Why Are P-90 Pick-ups not popular?

the fanny bit has caused some hilarity in this house! you should see the face on a new-the-US British girl when being asked if she's got her fanny pack ready. same girl, BTW, who found "ginger" ("red" in the US) hair to be hysterically horrible and funny at the same time.

Greg, didn't know what you meant by the dog reference but after looking it up in Wikipedia it's supposedly an urban legend and the song was not about a dog. I had never even heard that before.

think I'd rather believe it is about a dog. some of the other possibilities are .... scary.

i had a prs soapbar 2. it was alright. good tone most of the time, but you could really hear the extra windings on my cheap amp. like a wire brush, very metallic, very 50s sounding. raw, kind of abrasive, not sweet at all. it has a nice growl if you can find it. but i think the lack of popularity is due partly to the 50s, sort of outdated sound, and part of it is just that there are no p90 guitars that have the popularity of a strat, tele, or lp.
but yeah, a neck p90 is about as nice a sound as there is.

I suddenly realized some time ago that there was another meaning to the old song:
"Little Willy Willy won't go home, well you can't push Willy well, Willy won't go..."
They should use that for an E.D. medicine ad.
:lol:

I automatically go :shock: whenever shaking fannies get mention on here. But the Ginger hair thing in general still has me a little non-plussed..

But I really love P90s and must acquire a guitar with some on. Gassing horribly for a black Eastwood Tuxedo, and have been for some time now. Wouldn't mind a goldtop LP with some soapbars either. And then there's the PRS McCarty with soapbars...nice...

but yeah, a neck p90 is about as nice a sound as there is.

+1 works well in many guitars. very happy I finally kludged one into my main guitar.

Well we have people called Willie here with no problem, but those called Peter or Dick on this side of the pond do have that double-entendre-hubba-hubba connotation.

While working as an entertainer on Cruise ships (30 nationalities were in the work force) I learned the Brit meaning of Fanny, and it made me smile, because when I was in elementary school, the principal's first name was Fanny.

But the P90s over here sound just as nice as the P90s in the UK - I know - I spent a month in the UK and heard some great music while I was there.

As far as I'm concerned, the P90 rules.

Notes

Take the load off Fanny
Take the load for free
Take the load off Fanny....

:roll:

here's the real reason p-90s aren't popular. they were made by gibson, put on the original les paul, and were on all gibson guitars during the early 50s. then they invented the humbucker, and replaced all the p90 guitars with humbuckers.
p90s are still found from time to time because those early les pauls sounded good with them, but in a way, they're like any of the early single coils that went extinct, or nearly so.

here's the real reason p-90s aren't popular. they were made by gibson, put on the original les paul, and were on all gibson guitars during the early 50s. then they invented the humbucker, and replaced all the p90 guitars with humbuckers.<...>

Except for the cheap models like the Melody Maker and bottom-feeder LP models, which gave the public the impression that the P90 was an inferior pickup (after all it was on the low-end guitars). Instead, since Gibson had a patent on the humbucker, they promoted it to increase their market share because it did something that nobody else could do.

In engineering you can't get something for nothing. In order to reduce the hum, you have to compromise the tone, and Gibson figured it was a good trade-off.

At least that's the way I see it.

Notes

i don't think a humbucker's tone is compromised vs a single coil. i just think it's very different and lends itself to different styles. i've had guitars with various single coils, p90s, humbuckers, and one with a mini humbucker in the bridge. i wouldn't say one is better than the other.