MichaelW
Well-known member
I mentioned in the "What's in the Mailbox" thread that I received my Bootstrap HB90's yesterday.
Took just a little over 4 weeks since I ordered them so, the website's message of 4-ish weeks delivery time has been true for me both times I've ordered.
I still have a regular Bootstrap P90 that I have not put into anything yet as it wound up being an extra pickup with no current project for.
So this is my first experience with Bootstrap. I'd never heard of them until they were recommended by some folks here on the forum.
It's a one man shop, winding pickups in his garage. Ridiculously cheap for a US made, hand-wound pickup. (Like GFS-level prices).
Communication is non-existent. You send your PayPal, you get confirmation, then in a little over a month your pickups show up.
I'm not faulting him for this, he IS a one man shop busy winding very affordable pickups.
I have this one guitar, a Warmoth 7/8 sized Strat that I build over 30 years ago (and it shows hahah). It was my first attempt at building and finishing a guitar (and THAT shows too!) That guitar has worn a lot of different pickup configs over the years, as well as sitting fallow in pieces for probably decades in my closet before I decided to re-build it last year. It's a Warmoth soft maple body (Silverleaf as I recall) and a Birdseye maple neck. Really love the feel of the neck and there's something cool about a short scale F style guitar.
Anyway, what I originally intended to do was make this into a dual P90 guitar (Ala Valley Arts Larry Carlton Signature style).
But unfortunately, there's not enough room on the downsized body for regular P90's. So I had them route the custom pick guard with HB sized holes and I figured I'd just get some HB sized P90s. Well, that turned out to be easier said than done and started a bit of a quest for me to find the most P90-ish HB sized pickups.
There's a lot of folks out there making HB sized P90's, most of them claim that it sounds JUST LIKE A P90 but in HB format. Well, that's mostly BS.
A few of the winders will be honest and tell you that while their versions are "P90-ish" it's not exactly like a P90. (Lollar and Fralin).
Most of the pickups I've either auditioned or listened to just don't have that sweet top end of a P90 and the mid range growl. The closest I've come yet to a set of pickups I've been happy with in this guitar is ironically not the uber boutique guys but from GuitarFetish with their "Mean 90's". It's still not quite it but it's close.
This set of Bootstraps takes it even a little closer. I would say it is "incrementally" more authentically P90 sounding than the GFS pickups.
I was initially a little disappointed with them, as they have a bit of a harsh high end (like the GFS) but the more I'm playing them the more they are growing on me.
My next experiment is to re-wire the guitar with 300k pots, which I just ordered. I have 500k in there now with a .015 PIO tone cap)
If this doesn't quite nail it for me, I may just resign myself to the fact that you really can't quite replicate a P90 in a humbucker form factor. Something about the shape of the bobbins, width of the magnets, depth of the wind, all contribute to that P90 growl and honk and sweet top end that seems to be impossible to reproduce in an HB shape.
If the 300k pots doesn't work, my next great plan is to ditch the idea of P90's and get a Bluesbucker neck and Air Norton bridge and just go Humbucker. (The DiMarzio Bluesbucker claims to sound like a P90 hahahaha, it doesn't but it's an AWESOME sounding "single coil-ish" humbucker).
Cool, milled Corian covers.....
No gut shots, you've all seen my guitar wiring in other posts....nothing new here......
Took just a little over 4 weeks since I ordered them so, the website's message of 4-ish weeks delivery time has been true for me both times I've ordered.
I still have a regular Bootstrap P90 that I have not put into anything yet as it wound up being an extra pickup with no current project for.
So this is my first experience with Bootstrap. I'd never heard of them until they were recommended by some folks here on the forum.
It's a one man shop, winding pickups in his garage. Ridiculously cheap for a US made, hand-wound pickup. (Like GFS-level prices).
Communication is non-existent. You send your PayPal, you get confirmation, then in a little over a month your pickups show up.
I'm not faulting him for this, he IS a one man shop busy winding very affordable pickups.
I have this one guitar, a Warmoth 7/8 sized Strat that I build over 30 years ago (and it shows hahah). It was my first attempt at building and finishing a guitar (and THAT shows too!) That guitar has worn a lot of different pickup configs over the years, as well as sitting fallow in pieces for probably decades in my closet before I decided to re-build it last year. It's a Warmoth soft maple body (Silverleaf as I recall) and a Birdseye maple neck. Really love the feel of the neck and there's something cool about a short scale F style guitar.
Anyway, what I originally intended to do was make this into a dual P90 guitar (Ala Valley Arts Larry Carlton Signature style).
But unfortunately, there's not enough room on the downsized body for regular P90's. So I had them route the custom pick guard with HB sized holes and I figured I'd just get some HB sized P90s. Well, that turned out to be easier said than done and started a bit of a quest for me to find the most P90-ish HB sized pickups.
There's a lot of folks out there making HB sized P90's, most of them claim that it sounds JUST LIKE A P90 but in HB format. Well, that's mostly BS.
A few of the winders will be honest and tell you that while their versions are "P90-ish" it's not exactly like a P90. (Lollar and Fralin).
Most of the pickups I've either auditioned or listened to just don't have that sweet top end of a P90 and the mid range growl. The closest I've come yet to a set of pickups I've been happy with in this guitar is ironically not the uber boutique guys but from GuitarFetish with their "Mean 90's". It's still not quite it but it's close.
This set of Bootstraps takes it even a little closer. I would say it is "incrementally" more authentically P90 sounding than the GFS pickups.
I was initially a little disappointed with them, as they have a bit of a harsh high end (like the GFS) but the more I'm playing them the more they are growing on me.
My next experiment is to re-wire the guitar with 300k pots, which I just ordered. I have 500k in there now with a .015 PIO tone cap)
If this doesn't quite nail it for me, I may just resign myself to the fact that you really can't quite replicate a P90 in a humbucker form factor. Something about the shape of the bobbins, width of the magnets, depth of the wind, all contribute to that P90 growl and honk and sweet top end that seems to be impossible to reproduce in an HB shape.
If the 300k pots doesn't work, my next great plan is to ditch the idea of P90's and get a Bluesbucker neck and Air Norton bridge and just go Humbucker. (The DiMarzio Bluesbucker claims to sound like a P90 hahahaha, it doesn't but it's an AWESOME sounding "single coil-ish" humbucker).
Cool, milled Corian covers.....
No gut shots, you've all seen my guitar wiring in other posts....nothing new here......
