Wildcat P-90's

[ricach]

I just picked up an Epi Wildcat and love how it plays but I'm not sure the P-90's are supposed to be that dark sounding. I really have to crank the high's (tried on several different amps) to get anykind of bright sound, and its not that great. And it doesn't take much to get these into distortion. The bridge and neck sound almost the same, just a different kind of dark. I've not heard anybody comment about these Wildcat's being this way so I'm wondering if there is a problem with mine.

[kidmo]

Tried adjusting the pickup height?

[charlie chitlin]

There are some really bad Epi p90s...and some really good ones.
If you have an ohm meter, plug a short cable (like you put between pedals) and check the resistance.
If they read in the 12-13 range, there isn't much you can do except replace them or remove a lot of windings.
I unwound a set of these to about 9Ω and they sounded amazing.

[ricach]

Originally Posted by kidmo

Tried adjusting the pickup height?

It doesn't appear they are adjustable.


Thanks Charlie, I'll give that a try. I would guess the neck and bridge should be different though?

[Coffeemutt]

I'm in the same boat - love the playability & looks, but the pickups are bit dark. Jason Lollar does rewinds of these, but I'm on the budget plan right now. I'm thinking of maybe switching to plastic covers and replacing the tone with a no-load pot when I get around to it.

Charlie, considering I have zero pickup experience (other than wiring them in), would it be too difficult too unwind them without any equipment? Thanks!

[charlie chitlin]

Originally Posted by ricach

It doesn't appear they are adjustable.


Thanks Charlie, I'll give that a try. I would guess the neck and bridge should be different though?

Adjustability is weird.
Many Epi pickups seem to be missing some sort of part and the pole pieces are only threaded into the wax they're potted in.
If you put the screwdriver in the slot and don't push down at all, you can usually get the poles to come up. I know...it's a little crazy.
The output of the pickups might be different. Might not.
Either way, if they're the hot pickups, they'll be way over the 8-9Ω that we like P90s to be.

[charlie chitlin]

Originally Posted by Coffeemutt

I'm in the same boat - love the playability & looks, but the pickups are bit dark. Jason Lollar does rewinds of these, but I'm on the budget plan right now. I'm thinking of maybe switching to plastic covers and replacing the tone with a no-load pot when I get around to it.

Charlie, considering I have zero pickup experience (other than wiring them in), would it be too difficult too unwind them without any equipment? Thanks!

I melted the wax out (dangled them in front of a small space heater and put a bunch of newspaper underneath), unsoldered the winding (make sure to unsolder the outer end...it's easy to spot), took out one of the pole screws and put a rod through the hole so the pickup would spin and started pulling off a few miles of wire.
There are probably about 15,000 windings and you want to take off about 5,000.
The wire is thin, so it breaks, periodically.
No biggie. Just put on some good music.
I just kept taking readings along the way and got down to around 9Ω.
Pop the wire back in the eyelet, a dab of solder and Bob's yer uncle.
I figured I didn't have anything to lose because I had ordered some schmancy hand made pickups anyway.
By the time the pickups came, I wished I hadn't ordered them. The Epi ones sounded just as good.

[RocknDrTom]

Cool information. I love the feel of the Epi WildKat but also hate the dark sound of it. I'll have to test them when I get back home and see if I can unwind them.

[ricach]

Did you rewax the pups?

And I'm guessing its possible to do all this without disconnecting the wires from the guitar wiring?

[TeleMan59]

People have spent thousands of dollars replacing pu's on these with no change until one guy found out the problem was the cheap wiring used in these things.

There is 5.6' of it and it sucks the highs and lows out of the tone.

http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/394031-post88.html

I just ordered some good wire from Stew Mac and I'm going to rewire my brothers.

[Coffeemutt]

Thank you, Charlie & TeleMan!

[Bartholomew3]

I have an Epi SG and have the same dark problem with humbuckers. I think it might be an Epi trademark to differentiate it from a better, more expensive Gibson.

Need to use an amp with lots of top end and still sounds not so hot through some of them.

Fixed it somewhat by raising the wax-coated screws under each string. At least now the neck p/u is acceptable. Bought a Seymour Duncan JB to fix the lousy sound at the bridge - just have to put it in.

The SG doesn't have all that wire so should be good to go.

[ricach]

Originally Posted by Coffeemutt

Thank you, Charlie & TeleMan!

Likewise. Now to formulate a plan - pickups or wiring first?

[LOSTVENTURE]

Usually when sombody is copying a pick-up and wants to save cost, they reduce the number of winds in the coil. This produces a sound similar to heavily over-winding the coil, only at a much lower volumn. It's been my experience that, as far as Epi's P-90s are concerned, the problem comes from underwinding rather than overwinding. If you want to hear how that guitar "really" sounds, invest in a nice set of P-90s. I can personally recommend Gibson or Fralin.

[TeleMan59]

Originally Posted by LOSTVENTURE

Usually when sombody is copying a pick-up and wants to save cost, they reduce the number of winds in the coil. This produces a sound similar to heavily over-winding the coil, only at a much lower volumn. It's been my experience that, as far as Epi's P-90s are concerned, the problem comes from underwinding rather than overwinding. If you want to hear how that guitar "really" sounds, invest in a nice set of P-90s. I can personally recommend Gibson or Fralin.

Fralin is one of the guys who helped figure out that the problem with these guitars was due to the bad shielded wire. He was doing a custom rewind of the existing pu's for a guy and they sounded awful. He then bypassed the wiring in the guitar and put the pu's directly to the jack. Sounded great again.

Check out the attached PDF.

[moondogz]

Jason Lollar makes a set to fit the Wildcat, I changed mine out for
Lollars. Huge difference and worth the money imo. Also there was
an article in Tone Quest Report (not sure what issue but I think I still
have it) about tweeking the Wildcat and they went with the Lollars.
Seems to me they mentioned that not all P90's would fit properly because
of the arched top, but the Lollars were almost like they were custom made.
Anyway, cool guitars.

Here's that Tone Quest Report Issue, it's still available for $15.00. Hope this
helps.

October 2005 Vol. 6 Number 12
Power Tools
Review – The 1971 Ampeg VT40 Revisited
Tube & Speaker Recommendations

Review – The Dallas Arbiter AC30

The Epiphone Wildkat Makeover with Dan Erlewine

Interview & Review – The Gabriel Low Carb 18W Combo

Interview & Review – The UV6 Amp from DST Engineering

Review – The Louis Electric Trem-o-Verb

Review – The Cream-Tone Overdrive

[hekawi]

i solved the problem by trading my Wildkat for one of these



much better sound!

[ricach]

From Seymour-Duncan website:

"The greater the number of turns, the higher the pickup output. But too much winding results in weak treble response and a flat, un-dynamic sound."

This would coincide with what Charlie's experience has been with these.

[TeleMan59]

I spent hours researching this this weekend after my brother dropped off his WildKat for me to troubleshoot. Sounded tone dead. Here is an interesting string I found on a Gretsch forum:

Hi Stewart and welcome to Gretsch Talk. I am an unabashed WildKat fan and my experiences validate yours, although mine are strictly empirical. I got my WildKat and I loved the sustain and playability of the guitar but it was pure mud. Thinking it was the pickups I had Jon Moore (www.tonefordays.com) hand wind two vintage P90's for me. Jon does great work at reasonable prices. He also volunteered to install them for me.

When he returned the guitar to me he informed me he had disconnected the master volume control after discovering it sucked the tone right out of the pickups. As it now sounded incredible (as you might suspect) I was very happy. Being a Gretschie though, I liked the master volume so in a fit of energy, I disconnected the individual controls and wired it up as master volume/master tone. It was just as good (Jon had put decent wiring in) and I have had it wired like that since. It is one of my go-to instruments that can handle anything I throw at it.

The change was profound and I credited it to Jon's pickups, which are always a sonic treat. But then, a Gretsch Power Jet came into my hands loaded with TV Jones Power'trons, a pickup with a tremendous reputation for great tone. Mine sounded like hell, muddy and unclear. I contacted TV Jones and Thomas Jones responded personally, giving me advice on installing treble bleeds and different pot values. I tried them all and while they were some improvement, the guitar still sounded like it was loaded with cheap Epi humbuckers.

Then I remembered my experience with the WildKat. I knew the Power Jet had decent pickups in the opinion of all the good folks here so something else had to be the problem. I redid the wiring, eliminating the two pickup volume controls and leaving master volume/tone switch. Wow!!! Did I say WOW!!! The difference was night and day. Gorgeous rich, clear tones rolled out of my Power Jet. I am happy now and considerably wiser about this stuff.

Wiring blocks matter a lot. Thank you for sharing your work with us.


Hi Tony, thanks for your personal experiences with the WildKat.

Apart from the capacitive effects of the cheap coaxial cable they've used, there are bound to be other 'loading' effects caused by the pots.

Every control you install into a guitar will degrade the sound a little. Together, they form a cumulative affect. So, keeping the 'pot count' low, can only improve the brighness; and bass for that matter.

However, we still have the problem of the inferior coax used. Yes, disconnecting the controls will improve the tone, but the worst offender, by a long chalk, is the 5.6ft of cheap coaxial cable. AND IT SERIOUSLY NEEDS REPLACING with RG179EP video interconnect cable. The benefits this will bring would more than offset the 'losses' caused by the pots being connected. So, once upgraded, I would say that you could reconnect all the pots and it would still be better than it was BEFORE you upgraded the wiring!

Of course, I expect you'll want to leave the pots disconnected AND upgrade the coax... that will then be one bright sounding WildKat!

For those of you who have a few electronic components lying around; try connecting a 1000pf capacitor across the hot and ground connections inside a guitar cable jack plug and hear approximately what the 940pf of capacitance inside the WildKat sounds like, when you're playing a Strat or Tele!

But I have to stress... changing the pots, switches and pickups will make practically NO DIFFERENCE. You must replace the coax cable first. Sorry!

I would recommend using the RG179EP cable for ALL guitar wiring jobs... it's better than the cable StewMac sells for this job @ $19/25ft!!

Have fun.

[ricach]

I searched all over the web for anybody having said problem with Wildcat's and found nothing. Now it's becoming evident this is a very common issue with this guitar.

TDPRI is the place for information!!