p90 for telecaster bridge?

[slickcipher]

does anyone know of a tele bridge p-up sized p90? what is the best available one?

[yankeerob]

Erm - I've done some mods in my time - but this would never be one of them - if you really want a P90 sound from your tele bridge your best bet is to have one custom wound for you - though the actual design of a P90 will be difficult to duplicate in a tele bridge form factor - I'd imagine that whatever you wind up with will be a compromise - and even if you had a bridge plate made to accomodate a P90 it'd wind up being pretty wide and you still wouldn't be getting the same response as the way a P90 is mounted is totally different to how Fender pups are... I'm not surprised at the lack of response so far - my guess is that someone who really knows what they're doing could probably wind a normal tele bridge pup to sound close to how a P90 sounds but to be honest they're two completely different animals - if it were me I'd go the completely custom route - custom body routed for whatever pups you want with a Strat style hard-tail bridge (or Tele Deluxe if you like...) and of course some good pups!

[chuckocaster]

good call yankeerob! i'm gonna add a couple idaes:

1. you could chop the bridge and mount a p90 in your guitar. this requires some routing, and though i haven't tried it, probably a pickup ring too.

2. get a really hot wound lead pup with no baseplate.

http://www.riograndepickups.com/scar...tName=For+Tele this might work, it's wound pretty hot, has big polepieces, and no baseplate. i had one and i thought it sounded pretty darn good.

fralin makes a steel poled tele lead pup that is purported to sound like a p90. no idea if it does or not since i've never played one. also not sure if it has a baseplate.

the reason i bring the baseplate up is that is ties the pickup into the bridge, and that is what makes a tele lead pup sound the way it does. a p90 is not coupled with the bridge, so it senses a smaller portion of the vibrating string.

the telecaster was designed the way it was to acheive the desired sound. messing with the design will produce results not considered, this can be good and bad. i think that a hot pup in the 9k range, isolated from the bridge, will give you the sound you're looking for.

an easy test would be to buy a CS 10k nocaster pup and pull the baseplate off. you will need to use fatter screws, or heatsink nuts into the pup (tedious) to make it work.

[pseudocat]

I've got Zhangliqun making me a Super Paul Bunyan. When I receive it, I'll post about the result.

10.5K, 1/4" Alnico V polepieces, no bridge plate. It's his P-90'ish tele bridge pickup; I asked him for a tele pickup with a couple of extra helpings of chitlins.

If it's anything like the other pickups he's wound me, it will be great.

I've heard good things about the Harmonic Designs Super 90, but I have no direct experience with it.

[Karma-lite]

Hi
I haven't tried these but they sound like they could be a hand wound solution, no chopping etc. they have a good rep in the UK.

http://www.catswhiskerpickups.co.uk/4.html

cheers

[Porto Leone]

Hauessel BigMag for Tele:
www.haeussel.com

[Don]

How about Fralin's steel poled Tele bridge pickup?
I've heard good things about it.

[BradKM]

I love my Harmonic Design S-90.

[NeoFauve]

I love my Harmonic Design S-90.

Riggergreg used one of those in one of his contoured Teles, which can be seen in his "My Latest" thread.

[BradKM]

I didn't have time to elaborate in my earlier post, so here goes.

I've had the S-90 in the bridge of my Tele Special for several years now. I settled on it after rotating several other pickups through the guitar over the span of two or three years.

I haven't considered another pickup for that guitar since it was installed.

The HD S-90 offers a great approximationn of a P-90, but if you want the real sound, you're doing to have to go with the real thing.

I use my S-90 in conjunction with a TBX pot, and they work very well together.

I've found that set up gives me a sort of "best of both worlds" set up that lets me start with a nice traditional Tele sound, then progressively dial in more "hairyness".

The pickup is very sensitive to both the volume and tone controls.

It's also very "hi-fi" and very responsive to pick attack.