MM90 PU Replacement Question

[jpoprock]

It's weird that you guys say the MM90 is "meaty", but not hot. Hot really doesn't mean much to me, but "meaty" is nice. However, I can't say the MM90's sound meaty or warm at all. I'd kill to be able to compare yours to mine. Maybe mine are weird? Cuz I'm not that picky!

Also, there aren't any spec's on the MM90's anywhere are there? That would be great. That way I could see the official dimensions, output, etc. Also, are these wired in series or parallel? Thanks!

j

 

[jpoprock]

The mystery has been solved! My buddy took pictures and sent them to Seymour Duncan and got a response back in less than 10 min which was:

"Those are early Duncans. I'm not sure what the neck is but the bridge is a SP90-3. I think the neck would be the sp90-1 vintage."

He sent another email to him asking why they say Seymourized on them, and hasn't heard back yet.

The guy also said that if *I* were looking for a P90 that sounded like these, than I should try the SD Antiquity PU's out, as they would be the closest thing to these pickups.

Here are pix of the PU's btw..

 

[brownpants69]

If I was to route the body of an ASS with a trem for deeper soap bars would the deeper route go through into the trem cavity?

I want one of these guitars so badly, but I wont have a versatile enough guitar with a P90 bridge pickup- its not for me- but the guitar has an Alder body (not bass wood) which is why I would go for this over the humbucker loaded version of the guitar.

Why of why MusicMan can't you have a custom shop!?

 

[jpoprock]

Hey all. I brought my buddy's Deluxe home this past weekend. I also changed the strings on my 69 SG Special and it got ready to rock. My SG needs new frets, but it's playable for rhythm work, no problem. I spent time with my Spider Valve dialing in four sounds that I thought were great, with my ASS LE. I had gigged with these sounds the night before, so I was able to give them a real world test. I made some small adjustments based off of what conclusions I drew from the gig. I now think I have four really good tones for my P90's. One clean, one crunch, one crunch+, and one hi-gain. What more do you need? HA!

So I sat and played my MM90's for a bit and to be honest, I was digging them big time. I think the problem before was that I just didn't have my amp set up right for them. I've got my tones dialed in for P90's now. I have also found that the Presence knob plays a huge role in how this guitar sounds too. I think that the MM90's in this guitar do not really have "balls", nor are they dark sounding (exception being the neck PU.. its muddy). The bottom line is, the MM90's in the bridge position sound even, balanced, and bright. Almost too bright. once I roll my presence back on the amp, it's really great. I still maintain that the middle and neck position on the guitar is just not all that inspiring or usable really. It's just muddy and dark, all the time. It's amazing how bright the bridge is, then to switch and have it be the exact opposite. Strange.

So.. I then fired up my SG Special. This guitar has MOJO all over it man. It looks like rock, is smells like rock, it feels like rock, and it sounds like rock. This guitar has stock Gibson P90's, from 1969. One thing I noticed, was that I needed to increase the presence on the amp. Once I did, it came alive. But what's also funny is that my patches sounded great, yet one in particular sounded completely different with this guitar, compared to the MM90's. and in a good way. The SG's PU's had much more balls and were more aggressive sounding. Yet they still had that underlying single coil sound to them. The Neck PU's were dark, but nothing like the MM90's. The Middle and Neck positions on my SG have all kinds of great tones within. Especially the middle. Super chunky and awesome. The tonal spectrum of these PU's had that perfect mid boost to them. The MM90's were pretty flat, with maybe accents on the mid-highs. I just can't tell you how much I love my SG.

I then went back to the ASS and dialed the presence back down. It immediately sounded good to my ears, just different. Maybe less vintage is the best way to describe it. It sounds great.

Next up was my buddy's '72 LP Deluxe with Seymour modded PU's. Right off the bat it was like, "Woah!" His guitar is very aggressive sounding. Almost like a humbucker. It's got more of a low-mid boost in it's sound than the others. I had to bring up the presence knob on this one, like my SG. One thing that stands out about his PU's, is that they sound compressed. They literally sound like they are being ran to a compressor that is squashing each note. And not in a bad way. The guitar has tons of sustain and meat to it. I think it NAILS that awesome VOX AC30 type tone and chime. His PU's also have an undefinable "overtone" to them that I can't put my finger on. I played it for a while and loved it. It also made certain presets on my amp sound different, but not in a bad way. The character of all three guitars was immediately definable.

So, what I took from all of this was:

2007 ASS LE MM90's:
Bridge - smooth, well balanced, modern sounding, low output, somewhat bright.
Middle - has openness to it, but is muddy overall.
Neck - muddy, not detailed, not all that useful for anything other than jazz.

1969 Gibson SG Special:
Bridge - smooth, low output, vintage sounding, slight aggression, has a single coil overtone, nice mids.
Middle - warm, smooth, open sounding, and very fun to play.
Neck - warm, smooth, darker, very sustainy and usable.

1972 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe w/ modded Seymour Duncans (by Seymour himself!):
Bridge - very aggressive like a HB, more of a low-mid boost, killer rock pu that cleans up great.
Middle - less aggressive, but smooth and fat.
Neck - much louder than the others. Needs the vol rolled back quite a bit. Lots of usable tones.

So, I think in the end, I could probl get by without buying new PU's for my ASS. However, I probably will only because why be "partly satisfied" with the tone and not fully? I'm for sure not going to put a HB P90 in it, or route it out in any way. I'll stick with a PU that drops right in. I maybe buy a Duncan set, or something more boutique.

I definitely can't knock the MM90's. I think they are pretty darn good. They are not "budget" afterthoughts. They aren't quite voiced to my liking, but then again, they are even enough to cover a lot styles pretty well.

I may try to post some sound clips of all three guitars too. If I do them direct to Pro Tools, they will still show off the differences, but they probl won't sound quite as good as the would if I mic'd my amp and did them that way. However, I may not be able to go that route. We'll see.

Thanks!
Jason