page_title: P-90
section_title: Varieties
hierarchical_section_title: P-90 / Varieties
caption_attribution_description: Gibson p90 dogear guitar pickup
context_page_description: The P-90 is a single coil electric guitar pickup produced by Gibson since 1946. Gibson is still producing P-90s, and there are outside companies that manufacture replacement versions. Compared to other single coil designs, such as the ubiquitous Fender single coil, the bobbin for a P-90 is wider but shorter. The Fender style single coil is wound in a taller bobbin but the wires are closer to the individual poles. This makes the P-90 produce a different type of tone, somewhat warmer with less edge and brightness. As with other single-coil pickups, the P-90 is subject to mains hum unless some form of hum cancelling is used.
context_section_description: There are three major varieties of P-90 casing:
  Soap bar casing has a rectangular shape and the mounting screws are contained within the coil perimeter, positioned between the pole pieces, between the second and third strings and between the fourth and fifth strings, thus creating an irregular and somewhat unusual pattern. Occasionally they are mistaken for pole pieces, thus sometimes the P-90 is erroneously said to have eight pole pieces. The soap bar nickname most probably comes from its shape and proportions, and that the first P-90s on the original Gibson Les Paul Model of 1952 were white.
  Dog ear is a casing type with extensions at both sides of pickup. These are extensions that hold the mounting screws. Dog-ear P-90 pickups were commonly mounted on Gibson's hollow-body guitars like the ES-330 and occasionally on solid-body models like the Les Paul Junior. The same pickups were also available on Epiphone models (since Gibson was building Epiphone guitars in the 1950s) and the design is best remembered for its appearance on the hollow body Epiphone Casino of the mid to late 1960s.
  Humbucker Casing To install a P-90 in a guitar routed for humbucker pickups (a Les Paul Standard for example), the installer must modify the existing rout in the body.  This may result in aesthetic issues, due to gaps between the body and hardware, or even structural problems, as is the case when re-routing the neck humbucker opening on a Gibson SG guitar. Because of this, pseudo P-90s in a humbucker-sized casing are common (see below).
caption: P-90 dog ear
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