Single Coil vs P90 vs Humbucker Pickups

Single Coil Pickups

The Single-coil guitar pickup is the reason why we are all here today. It was tested and tinkered with throughout the 1910s and 20s with the aim to allow guitars to compete for volume in a big band setting. The first commercially available single-coil pickup was designed by Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp in 1931 and featured on the lap steel ‘Frying Pan’ guitar. Today, the formula remains largely the same and is based on some core design principles. A copper coil is wound horizontally around vertically placed magnetic pole pieces. A base and frame (collectively known as a bobbin) stop the coil from shifting in its place. The magnet projects its magnetic field and interacts with the coil to create a current that is connected to any volume and tone pots, and then to the output jack.

Although not the first to build the electric guitar, the illustrious Leo Fender was arguably the most successful guitar builder to market the modern instrument. In 1948, the Fender Esquire was released with one single-coil pickup in the bridge position and a year later, the Telecaster added a second to in the neck position. With these creations, he would ignite the future of guitar playing. Think of players like Jimi Hendrix, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour and John Mayer – there is an almost endless list of incredible, world-renowned guitarists who have developed their distinct tones with the use of single-coil pickups.

Other guitars companies and guitar pickup brands have created their own single-coils, such as Gretsch with the HiLo’Tron, Danelectro with the lipstick pickup or Seymour Duncan, Lollar and TV Jones with their own iterations of the famed design.

Most single-coil-equipped guitars are attributed to rock, blues, indie and folk music and possess a twangy, glassy tone. They sound crisp and bright, with less of an emphasis on midrange frequencies. You can still get excellent hard rock and metal tones with a bit of tweaking, often best achieved when recording music in post production where it’s possible to remove the livelier dynamics in the EQ. If you’re turning up the gain or fuzz through your amp for live performances, consider using compression pedals to keep volume and attack consistent or a noise gate to kill unwanted sound in between notes. Single-coils can get noisy with substantial amounts of distortion diallied in on your amp. Modern “hum-cancelling” designs from the likes of Fender go some way to eliminate the unwanted feedback.

Popular Single Coil Pickups

Humbucker Pickups

While single-coils, as the name suggests, consist of one coil, humbuckers are made using two separate coil pieces housed in the same casing and wired out of phase with one another to ‘cancel out’ hum that is present in the predecessor pickup design. Humbuckers are synonymous with Gibson, the iconic creators of the Les Paul, ES, SG, Firebird, Flying V, Explorer, and many more instantly recognisable guitar shapes housing humbuckers. The first Gibson humbuckers featured a “Patent Applied For” sticker, and so the pickup became known as the PAF. Nowadays, that specific style of alnico 2 humbucker is associated with that vintage, buttery smooth tone.

When shopping for your next guitar, you might come across the ‘alnico’ spec of the guitar’s pickups. Alnico is a portmanteau – as in it smashes together the words aluminium, nickel, cobalt and copper – the elements that form the pickup’s magnet. The quantity of these elements differs based on the alnico magnet, 1 through to 9. The early humbuckers were often made using alnico 2 and 3 pickups. The introduction of the alnico 5 in 1961 allowed for outstanding versatility in shaping both old school tones and the sounds we have become accustomed to as modern guitarists. They offer more focus on midrange frequencies and are characterised by a thick, focused and defined tone.

B.B. King, Jimmy Page, Slash, Eddie Van Halen, Angus Young, Prince, James Hetfield and so many other huge names in contemporary music have pioneered the humbucker sound. Ceramic magnets produce far more output than even the hottest alnico magnets and get you those chunky sounds you’ll find from the likes of Slipknot and other metal bands of the late nineties/early noughties era. Mini humbuckers are a narrower version of the original design invented by Epiphone. These lend their sound to a more articulate, brighter pallette. Most often found on Firebird models, players like Johnny Winter, Scott Gorham, Neil Young and Pete Townshend have all favoured this mini powerhouse at some points in their careers.

A lot of blues, jazz, hard rock and metal players tend to gravitate towards all varieties of humbucker pickups because they are incredibly malleable, allowing you to carve out your own sounds – whether that would be a fat bluesy lead or an aggressive attack. Some might say humbuckers are less dynamic or characterful in their tonal range as single-coils, but their versatility and ease in sculpting a great tone with little hassle are major benefits.

Popular Humbucker Pickups

P-90 Pickups

Technically, P-90s are not its own category of pickup but more of a specialised design philosophy under the broad church of single-coils. Designed by Gibson, they were made to be the go-to pickup for all of their guitars, however the introduction of the humbucker cut that idea short. Othewise known as either soap bar or dog ear pickups in referring to the visuals of the yellow case or triangular ends to the pickups dependent on the models, the P-90 sits in a tonal range somewhere between the classic single-coil and the humbucker. They’re raspy and raw, yet not quite not quite as ‘clacky’ as a single-coil and not as muffled as the humbucker. This is down to a wider, yet shorter bobbin than the average single-coil pickup.

P-90s have a long and varied history in popular music, as the original Gibson Gold Top Les Pauls and early SGs they are most often associated with are highly sought after instruments. Players like Chet Atkins, Freddie King, Tony Iommi, Frank Zappa all experimented with the nuanced P-90 tone. They came into their own during the punk movement as the punchy potential of the P-90 suited this intense style to a tee. They were often utilised in the more affordable Les Paul Junior, which met that punk aesthetic. Johnny Thunders, Mick Jones and Mike Ness got the most out of the P-90s in this era, and later Billie Joe Armstrong and Jim Adkins, who favoured more organic guitar tones to the processed general trends in the late nineties.

What is the Best Guitar Pickup?

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all to soundcraft .There are hundreds of different pickup designs all vying for their own corner of the market. But with this general guide, you’ll be able to identify the intrinsic qualities to the single-coil, humbucker and P-90.

As a rule of thumb, single-coil pickups are best for bright, tonally broad, crisp tones. They add bite to cleans and sound light and agile with a moderate amount of gain. You really can use them for any type of music.

If there were a direct opposite to single coil pickups, humbuckers are it. They sound warm and/or punchy on both clean and overdriven settings and provide a more precise frequency selection. These handle distortion the best of the three detailed here. They’re not ideal for jangly clean tones, but work well for rock, metal and in traditional jazz in particular.

P-90s are a little more unique. They have the grit of single-coils without as much top end. P-90s do a great job of bedding in with a rhythm section of a band, as well as leading the charge on hot solo tones.

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