Matched P90 Neck - Standard Bridge Pickups

[Syddd]

I have a Lollar Gold Foil neck pickup with an Esquire Bridge in my Partscaster which is great however I can't tame the volume difference between the two pickups. The neck is way too loud which pushes the amp into overdrive when I am sitting on the limit.

The remedies I've tried don't work - there's too much bite if I raise the bridge pickup and lowering the neck pickup takes away too much top end. I have tried wiring the neck pickup in series with a resistor and capacitor in parallel, but it's not quite doing it for me.

So my question is - are there any P90s that are well matched to telecaster bridges? or a good matched pair?

 

[Caffiend]

If you don't mind the moderate spend of around £100 on a single pickup, you can tell a custom winder what you have in your head. I have a Tele with a p90 looking pickup that has long Alnico slugs and a wind that leaves it cleaning up to acceptable 60s Strat neck from brash p90 wide open. I asked for it to be in that ballpark and balance with a Texas Special in the bridge and that's just what it does. I accidentally wired it for an out of phase middle position and I have no plans to change this.

 

[JRapp]

I installed a variety of P90s in some Teles and I found that a Franz-style P90 (as found in some Guilds) was a pretty good match. They are low wind in the neighborhood of 5-6K and don't have a lot of low end. Although vintage ones are pricey, there is a modern repro that is used in the Newark St Guilds and IIRC is available aftermarket. If you want to use the P90 you already have, just remove one magnet: that will drop some low-end and volume (yes, it has been done and it will work). You may have to play with flipping the single magnet to get it in phase with the bridge PU.

 

[old wrench]

I was looking for the same thing myself -

Needing to roll down the volume every time you switch from the bridge to the neck is an absolute pain in the ass - not tolerable !!!

I ended up going to a Fralin -10% under-wound P90 in the neck of one of my Teles

It has a Cavalier Fat Lion bridge pickup - so the bridge is a bit "hotter" than a more normal vintage-wind bridge, but it still has a fair amount of that Tele twang to it

The two pickups balance out nicely, but even so, I still have to set the neck P90 a bit lower than "normal" to get that volume balance

The P90's combination of low-wind and slightly further distance from the strings makes for a real nice neck pickup sound - more clarity and high-end definition, but it'll still give ya that great P90 grind when you dig in