My Guitar Obsession is Coming Back...

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My guitar obsession is coming back. I am wanting to replace the P-90 pickups in my custom shop guitar with either mini humbuckers or Lace Alumitones.
In addition to that I am starting to get interested in getting a new guitar. I don't need a new guitar, but I am really desiring to buy one.

My musical instrument obsession stems from when I was little, around seven. I am not sure how I explain it, but it is always pretty strong when it comes on. I spend hours looking into guitars and pickups. The last time it was this strong I designed my current custom guitars. I am very tempted to call my friend once again to get another one made. That or buy another guitar. I hate this because I end up spending hours looking at guitars and conceptualizing my next guitar. Its getting bad.

I would probably want to go for another guitar rather than replace the P90's in the one that you currently own. I think that P90's are amongst the best single coil pickup available. I have no idea of what your next guitar is going to be like as far as shape, electronics layout, construction method and materials used, though I happen to prefer set/ neck through construction with mahogany neck/body, and rosewood fretboard. --With this method, I would use either the above mentioned P90's or AlNiCo humbuckers like PAF's.

Again, I really don't know what your guitar is like, though the routing used for P90's will probably only be able to accommodate mini humbuckers without having to re-rout the cavities to accommodate anything else, and that would limit my choices to either of those two choices.

I really don't like P-90s AT ALL, at least not with this guitar. They have limitations and they are not as clean as the single coils I like...toaster pickups. The guitar is all maple, set neck, three pieces. Les Paul Jr. style.

I am FAR from a guitar traditionalist. I don't like traditional guitars save for ricks, nor do I like metal guitars. I don't like most Mahogany guitars, they make the guitar to heavy. The point of this guitar was to light and bright.

As far as getting rid of the P-90s...they are as good as gone, they are far from my ideal of a pickup. The most likely replacement is going to be alumitones aluma 90s. I always saw the regular p-90s as holdng the guitar back. (Please note, I play clean toned, maple solid bodies when they are made right have a unique tone that is brighter than mahogany solid body guitars. The thing is they need the right pickups p-90s in some ways...are deficient for this guitar, toasters and mini humbuckers are the ideal pickup for this type of design. Traditional humbuckers and p-90s, just don't fit the concept of this guitar.

As far as adjustments I would need to make for mini's...there is not many of them. P-90s and mini humbuckers were designed to fit in the same space within this guitar. Alumitone Aluma 90's are humbuckers that fit in P-90 spaces, but they are unique.

The guitar was designed to "tune in" ideal sounds. P-90s are not really the ideal pickup for that. Toasters work, Mini humbuckers work...but P-90s inconsistencies...well make it difficult to do in a way which I desired.

By the way, the construction of the guitar...All maple body. Two tone, Two volume knobs. No pickup selector switch. Steel barb reinforced maple neck. Reclaimed rosewood neck and binding.

This is a picture of the guitar:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... ID=1026899

Most of the mahogany these days is indeed either quite heavy, which is certainly not bad for sustain, but at the added expense of having to deal with a very heavy guitar , or lightweight, but also soft, which is not good for sustain, and also dampens the HF resonance to the point where the guitar is muddy sounding. If you've played an old 50's Gibson Solidbody, you'll know that the mahogany that Gibson had access to during that era was both lightweight and fairly hard, which made for instruments that were quite bright sounding given the wood used.




That is a nice guitar. The barb reinforced neck should give it a lot of sustain as well. The body shape and the woods used for construction remind me somewhat of some of the instruments made in the early 80's by a Minnesota company called O'Hagan. One of their models was a dual symmetrical cutaway design made entirely from rock Maple, including the fretboard. --They also has a German bead around the edge of the body.

If you want a bright, lively guitar, you should look into finding acces to a metal machine shop and some aluminum billet stock, and making a guitar from that, much like Veleno.

From what I discovered, there is very few guitars out there like this one. The person who made the guitar encouraged me to fool around with pickups until I found the sound I liked. The P-90s were put in more as a stop gap till I found pickups I found satisfactory. The guitar is very much...one of a kind. It was meant to be.

I do love aluminum guitars...they are just very expensive.

Another interesting thing would be to build a guitar with a solid rosewood neck. A freind of mine back home, (Maine) built one with a rosewood neck, however it had a tiny single cutaway body made from a slab section of redwood burl, which made the guitar a bit more neck heavy than a Gibson SG.

Actually I have seen and played guitars with rosewood necks, nothing to write home about. Its not the same as making a body out of rosewood, which has a great effect.

I play guitar. I have a cheap Raptor. Dad has a Stratocaster and only played for a bit then quit. I plan to ask for his guitar, but knowing him, it might be hard to convince him to give me it.
My interest in guitars is mainly limited to playing.

who needs pickups?? lol my obsession is coming back with a vengeance & some quite impressive blistering *ouch*
Is good though.

Neck scale and radius greatly affect your playing. Also, differant woods and guitar construction techniques greatly affect tonality almost as much as differant pickups due to differant resonant properties.

Yup. The more you play the more you begin to appreciate the difference between good guitars and great guitars just based on factors of construction and electronics.

Called my luthier. He wants to make me another guitar. This one is well interesting. Offset mahagony body, bolt on maple neck, ebony fretboard. String through body design with two alnico V mini humbuckers. Scale 24 3/4. Its a cross between a firebird and tele! I love custom/botique guitars!