if you put any one in front of me I'd love it. Probably would go for the Seymour stack for that clean humless spank, plus you can wire it to split, so best of both worlds.
Years ago, I switched the P90 out of my SG Jr, for a Duncan P90 stack. Used it for about 10 years. One day I had this weird idea to put the original P90 back in. Well, suddenly the sound range of the guitar just seemed to open up. From sweet chimey cleans to ear bleeding distortion, everything just sounded amazing! I've since stopped listening to the hype. I'm amazed at how many forums you jump on and everyone is saying what pickups should I put in my Les Paul or my SG. Now I think, play with the adjustments, try different amps. Don't be so quick to try something just cause it seems to be an upgrade.
Jon Gundry at Throbak has the original pickup winders from Gibson. Years ago he interviewed the retired pickup winders from the Kalamazoo plant. His P90s sound awesome. The Humbuckers are great too.
I've played a lot of P90s both vintage and modern. The latest Gibson ones have great punch, snap, and clarity. Out of these, based on the demo here, it's clearly the Lollar and the Stew-Mac are the easy winners. The Seymour Duncan Custom would come after those. The SD stacked sounded muddy and lifeless with a slow attack.
SD Custom sounded best (on my phone) but the StewMac pickups were a close 2nd for me... impressive. Why all white/ivory though? Black would look so much nicer on most of those guitars!
Lollar sounds bell-like, Duncan sounds a bit distant (as many stacks do), and the Stewmacs sound underwound. But there's some digital distortion in play. Sounded like maybe the recording chain was overloaded.
Lollar has reissued its pickup winding book, mostly to destroy the second hand market for them; used to be more than 600+ USD sometimes and Lollar charges 60 bucks. Not exactly related and I'm not an affiliate but if you want to know exactly how the stuff got inside your Lollar pickup it's from the source.
The Stewmac and yej Seymour Duncan seems to edge more than the Lollar. On the second short tune the definition of the single note seems more pleasing with the Lollar
Toss-up between the StewMac and the Seymore Duncan, but I think the Duncan is slightly my preference. I like both of them because they were a bit brighter and still had some 'spank.' But, I'm a single-coil man through and through. Never met a humbucker that i prefer over a single. Honestly, StewMac really showed up in the past 2 videos. StewMac was far and away my favorite for the bridge pickup and it's a very close 2nd on the neck position. Color me impressed!
I was shocked how well the StewMac pickup sounded, especially in contrast with the Stack which was easily my least favorite of this bunch. I was also shocked how "normal" the SD Custom one sounded. I think I'm a fan of relatively hot P-90's but I wasn't disliking the Stew at all. I have a set of Bare Knuckle Blue Notes I'm not loving. I really like the P-90's that came in my Rivolta which are fairly hot when I checked the specs. I know the Lollars are supposed to be excellent but I dont' know if all the "good stuff" is making it through the RU-vid compression? I didn't dislike them but I wasn't overly impressed either. I found them on par with the StewMacs in the video but I'm giving this a very short listen.
Hey guys, nice comparisson. What about the Lollar 50s wind vs the Seymour Duncan Antiquity's. I've got Antiquity's in a guitar (had them for 15 years) and they sound incredible, so good actually that I've sold the guitar they were in because it was a little bit too heavy but I had to keep them and build another guitar just to put them in. I always wondered how they compare with Lollar 50s wind (or regular ones for that matter). Cheers
I wonder if it is worth measuring these things. You can measure the resistance easily, but today they have meters that measure inductance for very little money on Amazon. Theoretically, the sound of similarly constructed pickups can be measured by their inductance. It also might help those who don't have great computer speakers. As to pickups, it might naturally be advantageous to compare GFS pickups. I use these because they are inexpensive plus allow solder-less installation.
They all sound good. I own and prefer the Lollar. They just have such a wide range and a supreme clarity in the exact right part of the register. And they respond very well to the guitar volume/tone controls. I had early 00’s Gibson P90 before. What a dog. 😬
yeah, SD is tops, and I was surprisingly disappointed with the Stewmac (please don't let Dan see this). The other two were kind of a shake. Thanks for the work and what a load of beautiful guitars.
I was really surprised by the Stew Mac and thought it had the fullest tone. It would have been easier to compare them if the same piece had been played backto-back and your video had been time-stamped and labelled, but hey, your circus. Final note: I would take any of those pickups, they all sounded great.
#1 Lollars #2 SDCustom the rest were flat and soft compared to the those two.. All great pickups but this is a comparison .. Thanks for the video content!!
Too much low freq for neck position imho (except stack and may be StewMac). Think it will be useful to move P90 closer to middle (but still in neck pos) and add classic tele neck PU to give more options for clean channel.
All of them sounded great to me, but that's no surprise since I'm not very particular about specific tones and am generally easily pleased. I would be happy with any of them, and probably would be fine with stock Epiphone P90s for that matter. Yeah I'm a peasant.
Almost a great vid! Where’s the dirt? I need some more aggressive playing examples. Lollars sound the closest to a classic p90, to me. Stacked Duncan is trash.
I have a Duncan custom that came with my Tele Jr. Custom Shop. It has always sounded great. I really liked the sound of the Lollar in this demo, however.
I have a guestion on Seymour Duncan P-90 pickups. I'm a left handed player. Are pickups made for hand orientation? Please answer this question. Thanks cause I am in the process of building a archtop Gibson 335.
I was surprised by the stewmac one, really good sounding pickup. You guys should try a set of OX4 Pickups, seriously good boutique maker in Oxford Uk. I put them in all my builds.
Make your own pickups for chrisakes! You have more than enough chops to easily make your own, it's easy - no? That way you can experiment like you do with making acoustic guitars, which is why we see evermore electric guitar makers also making their own pickups. These "big name" pickup makers, especially "PAF", are mostly snake-oil. Do I want to buy an SDpickups PAF with "old wire" for over $2,000- (and wait forever)? How about an off-the-shelf PAF from Ron Elison pickups? I could buy a set of his right now for about $900, which is only about twice the price of some other artisan pickups. Considering how easy they are to make, especially in comparison to an acoustic guitar, I think they are way overpriced. Tim Pierce, the great studio musician and youtube personality, said when trying a variety of boutique PAF clones: it sounds like a PAF (which themselves didn't sound the same). I think it's mostly hype and snake-oil, please make your own. That "Scar my guitar" dude (Shawn?) has a wife who is now making pickups for his guitars, and I'm sure they will sound like a "PAF" (or whatever, he is more of a strat dude). A great channel this, looking forward to seeing you make pickups too.....?
@@DriftwoodMatt My vote is the Stack. The SD is very close. The stack seems to not be driving the amp and hard. The SD has good tone to me. It would be interested to hear this compare through an amp that stays cleaner longer😇
If I was using it primarily or exclusively for jazz, then I would go with the Stew Mac. Otherwise, it would be Lollars, then either of the two Seymour Duncans. But that said, these are all very close, and they’re ALL better than the cheap ceramic P90s shipping on most “budget” guitars.
