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Post by antigua on Jan 7, 2020 12:22:03 GMT -5
I bought an Epiphone Casino a few months ago. I was really on the fence about it because I find P-90s a bit too dark to begin with, having an inductance that puts them in the category of "high output" pickups, and on top of that, metal covers which almost certainly weren't nickel silver. But I bought one anyway, because some high profile musicians have made use of Epiphone Casino's over the years. It turns out that neither the stock Epiphone pickups nor some Artec replacements are nickel silver, both causes steep attenuations of treble, and the guitar is a lot darker than I would like. It's a guitar that is essentially two "bad" Tele rhythm pickups. I don't know if the original 60's Casinos that the Beatles played had nickel silver covers or not. A low Q factor isn't so bad when the pickups have a high resonant peak, so I found some Artec P-90's with low DC resistance which also proved to have a low inductance. This is how the neck pickup happens to compare with and without the chrome cover:  Fortunately, the chrome covers can be trade out for plastic covers and the higher Q factor is restored. Unfortunately the Epiphone Casino and Wildkat have a special low profile cover over the neck pickup, and replacements are not real easy to come by, and making matters worse, the pole piece spacing varies by manufacturer and era, so the Epiphone Casino's low Q factor. high inductance state of being is not especially east to fix. I've installed the Artecs, and like the sound a lot better, but the neck pickup is naked at the moment. I've ordered a few different plastic covers from Amazon, hoping some combination of them will fit properly. They're only $5 to $10 apiece, fortunately. When it's all done with, I will like the guitar 100% better, I even think I will prefer the look of black plastic covers to the stock chrome covers, which would match with the black head stock. Here are measurements of the two sets. Note that both pickups probably have capacitances around 35pF, but the Artec read double because they have shielded hookup wire, where as the Epi P-90's have snipped short leads, because I'm not about to remove the wiring harness through the f-holes to swap pickups in an Epiphone guitar. The Artecs measure 5.5 henries to the Epiphone's 8.8 henries, and the Artec's loaded resonance falls off about ~500Hz higher, though it's hard to tell for sure when such a non discrete peak. A phase plot would probably be very useful for pinpointing the resonance when there is no visible peak like this. Artec Alnico 5 P90 Dog Ear Arched Pickup set Chrome
Bridge ASA93-CR
- DC Resistance: 7.481K ohms
- Measured L: 5.543H
- Calculated C: 81.1pF
- Gauss: 320G
Neck ASA93-CR
- DC Resistance: 7.340K ohms
- Measured L: 5.491H
- Calculated C: 89pF
- Gauss: 320G
Bridge unloaded: dV:-6.5dB f: 9.37kHz (black)
Bridge loaded (200k & 470pF): dV:-5.7dB f: 3.32kHz (blue)
Neck unloaded: dV: 4.6dB f: 3.10kHz (red)
Neck loaded (200k & 470pF): dV: 5.6dB f: 8.46kHz (green) Epiphone 2019 Casino P-90 BHC w/ chrome covers
Bridge
- DC Resistance: 12.281K ohms
- Measured L: 8.880H
- Calculated C: 39.12pF
- Gauss: 400G (AlNiCo )
Neck
- DC Resistance: 12.4K ohms
- Measured L: 8.787H
- Calculated C: 38.53pF
- Gauss: 400G (AlNiCo 5)
Bridge unloaded: dV:-3.1dB f: 9.92kHz (black)
Bridge loaded (200k & 470pF): dV:-4.1dB f: 2.58kHz (blue)
Neck unloaded: dV:-3.7dB f: 9.92kHz (red)
Neck loaded (200k & 470pF): dV:-4.1dB f: 2.58kHz (green)
 Epiphone 2019 Casino P-90 BHC w/ chrome covers   Artec Alnico 5 P90 Dog Ear Arched Pickup set Chrome  |
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Post by stratotarts on Jan 7, 2020 18:15:33 GMT -5
Interesting, I always speculated that all the chrome P90 covers were chromed plastic. I guess that is just a modern thing. Certainly those wouldn't be as durable, so cream or black makes sense. The 6-slotted mod would work on the metal covers, I'm not sure how ugly that would make them though...
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Post by antigua on Jan 7, 2020 18:26:12 GMT -5
Interesting, I always speculated that all the chrome P90 covers were chromed plastic. I guess that is just a modern thing. Certainly those wouldn't be as durable, so cream or black makes sense. The 6-slotted mod would work on the metal covers, I'm not sure how ugly that would make them though... I thought about those cuts, but it would really detract from the look, unless they had been made that way from day one. Would each pole piece need a cut, or just one of them, from pole piece to edge? They sell chrome painted plastic dog ear covers, but not on the short size needed for a Casino or Wildkat. |
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Post by antigua on Dec 6, 2020 14:00:46 GMT -5
Epiphone just came out with a relatively low priced Casino, and it was too good to pass up, so I acquired on, but was once again interested in replacing the stock chrome covers with nickel silver somehow. I found an eBay seller offering them: www.ebay.com/itm/123578616981 and I analyzed the nickel silver replacements, and the stock covers of this new Casino, along with the stock covers of the old Casino, and this is what came up, having the pickups remain in the guitar, so the parallel resistance is 250k and the added capacitance is probably around 100pF, due to the hookup wire.  Summary, no cover gives a good knee, but there's no resonance due to the eddy currents of the screws alone. Then next one -2dB down is the supposedly nickel silver cover, though it's chromed over, which means there's probably a little copper in there for the chrome to adhere to. Then comes the stock cover of the pickups that came stock with the guitar, -2dB, and lastly, the covers that came stock with a Casino I bought last year, about another -1.5dB. The old Epiphone "dog ear" cover that performed the worse is from the OEM pickup maker "BHC", where as the newer stock pickup is apparently a new "Pro P-90", with the part code "P90DENPB-C", and the latter appears to be a much nicer pickup, with a nickel silver base. I don't know for sure whether the cover Pro P-90 was brass or nickel silver, because it's chromed over, and the substrate is probably conductive. So from no cover (or a plastic cover) to the older stock brass cover, the overall 5dB difference is significant to the tone, but the newer stock, but the other cover options have landed somewhere in between, and the benefit of upgrading to nickel silver from brass seems to be smaller, in this case. . The hole spacing of the new nickel silver covers were off by 2mm, I had to dremmel in some extra with, but the end result looked pretty good. Analyzing the pickups in the guitar with Ken Willmott's integrator kenwillmott.com/blog/   |
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Post by antigua on Dec 13, 2020 17:03:28 GMT -5
I'm not totally in love with the black on natural look, even after having lived with it for a few months, but I's still committed to avoiding brass covers, and I found that some nickel silver covers being sold on eBay still known down the Q factor as compared to having no cover, so I found dog ear P-90's for Casinos / WildKats with chrome painted plastic covers...  These pickups have no branding at all, I bought them from here www.ebay.com/itm/P-90-Soapbar-Single-Coil-Bridge-Neck-Pickups-for-Electric-Guitar-Parts-Dog-Ear/202360666811?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649Costing only $16 USD, these are some of the cheapest pickups I've ever bought, nevermind the fact that they're also an awesome solution to a vexing problem with the Casinos and WildKat's metal covers. The only thing that is not awesome is that both neck and bridge are sized like brige pickups, but on my Casino, the top of the pickup still sits below the fret board, so it will work, but having the neck pickup so close to the strings assures that it will have a loud output relative to the bridge. The pole piece spacing is 50mm for the neck and 52mm for the bridge, so at $16, regardless of what you think about the pickups, it might be worth it for the covers alone, which are lightly glued to the pickups, and breaks away just by slightly bending the sides (the dog ears) outwards. A big plus: the base plate has the wings on either side, so you don't have to worry about the glue giving way and the pickup falling into the guitar. The pickups themselves have the hallmarks of Chinese low cost pickups; ceramic magnets and and a very underwound coil. The DC resistance is only 7k ohms, as opposed to the usual 10k ohms, and the inductance is a low-low 4 henries, compared to the usual 8 henries. Where as a typical P-90 has a resonant peak around 2kHz, these will end up around 3kHz. The guass at the pole tops is over 500, compared to 400, being more typical with AlNiCo. Combining the strong magnetic pule and the low inductance means these will sound bright and present compared to typical P-90's, which is not a bad thing, IMO. I'm still not decided whether I want to use these pickups, or just use the plastic covers that came with them. Bridge - DC Resistance: 7.359K ohms - Q @1khz: 1.971 - Measured L: 4.275H - Calculated C: 121.39pF - Gauss: 525G (ceramic) Neck - DC Resistance: 7.067K ohms - Q @1khz: 1.929 - Measured L: 3.884H - Calculated C: 128.72pF - Gauss: 525G (ceramic) |
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jutiel
Rookie Solder Flinger
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Post by jutiel on Feb 16, 2022 8:01:31 GMT -5
Epiphone just came out with a relatively low priced Casino, and it was too good to pass up, so I acquired on, but was once again interested in replacing the stock chrome covers with nickel silver somehow. I found an eBay seller offering them: www.ebay.com/itm/123578616981 and I analyzed the nickel silver replacements, and the stock covers of this new Casino, along with the stock covers of the old Casino, and this is what came up, having the pickups remain in the guitar, so the parallel resistance is 250k and the added capacitance is probably around 100pF, due to the hookup wire. Summary, no cover gives a good knee, but there's no resonance due to the eddy currents of the screws alone. Then next one -2dB down is the supposedly nickel silver cover, though it's chromed over, which means there's probably a little copper in there for the chrome to adhere to. Then comes the stock cover of the pickups that came stock with the guitar, -2dB, and lastly, the covers that came stock with a Casino I bought last year, about another -1.5dB. The old Epiphone "dog ear" cover that performed the worse is from the OEM pickup maker "BHC", where as the newer stock pickup is apparently a new "Pro P-90", with the part code "P90DENPB-C", and the latter appears to be a much nicer pickup, with a nickel silver base. I don't know for sure whether the cover Pro P-90 was brass or nickel silver, because it's chromed over, and the substrate is probably conductive. So from no cover (or a plastic cover) to the older stock brass cover, the overall 5dB difference is significant to the tone, but the newer stock, but the other cover options have landed somewhere in between, and the benefit of upgrading to nickel silver from brass seems to be smaller, in this case. . The hole spacing of the new nickel silver covers were off by 2mm, I had to dremmel in some extra with, but the end result looked pretty good. Analyzing the pickups in the guitar with Ken Willmott's integrator kenwillmott.com/blog/ Hi antigua, all, Sorry for bringing this old thread back to live. Aboout BHC vs P90DENPB, you meant BHC are worst pickups and P90DENPB are much nicer? I bought a used Casino Coupe with BHC and not very happy with them. Found a pair of inexpensive P90DENPB/P90DENPN and was thinking on using as an upgrade, as I'd like to keep the metallic PU cover and 'Casino sound'. |
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Post by antigua on Feb 16, 2022 12:15:45 GMT -5
Hi antigua, all, Sorry for bringing this old thread back to live. Aboout BHC vs P90DENPB, you meant BHC are worst pickups and P90DENPB are much nicer? I bought a used Casino Coupe with BHC and not very happy with them. Found a pair of inexpensive P90DENPB/P90DENPN and was thinking on using as an upgrade, as I'd like to keep the metallic PU cover and 'Casino sound'. The P90DENPB/P90DENPN is a higher quality pickup with about ~1.5dB better treble response than the BHC, which is not much. Honestly, replacing one for the other won't give much audible difference, you can get a similar difference by turning the treble up on a guitar amp. I replaced the covers on my P-90s with faux chrome painted plastic covers to get the maximum treble response out of them. You can but cheap P-90s on Amazon or wherever, then buy the chrome plastic covers from eBay, (I think you might be able to get the chrome plastic covered P-90 with the coils included) and that represents a real improvement of the sound, with about 5dB increase in treble across a broad range above 1.5kHz. |
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jutiel
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Post by jutiel on Feb 16, 2022 17:16:08 GMT -5
Thanks a lot. I'd like to keep part of the Casino sound, so I'd probably try the P90DENPx as seem a bit better but keeping the metal cover. I also have a Lollar for the bridge with plastic cover and it's easy to find a plastic-chromed cover for it, so if I find the time for swapping them I'll try all combinations.
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