Hi,
This is off topic, but, I just changed my pickups on my oscar schmidt OE30 (a es-335 alike but a lot cheaper -- 149$!!!) and WOW what a wonderful guitar this is!
I purchased two kent armstrong pickups:
- Vintage PAF for the neck
- Humbucker sized P90 for the bridge pickup
Man does this rock! The P90 is soooooooo nice with distortion, it's unreal!!!! The PAF in the neck ensures that I can play those blues licks with all the warmth that a semi-hollow guitar has to offer. All in all a very nice guitar that is a lot better with a few simple mods!!!
Here is the link to the guitar:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=040407171137216099099002544073/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/514013/
Cheers!
Stephane.
I have a home made guitar with a couple of P-90s. I love those things! Pickup's make such a difference to your sound. I swap my pick ups for a vintage whatever pedal any day. :D
A couple of other low cost mods that can make a difference in sound is the pots. Most of the budget imports, and even the Gibsons use odd pot values, usually 300k. Putting in 500k's on the PAF should open the sound right up. Along with decent quality tone caps (metal film orange drop types) . For the P-90, single coils like 250k's, but sometimes larger values are good. You have to try em' to see. The LP 50's style wiring is also nice, pickup switching and volume wise. Speaking of pickup switches, another area where the imports chince out. Replace with a Switchcraft (jack also) for reliability and peace of mind. I've done the above on a few Epiphones and import copies and it makes a nice improvement. With pickups and the above, You can end up with the sound of the real thing for a lot less money.
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups.html
Are the P90's noisy at the gig? They are single coils right?
I've got a couple in my ES-225. (hollowbody).
Congrats on the new tone! :D
Hi Fret Wire,
thanks for the hints. I haven't tried that. The painful thing about the OE30 is that it doesn't have an easily acessible cavity for electronics (i.e. with an easy to open back plate). Everything is accessed through the F holes (argh...). So, I may have a hard time chaging all of that. But, maybe one day, who knows!
Aron, yes the P90 is a single coil. It's a bit noisier than a PAF, that's for sure, but they sound amazing! Granted, I don't gig, I'm simply a "bedroom" guitarist, so I can't tell how noisy they are in a gig. They would be no noiser than any normal single coil.
Chris, you are right about chaging pickups vs pedals. A pedal will taint or colour your sound, a new pickup will change it completely!
Cheers,
Stephane.
Normally accessible through the pickup rout. Getting every thing out is easy. Going back in you have to put wire or string on each component and feed them through the pickup holes and pull them out into their respective holes. Like rewiring in a house. The whole harness is wired as a whole, installed, then pickup leads soldered back on, like you did when you replaced them.
So what do P90's really sound like? I keep hearing so many good things about them, I'm getting curious.
Doug
Hi,
Fret Wire, yeah, it is a painful process to re-install everything, but very doable. I might try to change the pots. But, for the time being, I'm very happy!
Doug, basically a P90 sounds like a fat single coil. It has a bit more mid punch and is a bit more 'guttural' than a single coil. It is brighter than a humbucker but not as bright as a single coil. I will try to post a sound clip of the P90 in action.
Cheers,
Stephane.