Fralin Hum-cancelling P90s with Alnico magnets

[Larry Mal]

Let's call this a dedicated thread for those, I found a set of two more of these on eBay so I now have three of them. That will replace the Gibson P90s in my non-reverse Firebird.

Not entirely sure when I'll get it all done, but I will let everyone know what I think when I do.

[Embenny]

This is exciting, you're systematically ticking off rare and expensive noiseless pickups that I've been wondering about.

[Larry Mal]

I kind of view it as getting some guitars ready for the recording studio I hope to be building in my house whenever I buy one. I'd rather be doing this now than then.

It's possible that noise will be less of an issue there, still, I'd rather be prepared to just plug and play.

These pickups are something of an experiment, but they'll probably be fine. I guess I would prefer a more standard P90 thing but I keep reading that these Alnico ones put the sound at something closer to that of a Jazzmaster pickup, and I prefer Jazzmaster pickups to P90s anyway. Or at least most P90s- I had a set of Joe Barden P90s and they had that chime that they can have.

Most Gibson P90s I find are kind of thick, hot and compressed. Which is OK.

This will be something that I probably have someone else install, though. So, this Firebird came with pretty good pickups but it's got Strat 5 way wiring, which doesn't impress me- not even on Strats. It also has all this coil tapping bullshit that I would never use, it's supposed to tap away some of the P90 coils and make them sound more like a Strat pickup but it doesn't sound anything like a Strat pickup. It sounds terrible.

So I might just hand the whole thing off to someone and have them gut it and put in the pickups and new harness, I might do it all myself, who knows. Either way it'll take some time.

I did ask the Fralin people about what pots and caps they would recommend I use on my ES-330 when I thought about putting some new pickups in there, and they just replied that whatever I had would be fine, which didn't tell me much. So I might research what would be best for these a bit.

[Larry Mal]

This is the guitar in question, already pretty modified by me:





I made everything be gold and fancy, it's all shielded and that is an anodized aluminum pick guard which helps. Still- this is one of those guitars that should be the first thing I reach to but I don't because it's so noisy.

Otherwise I love it, it's got a really nice neck carve that totally works for me and the nut is nice and wide. It's a pleasure to play, I've always loved it for that. Gibson did a great job on these and they were tremendous value.

[kamillebidan]

I just want to say, I have never wanted a Firebird until I saw yours.
What's the routing like under the pickguard? (Also where did you get the andonized black one?)

[Larry Mal]

I dropped this guitar off at the shop today, it'll probably be done by tomorrow. Fingers crossed I like the pickups. I'm sure they'll be fine, maybe great.

Oh, and I'll have my seven way switching on this finally. That always bugged me. I want to be able to use the bridge and neck pickup together on all my guitars, don't see why I can't, maybe because I played Jazzmasters my whole life. So now that weirdness will be eliminated.

The pickguard was handmade for me by Tone-Guard. I had read to not really trust them, and I tried anyway. It's a great guard. The process wasn't terrible. But I had to send in my original pick guard for tracing and he never would send it back or even respond to me after a point.

Probably won't use him again.

The routing, as I recall, is not a swimming pool route, it's routed out to include the P90s in their own separate little areas with a center cutout running down the middle. It was all bare wood under there- not a lick of shielding. "Studio" my ass.

Great guitars, though. Gibson made them under the "Studio" moniker but usually they mean a cheaper guitar, in this case they meant it in the sense that it would genuinely be useful in the studio (if you didn't care how noisy it was from the total lack of shielding). It is- or was- loaded with features, parallel/series switching and coil taps and whatnot. It was supposed to make you feel you could leave your Strat at home.

I never liked any of that stuff, coil tapping has never done anything for me in any situation. The series/parallel might have been useful but I don't know that I ever even had it working, Gibson didn't include a pot at some point and while they sent it out later, it never went in. I was kind of over it.

Great guitar, though. No idea why they quit making them. You can see that I got it in the baked maple fingerboard era, I think that's just great. I love the playability of that guitar and I'm happy to think that it will be more useful to me (hopefully).

[Embenny]

Can't wait to here your review of these pickups! Your NRFB looks amazing, is that Pelham blue or some other shade? I happened to be reading this thread on my laptop when my wife looked over and said, "Oh wow, that's a gorgeous guitar." And it's pretty rare that she spontaneously compliments a guitar. I think she's generally afraid that I'd interpret it as an endorsement for my next purchase.

[Larry Mal]

It is Pelham blue, around 2010 Gibson seemed to realize that they had a classic color that they hadn't done in a long time and it might get people excited and it got me excited and I bought this Firebird and a Les Paul Junior in the same color.

That Les Paul Junior I loved very much, arguably more than the Firebird, I had to sell it. I figured that the Firebird could do the neck P90 thing, anyway. But I do feel that karma owes me another Les Paul Junior.

The Firebird will be done today, I'll go get it.

[Larry Mal]

First impressions are good. They are dead silent, so is the whole guitar now.

They seem to have the power that a P90 would have. Kind of a dark sounding pickup, then again, these are supposed to be P90s.

I think I'm happy. Certainly nothing I feel I need to rip out of there. Not bad.

[Embenny]

Well, first the good: that Pelham blue is absolutely perfect on a Firebird, I don't think I've seen a colour that suits is better.

The not as good: That doesn't exactly sound like a honeymoon phase. I hope they grow on you. Often, I find it takes a bit of time to tweak my settings to get a new set of pickups to really shine. But what little I've heard in the way of sound samples of the Fralins did give me the impression that they're rather dark pickups, which aren't to my general taste.

What's the wiring setup in your firebird? I'm counting three volume knobs. Are they individual volumes or is one a master? There might be an opportunity to brighten them up with some 1k pots and/or a new wiring scheme.

Some pickups are really sensitive to height adjustment, so you might find something you like more by playing with that, as well.

[Larry Mal]

I should mention that I didn't change the pickup height any, I just asked that they be roughed in- I didn't pay for a setup.

I didn't even tune it.

Also, these are the stock electronics in there. I didn't change them.

But the wiring is my favorite part of it now. It has three volume controls and one master tone. It always had that.

Now it has seven way switching, though. For the first time I can get the neck and bridge together. I could also select all three pickups, and then dial the volume of the bridge pickup to like 30%, and dial the middle pickup all the way down, and it's like I have a blend function now. I guess the volume would change, but I'm still very pleased.

I will see what I think of the pickups later. I might A/B them with my Telecaster and see how I feel about them.

[Embenny]

Oh, that's a pretty sweet wiring setup for a three pickup guitar. I didn't realize the pickup heights weren't set.

Odds are good you'll find a sweet spot for them, then. I'm glad they're quiet. It's such a relief when you plug a guitar in, and the only thing you hear are the notes you play.

[Larry Mal]

Here you go- I feel that there will be plenty of high end for me to work with:

https://soundcloud.com/larry-mal/fralin-1/s-ZyrlL8i6urv

Some caveats: this is hardly a dry sound, and it is EQ'd and there is obviously effects on it. I kind of just wanted to dial in a sound quickly that is similar to what I might record with. I did roll off some of the bass on this, but pretty much what I always do anyway, sloping off starting at 200 Hz. There is no compression, though, so whatever dynamic range you hear is what I could do. It's also not really any kind of song or anything, and there's plenty of mistakes in the playing but who cares.

It's the neck and bridge pickup, no middle. The tone knob is dimed.

My feeling is that this has pretty much the high frequency response as the P90s I pulled out. Similar dynamic range. I won't say that these are the same, they weren't supposed to be anyway with the Alnico rods in there. But I don't feel that I traded down much (I might later).

[kamillebidan]

I think the pickups sound good (fx and all), definitely a tad darker than I would imagine a traditional p90, but it's good. I think the trade off for absolute noise reduction is worth it.

[Embenny]

I agree, they certainly sound clear enough that they should do the trick, so to speak. But I find every pickup has its ideal height, so you'll probably need to take a bit of time getting to know them before you find the sweet spot.