Staple P 90s?

[seenoevil II]

I have a Guild NS x-175 that I'm almost happy with. It has dog ear "frantz" style pickups that are basically p90s in sound and construction. The main difference being how they're mounted- by four screws at the corners of the bobbin.







The neck unit is satisfactory. Boomy, woody, articulate. The bridge is total weak sauce. It's very clear and balanced and almost identical to the neck. No bite, no twang, no warmth. A side effect of this is the parallel middle position has no jangle because the pickups sound so similar.

Anyway

Being a fan of jazzmasters, I like the rod magnet in a wider bobbin configuration. I'm also a huge fan of DeArmond dynasonic/2000 pickups.

I checked the specs and these dog ears are p90 size capatable. And Seymour Duncan has a set of staple 90 dog ears. I would go cheaper with lollar or TV jones DeArmond but that would mean drilling new mounting holes in the top, and I need the pole piece height adjustment to get them up to the strings. Besides, I like the doomy black look of the staple.




Anyway anyway

Thoughts or experiences with these beasts? The demos sounded good, but they always sound good. My impression is that they're woody and powerful with a touch of the plunk and clack of rodmag pickups. But their output is rather high at 9 something and they seems to have a lot more gerth and darkness than say a JM.

Any alternatives I should consider?

Please and thank you.

[HarlowTheFish]

Well, if you want something that sounds a bit more Fendery or JM-y, then you could go with an alnico-pole p90 sans adjustment or one of those JM-in-P90 pickups - I know Buddha pickups does one, and I'm pretty sure there's a few options out there. You lose height adjustment, and they look less funky, but it might be a bit more up your alley sonically. I've only messed with staples a couple of times in the neck of a P90 and an ES (335 IIRC), and they never really blew me away -- they sound nice and all, just not what I'm looking for. Output was pretty middle-of-the-road, but I found them a bit dark and too bassy, but it's 50/50 whether that was a design or a winding issue.

[seenoevil II]

Well, if you want something that sounds a bit more Fendery or JM-y, then you could go with an alnico-pole p90 sans adjustment or one of those JM-in-P90 pickups - I know Buddha pickups does one, and I'm pretty sure there's a few options out there. You lose height adjustment, and they look less funky, but it might be a bit more up your alley sonically. I've only messed with staples a couple of times in the neck of a P90 and an ES (335 IIRC), and they never really blew me away -- they sound nice and all, just not what I'm looking for. Output was pretty middle-of-the-road, but I found them a bit dark and too bassy, but it's 50/50 whether that was a design or a winding issue.

Dark, you say? Bass is no problem. I need bass.


Buddha pickups are the best kept secret in pickups. I'd like to try those too (not least because they're waaay cheaper), but with the dog ear mount, I'm afraid I couldn't get them close enough to the strings. Also the center is cut out, so soap bar mounts are out too. I'll see what they've got.

I've also considered Novak Narrow Range. They seem to be single coil, threaded rod mag, WRHB in a p90 form factor. They fit the bill, but there's zero demos anywhere.

Edit: just checked Buddha's shop and it appears they are now charging sane prices. They had been way underpriced as a way to crack the market, but that period is over it seems. Drat. Still great prices though.

[HarlowTheFish]

Dark, you say? Bass is no problem. I need bass.


Buddha pickups are the best kept secret in pickups. I'd like to try those too (not least because they're waaay cheaper), but with the dog ear mount, I'm afraid I couldn't get them close enough to the strings. Also the center is cut out, so soap bar mounts are out too. I'll see what they've got.

I've also considered Novak Narrow Range. They seem to be single coil, threaded rod mag, WRHB in a p90 form factor. They fit the bill, but there's zero demos anywhere.

Edit: just checked Buddha's shop and it appears they are now charging sane prices. They had been way underpriced as a way to crack the market, but that period is over it seems. Drat. Still great prices though.

Yeah I remember the $60-a-set Buddha humbuckers back in the day -- almost got some but went Guitarmory for my old Eclipse because of the voicing. Even now that they're charging reasonable prices, they still do weird shit for like, half-ish what you can get the same thing for from anybody else. My $0.02, if you want some soapbars, just make a mount out of some pickguard material or a bit of wood that bolts onto the corners and lets you mount the P90s into the middle: no non-removable modifications, gives you a bit of extra height out of the soapbars, and you're never gonna see it when it's put together. You can also raise dogears by putting shims under the covers - they're like $10 from Fralin and I've seen them occasionally on Reverb for like $3 or so a piece.
As far as "dark" and "bassy" on the staples, my thing is that I don't mind either of those things as long as I don't have to sacrifice midrange clarity or treble snap to get it -- my favorite humbuckers are the Kiesel Lithiums (tons of bass but pokey midrange and lots of treble) and the Dimarzio Fusion Edge (really dark, but very clear midrange and defined attack); my favorite single-coils are the Strandberg/Suhr/MFB ones from my Strandy (now living in my Mustang) that are pretty dark for single-coils but keep the top end and have really clear mids. That's sort of where I'm coming from, and I found the staples a bit mushy in the midrange -- I'd play a chord and it would just sound like one bit of pitched noise -- and kind of dull in the top end, so I didn't really get a good response to picking -- it always sounded like I was playing with my fingers, kind of. I can see the appeal for sure if you're into that, they just didn't do much for me because I'd rather have more top end to roll off down the signal chain than having to add extra and turn everything fuzzy.

[seenoevil II]

Do you mind if I ask who made your staple p90s?

[HarlowTheFish]

Do you mind if I ask who made your staple p90s?

Those were just stock Gibson ones on a CS LP Custom and ES. Neck only, because that's how Gibson did them back in the day (staple neck, screw bridge). Nothing I owned, but I spend a good few hours with them at a local GC that had them up a while back.

[seenoevil II]

Do you mind if I ask who made your staple p90s?

Those were just stock Gibson ones on a CS LP Custom and ES. Neck only, because that's how Gibson did them back in the day (staple neck, screw bridge). Nothing I owned, but I spend a good few hours with them at a local GC that had them up a while back.

Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, video demos are for selling pickups, so they'll usually sound pretty good, y'know?

Good idea with the bodged-up mounting rack. Honestly, I'm already acquainted and in love with DeArmond pickups, and if i could find a way to get them in dog-ear form. I know about t-armonds.

I might just as soon sell this Guild and get into a Gretsch electromatic with DeArmond 2ks instead. Then just swap with TV jones. I might be able to cover the cost of both with the guild's price. Plus have a sparkly metallic finish to boot.

The pups are this guitar's only weak spot. And if you dig them, it's no problem. I might also "settle" for Lollar p90s. I just like that rod mag personality.

[HarlowTheFish]

Do you mind if I ask who made your staple p90s?

Those were just stock Gibson ones on a CS LP Custom and ES. Neck only, because that's how Gibson did them back in the day (staple neck, screw bridge). Nothing I owned, but I spend a good few hours with them at a local GC that had them up a while back.

Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, video demos are for selling pickups, so they'll usually sound pretty good, y'know?

Good idea with the bodged-up mounting rack. Honestly, I'm already acquainted and in love with DeArmond pickups, and if i could find a way to get them in dog-ear form. I know about t-armonds.

I might just as soon sell this Guild and get into a Gretsch electromatic with DeArmond 2ks instead. Then just swap with TV jones. I might be able to cover the cost of both with the guild's price. Plus have a sparkly metallic finish to boot.

The pups are this guitar's only weak spot. And if you dig them, it's no problem. I might also "settle" for Lollar p90s. I just like that rod mag personality.

Fralin's got a noiseless dog-ear with alnico poles ala 3/4 size Jazzmaster, and Mojo Pickups does a DeArmond-style Gold Foil in a soapbar format (pretty sure if you ask nicely he'll do you up a set in dogear covers.
If you dig the guitar but aren't happy with the pickups, I'd rather swap pickups than swap guitars -- pickups are priced pretty okay, and they're easy to replace even when you need to jerry-rig some mounting for them. Guitars are a crapshoot though - what I thought was gonna be my favorite player hasn't gotten any playtime in years, what I thought would be a good axe to help me deal with tendonitis became my main player for a year, and what I thought would be a good second guitar to record with has gotten more use in 6 months than all my other guitars have in a full year put together. If you like the axe I'd put in $50 and 3 hours to figure out some mounting and put whatever pickup you want in there.

Keep in mind that if you really want the dogear look, it's not super difficult to fit a soapbar bobbin into a dogear baseplate, and if you're going for something funky you can just get a blank cover and drill your own holes for polepieces.

[wproffitt]

Don’t get me wrong, I always love spending money on my guitars. You know, just because. However, I have to ask if you’ve tried raising the bridge pickup on this guitar closer to the strings. If you have done so already, ignore the rest of this post:
A couple of years back, I wasn’t so in love with the bridge pickup (a Wolfetone Meaner P90). To me, it was too honky and nasal without the top end sizzle I wanted through my tweed Tremolux. Then, I put a shim under the dogear mount which brought it up by 1/8 of an inch or so and that (along with a couple of tweaks to my amp’s volume and EQ settings) took my opinion of this pickup from “okay” to “outstanding”.

[seenoevil II]

Don’t get me wrong, I always love spending money on my guitars. You know, just because. However, I have to ask if you’ve tried raising the bridge pickup on this guitar closer to the strings. If you have done so already, ignore the rest of this post:
A couple of years back, I wasn’t so in love with the bridge pickup (a Wolfetone Meaner P90). To me, it was too honky and nasal without the top end sizzle I wanted through my tweed Tremolux. Then, I put a shim under the dogear mount which brought it up by 1/8 of an inch or so and that (along with a couple of tweaks to my amp’s volume and EQ settings) took my opinion of this pickup from “okay” to “outstanding”.

Thanks for the tip.

I haven't. I'll have to take a look though, because, this is, despite its similarities, not technically a p90. It's mounted at the 4 corners directly into the top with fairly short screws.

This has been somewhat a theme with the Newark street guild line. Underpowered bridge pick ups.

[seenoevil II]

I just wanna add some thoughts here.

My interest in these staple guys stems from their similarity to dynasonic/2000 and not p90s.

Somebody who would likely know is Zhivago who I know has spent time with staple v. Jazzmaster pickups and could comment on the difference.

[wproffitt]

I didn’t read your original post closely enough. I’m sure that either a staple-top type pickup or a dynasonic would sound fabulous in this guitar. Of the two types in question, I’ve only ever played dynasonics (in an old Guild) and they were anything but weak sauce. I’m very curious about staple tops and how they would work out in this application. Hopefully, someone more useful will show up to help out soon.

[seenoevil II]

You're grand.

Dynasonics are epic. Ditto with the old guild experience. Honestly, I'm drawn to staples because they're similar and will fit this guitar without modifications. I realized while checking these out that those pups and this guitar is pretty much a poor man's byrdland.

[seenoevil II]

Update:

So, I got the deal of the century on a SD custom shop staple p90 dog ear for the neck position. That's inbound.

I have to at the very least get a new dog ear cover for the bridge position as I simply can't have one white and one black.

I don't think I'm get another deal like this on the bridge unit, and honestly, I was mostly interested in the staple pickup for the neck position as that's where the big, scooped, cinematic tones live. The bridge is cool too, but it's less of a priority for me tonally.

As you may recall though, the bridge pup on this guitar was always a bit weak sauce for my taste. I'd like something with a bit of heat, and bit of twang or quack. It has to bring some contrast and snarl so that the middle position has a good phasey blend. I find juxtaposition makes for good middle positions.

Honestly, I love my "Duncan designed" VMJM pick ups very much, and the bridge unit is more or less perfect to me. Just a hotter, bigger, less snappy and more woody version of a tele bridge pup. I know they're different form factors, but if I could get closish to there. That'd be great.

my shortlist looks like:

Lollar 50's wind DE
Lollar standard DE
SD Antiquity DE
Fralin
Gibson
errm... I mean, rather obvious choices, but I'm not a p90 expert.