Some years ago I purchased a Gibson SG Classic with two P90 pickups which was first introduced in 1999. In my teens I used to own a vintage 1968 SG Special also with the same pickups that I traded in for a beautiful Les Paul Silverburst, which however I never really liked. I find Les Pauls too heavy and also I dearly missed the second cutaway when playing solo parts. So I always felt I've made a serious mistake for getting rid of my SG and I always knew that one day I'd purchase another one. So eventually I purchased the SG Classic which is in fact an exact copy of the earlier Pete Townsend signature model.

However when I first tested my new SG at full volume in our rehearsal room the hum and noise the P90 pickups produced was really annoying. The single coil P90 is a remarkable pickup and with its Alnico 5 magnet it is rather powerfull and it places emphasis on the mid and high ends, with a sound that is in between a Fender single coil and a Humbucker. It is an unique sound but in the high volume music I play the hum was simply not tolerable, so I had to decide either to stop using my SG for this purpose or to replace the pickups by humbucker replacement pickups.

I decided to go for the latter and asked my guitar customising shop, ( Vox Humana ) to fit two ( Seymour Duncan P-90 Stack STK-P1 ) humbuckers.

I like Seymour Duncan pickups a lot. Both my Jackson RX10 as well as my Charvel model 5 have pickups produced by them fitted.

Just a few weeks ago I got it back from the shop and to my great relief the new pickups preserved the unique sound of the original P90's whilst being absolutely quiet. With the bright and sparkling sound my SG still isn't very well suited for true metal guitar playing but for (hard)rock style playing like e.g AC/DC it is absolutely fantastic.

Dino