Les Paul Pickup Question

[soupbone]

A friend of mine has a Les Paul that has a P-90 in the neck,and a Gibson Burstbucker 390T in the bridge.The P-90 overwhelms the 390 in volume.Would a 250k pot for the neck,and a 500k in the bridge even out the volume's of the 2 pickups?

[Derringer]

maybe ... what's in it now?

[MmmPedals]

Sounds to me like you need to adjust the pickup height. Lower the P-90 or raise the Humbucker until its balanced.
Switching the pots will have minimal affect.

[soupbone]

I lowered the P-90 to where it's flush to the body,and raised the 390 to where it was almost touching the strings,and the P-90 still way overpowered the 390.

[G. Hoffman]

Sounds to me like you need to adjust the pickup height. Lower the P-90 or raise the Humbucker until its balanced.
Switching the pots will have minimal affect.

Yup, unless:

I lowered the P-90 to where it's flush to the body,and raised the 390 to where it was almost touching the strings,and the P-90 still way overpowered the 390.

There is probably something wrong with the 390.  I obviously haven't heard it, so I can't be sure, but that would be my immediate guess.  P-90s are not that hot.


Gabriel

[culturejam]

I lowered the P-90 to where it's flush to the body,and raised the 390 to where it was almost touching the strings,and the P-90 still way overpowered the 390.

Maybe the 390 has the phase reversed? Have you tried swapping hot and ground?

[MmmPedals]

[/quote]


There is probably something wrong with the 390.  I obviously haven't heard it, so I can't be sure, but that would be my immediate guess.  P-90s are not that hot.


Gabriel
[/quote]
+1
The 390 is a higher output PU than the p-90. So if you adjusted the PU's like you said there is something wrong.

[ayayay!]

I have the GFS VEH (Get it?) in the bridge of my Les Paul, which is like 15k resistance, and the neck p/u is a different one at 8.2k.  Even with lowering the neck pickup like you did above, and raising the bridge, I have the same problem as you:  Neck p/u is always overpowering. 

I've tried several combinations now, and never found a happy medium. 

Welcome to the wonderful world of Les Paul's my friend.  Some of the woods just don't play well with the neck pickups.  I can't stand that it's this way for me.  Hopefully you'll have better luck.  My advice is to find a neck pickup that's 6-7k resistance, the lower the better. 

[soupbone]

Good ideas.Thanks folks!

[Nasse]

Never have owned or played trough P90s but shops seem to have options for aftermarket pickups, like "vintage", "hot texas" and "hot overwound versions" of those too

[Gordo]

The P-90 overwhelms the 390 in volume.Would a 250k pot for the neck,and a 500k in the bridge even out the volume's of the 2 pickups?

I'd first make sure that the 390 isn't wired single coil.  I have a LP Special with 2-P90's and although these picks can get pretty RUDE when cranked they don't have the output of even a fairly mild humbucker.  With my setup the bridge is still a bit hotter than the neck and it's setup with 500K's all around.

[WGTP]

The strings move so much more over the neck pickup that the output is always higher, unless adjustments are made.  For some, it requires different pickups.  My Les Paul has a Seymour Duncan Jazz neck, 7K, and Duncan Custom, 14.5k, in the bridge and they balance pretty well.  The custom is quite a bit stronger, close to the strings and the Jazz is low.  This is supposed to be one of Seymour's favorite combos (or a JB instead of the Custom) and it seem to work.  Most pickup sets have a lower output neck/higher output bridge pickup.  

[zombiwoof]

What is a 390?.  Do you mean a 490 (humbucker)?.

Al

[soupbone]

The P-90 sounds killer!I just got to find a bridge pickup that will balance out with that one.Maybe a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates?or,a Gibson 500T,like the one Angus Young uses in his SG's.

[soupbone]

There's 390T and a 500T.

[zombiwoof]

The P-90 sounds killer!I just got to find a bridge pickup that will balance out with that one.Maybe a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates?or,a Gibson 500T,like the one Angus Young uses in his SG's.

The Pearly Gates isn't much hotter than a standard Gibson humbucker, but the 500T is a hot ceramic pickup.  I've never heard of Angus Young using the 500T, he uses Alnico-magnet pickups.  The Angus bucker, which is Alnico, has around 13k resistance, it's hotter and might work.  It's similar to the Gibson 498 (which might also work).

Don't put a 250k pot on the neck, it will just make the P90 dull-sounding.  It will mostly cut the high end off, P90's generally use 500k pots.

I think you mean the 490T, there is no 390 that I know of from Gibson.

Al

[G. Hoffman]

You need a pickup that works more than anything.  There is no reason that you should ever have that much of a mismatch between those two pickups.


Gabriel

[ayayay!]

The strings move so much more over the neck pickup that the output is always higher, unless adjustments are made.  For some, it requires different pickups.  My Les Paul has a Seymour Duncan Jazz neck, 7K, and Duncan Custom, 14.5k, in the bridge and they balance pretty well.  The custom is quite a bit stronger, close to the strings and the Jazz is low.  This is supposed to be one of Seymour's favorite combos (or a JB instead of the Custom) and it seem to work.  Most pickup sets have a lower output neck/higher output bridge pickup.  

+1.  Sounds exaclty like mine.

You need a pickup that works more than anything.  There is no reason that you should ever have that much of a mismatch between those two pickups.


Gabriel

I can't speak for soupbone, but for me I feel the same way as WGTP in that my Les Paul is just "one of those" that has a case of too much virbration above the neck pickup.

[ashcat_lt]

It's been said above, but is worth reiteration:  pot value has nothing to do with the total volume output, only with treble response.

It's also worth mentioning that DC resistance doesn't actually tell much either.  If all other things are equal (and they rarely are), a higher resistance would tend to indicate a hotter output, but there are so many other variables that you can't rely on that number alone to tell you much.

That said, a quick measure across the jack for DC resistance in each switch position can give you an idea whether the thing is wired and working correctly.  Compare the values to the manufacturer's specs, but use a good helping of salt as there will be some slop both from manufacturing tolerances and having the V pots in parallel.

[soupbone]

Nice ideas ashcat!For one of the other posting's,the bottom of the pickup says;390T.I'm guessing because it's a burstbucker.