P90 neck and blender phase?

[Frankhond]

I bought a custom guitar that is kind of a cross between a les paul jr and a nocaster. Bridge tele pup only with coiltap switch, volume pot and no tone. Very cool but I want something in neck position. Builder will mod it. We are thinking p90 or humbucker. There is only room (without more routing) to add either a three way switch or another pot. I was thinking to add a blender pot. So guitar would only have volume and blender between p90 neck and tele bridge.

I’m wondering if anyone has tried something like this and how should phase be wired between the p90 and bridge single coil? Would there be a humbucker effect somewhere in the middle if wired reversed, or is it better nonreversed?

Also is this a terrible idea and it should be humbucker, not p90 instead?

 

[schmee]

P90 is great there. A minibucker is one of my favorites in the neck also. Brighter than a P90 though.
Keep in mind with only a blender, the volume changes as you blend as you combine both pickups. You can deal with it, but if your volume already happens to be maxed you are a bit stuck in the middle of a song. Personally, I liked a switch better, but some like it.

 

[badscrew_projects]

It's a 50/50 chance of having your second pickup in or out of phase with the existing one. It's not a big deal usually, it should be possible to flip the wires on one of the two pickups if you find them out of phase. Whichever is easier to do.

 

[Swirling Snow]

You'll get a humbucking effect if one of the pickups is wound RWRP. On my ASAT, that was a godsend in a few places I played. You can get two different tones by playing slightly off-center on either side while maintaining the humbucking effect.

Since you want a P-90 instead of a humbucker, I'd wire them straight up, in phase. This will give you a full sound all the way around the knob.

Oh, yes. Remember, it's pointless to blend two pickups that sound the same.

 

[NoTeleBob]

If you're adding a pot, why not just make it a volume pot for the new pick up. Then you can blend the two any way you like. Plus, you effectively get away to silence one pick up i.e. shut it off without having a switch.

Each pot can be a push-pull DPDT. The push-pull could be used to put the pickups in series, or parallel, or out of phase, or as [email protected] switch, etc. Pick two tricks. Lots of fun options.

For the pick mup it's a tough call on P90 or mini-humbucker. I'd probably go with the mini since it will work better with a Tele bridge pick up and can get most of the same sounds as a P90 in the neck position.

If you set up for a P90, you can always change to one or the other simply using one of the surround rings like Gibson used on the LP Deluxe. The steel mounting bar with the threaded holes that they used in those guitars under the pickup is set up To take the screws from either pick up too.

 

[Frankhond]

Thanks for all the input! So it seems to be a reasonable idea at least. I haven’t played any guitar with a mini humbucker, and hoping that a p90 will be different enough. Yeah it could work to use two volumes too. Problem there is my experience with les paul type wiring where you need dial in some volume in both pots or there is no sound at all. I’ll post how it went when we are done.