Metropoulos Forum

i recently bought some BKP90 (P90) Bare Knuckles and was quiet happy of the tone i had with one in bridge position of my 95' Les Paul 54' custom ri.
better than teh stock P90, less output, softer / looser attack , less mids and more high end (more vintage feel in two words) .
the i tried this pu in a SG special 67' ri custom shop but the tone was too thin for that guitar .
maybe the BKP91 could be better for this guitar .

also, i wonder how the Fralin P90's compare to these BKP90, did someone compare them ?

The reason the BK sounds thin in an SG is exactly because the guitar itself is thin, compared to a maple topped Les Paul!
yngwie308

sure that SG sounds different from a Les paul but i have another SG with P90 that sounds different from this one.

i wonder how these 2 pu's sets compare to some original mid 60's to late 60's ones ?

I had a set of Lindy stock bridge and 10% under wound neck pups. The neck and middle positions sounded great, but the bridge was a little thin sounding for my taste. I wanted something more aggresive so I put a stock Gibson P-90 in the guitar. It really fattened the bridge tone up. I'm playing a GOW #14 Les Paul Classic Antique, which came stock with Gibsons "newly designed H-90" a stacked pup (for coil tapping to add thickness to the pups, not a stacked humbucker). The guitar is chambered weighing in at 7lbs 12.8 oz. (This guitar had a disadvantage to begin with being chambered IMHO)

I have not tried the bare knuckles, so I can't give you a comparison between the two. I don't feel the need to try any other P-90 because I am very please with my P-90 tone. There may be something better out there, but I'm happy.

i don't really like the Gibson P90's.
i never heard original 50's and 60's ones in direct but i bet they sound much better, creamier with more complex mids and overtones.

i had one in my 95' les paul custom 54' ri that i replaced with a bare knuckles BKP90.
the sound is better than the stock P90 but a bit too bright for my taste.
it sounds good if i back off the tone pot a bit on that les paul but the BKP90 didn't sound good in my 99' SG special 67' custom shop ri special order; too thin (not enough mids) !!
the stock gibson P90 sound better in that SG than they were in the les paul custom 54 ri but still not what i look for precisely (the alnico 5 neck pu of the les paul 54' ri is nice though).
too modern sounding,; not creamy enough.
they have those modern pu's stiff mids and not the nice and sweet overtones i find in vintage pu's.

i was wondering about teh BKP91 for that SG special 67' ri but i haven't found any precise infos to compare the BKP90 and 91 !

they write the BKP91 are brighter ( than the bkp90 i suppose) on BK website and i think their BKP90 pu's are already a bit too bright !!
the BKP91 should have more mids though (but also more output !)
it's like the Fralin 7,5/8k humbuckers i bought, they are nice pu's but too bright as well for several guitars, compared to some original pu's ( i put classic 57 in all my gibson guitars at the beginning and was always thinking they were too dull , difficult to find just the sweet spot !) .
i think it can be ok in some dark or dull sounding guitars but not really great in some bright or just balanced sounding guitars.

i still have to find actual pu's i'm totaly satisfied with ! LOL

i heard about Lollar or other ones but i'm kind of tired buying new pu's and never be totaly satisfied with them ( i tried many PAF repros already ) ! LOL