BK P90s and distortion

[HEadoftheAges]

So i am intrigued by the BKp90s; I have long been gassing for a guitar outfitted with P90s, as a part of me loves the fact that they tend to sound a little meaner and raw than your average humbucker or single coil.  I am toying around with the idea of having my next guitar built with a set of Humbucker-sized P90s. I am leaning towards the vintage end of the spectrum, but I am curious as to the general consensus in regards to how The Nantucket or the Mississippi Queen handle high-gain applications. Obviously their clean tones in the neck position would probably be unparalleled, but I am wondering if there would be issues with overall thin-ness, microphonic feedback, et cetera. Would I be better of with the Stockholm? They would probably be going into a darker-voiced, neck-through guitar.

[Dave Sloven]

I have a Stockholm, it is great with gain after a few teething issues that any BKP P-90 in that guitar might have.

Pros: the pickup is wax-potted, which helps a lot to reduce microphonics

Cons: The baseplate of the BKP P-90 soapbar would not fit the Gibson 'batwing' type mount (found on large pickguard SGs with P-90s, or basically any P-90 soapbar guitar with humbucker-style height adjustment screws through the pickguard) so I had to change the pickup mounting to a screw-into-wood type, then it was fine.  This is not an issue for dogear or humbucker size versions

To reduce feedback issues I shielded the pickup and control cavities (as well as the underside of the pickguard and control cavity cover) with conductive paint, tested that the continuity was complete, and grounded to the back of a pot with a wire.

There remains some residual 60 cycle hum, but it is much better.  The feedback issues arise either from microphonics in the pickup (unpotted) or a vibrating pickup mounting, or from the 60 cycle hum feeding back.  Once these are all controlled the response of the pickup under gain is fantastic.  I ran mine into the lead channel of a Peavey 6534+, which gives  you some idea of the gain I was generating.  It performed very well at all of the fifteen gigs I used it at.

The Nantucket and MQ would have less bottom end but will give you a more modern sound.  I have to say though that I can get a very convincing Discharge sound with mine, even though that was originally achieved with a pickup similar to a Nantucket.  If the guitar is dark and has plenty of bass already a Nantucket might be a better choice than a Stockholm.  Mine is in an SG Junior, which is a bright guitar without a lot of bass.

 

[pac90]

The stockholm is very much darker than the MQ, so also consider the supermassive on your list of HB P90s

A good thing about buying new is they will exchange them if you want to go up or down the range after trying one type out, so risk free

[HEadoftheAges]

I would only ever go for a humbucker-sized P90 as I would love for the option to simply swap them put for a proper humbucker if the P90 did not work out.  Do people generally stick with the 500k Volume and Tone pots with them or do they tend to go a little lower? Thanks for the help!

[Dave Sloven]

500K for a Stockholm or Pig-90.  Supermassive too most likely.

I would also consider 500K pots for a Nantucket or MIssissippi Queen, although that might be an instance where that low-spec pot that tests a only 400K might come in handy

[Alfi27]

I have a Junior and Special both equipped with Nantuckets. The Jr has 550k volume/280k tone and the Special is all 550k. They are two of my best sounding guitars for higher gain stuff, easily competing with my Riff Raff/Mule equipped Les Paul Standard. The RR is a bit better for chugga chugga stuff (due to more bass, probably because of the heavy ass guitar), but the Nantucket sounds meaner and rawer. Playing these guitars have really taught me to use the tone pot a lot as well, as opposed to playing all humbucker guitars keeping the tone at 10 all the time. With the Nantucket you get that really nasty, mean bite for classic rock with tone at 10 and rolling it of a little gives it a bit smoother top end for thrash and such. Wonderful pickups, I really wish more people would open their eyes for these ones

[HEadoftheAges]

Here is a good question: do you P90 users find there to be a difference in tone between the soap bar P90s and the humbucker-sized P90s?

[Alfi27]

Haven't tried the HSP90s so it might not be too helpful, but they are supposed to be exactly the same except the housing and mounting.

[JCN1218]

I happen to have a soap-bar Nantucket and an HS-P90 Nantucket (neck only), unfortunately they're in extremely different guitars so it's hard to make a good comparison. I can say though that they sound phenomenal! The soap-bar is actually in an explorer with two standard humbuckers and is used for more high gain work. It's definitely noisier than the buckers, but that's to be expected. It's not noisy enough to be an issue. The HS is in an Epiphone Sheraton II and I use it for more of a blues/ classic rock tone. It excels there as well, just a really fantastic pickup. So it really depends on the sound you're after, but I would imagine that Nantuckets or MQs (as I hear they're somewhat similar) are versatile enough to take you from clean to just shy of heavy metal, and probably even beyond that if you have a nice noise gate.