HS-P90's for Tele/Strat Style neck sound ?!

[ProggLife]

Evenin'

I absolutely love the sound of Tele and Strat neck pickups run through 250k pots (as per tradition) and would literally just play this sound if I could but the other sound I use in equal amounts due to my love of metal rhythm tones is an aggressive distorted bridge humbucker sound. The eternal problem of enjoying both these sounds is of course if you use 250k pots the bridge bucker loses openness and cut and if you use 500k pots you can't get that greasy, beefy neck single coil sound we all love.

I had an idea that if I was using a HH Tele or Strat (naturally with 500k pots) possibly a HS-P90 could be the answer, in theory the P-90 character and humbucker sizing would be less bright and be more full in the low end, hopefully compensating for the fact it is single coil running through a 500k pot.

Has anybody tried this theory out before ? and if so which HS-P90 would you recommend for getting as close to a fender neck single coil sound as possible ?

Cheers
Sam

[Dave Sloven]

I think you can just add a resistor between the pickup and the pot and that fixes the issue.

[darkbluemurder]

What Agent said. Just use a 500k pot and add a 470k or 560k resistor from the tab on the switch where the neck pickup is connected to to ground. The bridge pickup "sees" a 500k load whereas the neck pickup and both pickups combined "see" a load of approx. 230k to 260k.

Cheers Stephan