Replacing P90 pickup

Hello all,

Soon I am going to be receiving a Gibson/Epi SG Jr. Its the standard layout with the dogear P90 pickup. I was curious to see/know if it is possible to replace this with a standard humbucker pickup?

Here's a picture..

From what I have seen, the dogear P90's sit on top of the body and don't have crevasses routed like humbuckers do. Is this true? I do not want to route out the body. So is it possible still?

I appreciate any insight. I'm more of a hobbyist and have never really dealt with the innards that much.

thx

biosx

I think PonyOne said it best in this thread, so I'll just quote him here...

Originally posted by PonyOne

"... The cavities aren't actually the size of humbuckers, they're slightly smaller. As pstring noted, these pickups are called P90's. They're an old, early-50's pickup design that tried to get rid of hum and increase output by putting more winds of wire in the pickup than a standard single coil. Because of this they have a fatter, chunkier sound that's best suited to blues, rockabilly, classic rock and blues-rock rather than prog-metal. The cavities will also fit mini-humbuckers: they work just like a normal hum, but are smaller (neat, huh?). They tend to have a really nasty snarl to them when cranked with high gain that's great for all types of rock and beg to be shredded but still come off nice and warm when played clean.

If you want to keep it original you could buy Gibson replacements. They cost more than Duncan or DiMarzio offerings and are about the same as Rio Grande or TV Jones, but they go over better with purists.

There's been a plethora of discussion on different pickups, and it's probably best to use the forum search to get the most answers to your question. I think at one point I posted something like 6 pages on the merits of different types of pickups.

If I was in your situation, I'd do one of two things....

1) get some really nice Duncan Antiquity P90's, these will probably nail the vintage tone that suits the guitar down pat. They are wallet-busters, meaning that you could buy a reasonably nice guitar for the same cost as a pair (about $150 a pickup)

2) get some DiMarzio Hot Minihumbuckers (I think that's what they're called), which will keep most of the warmth but will give your SG the attitude it needs.

Rio Grandes are really killer pickups... they're made in the Texas badlands and they sound the part. They're best suited to blues, country, and clasic-styled rock, but they can also be used for metal because they have great punch and harmonics. They're kind of pricey though, usually in the $80-$150 range.

Whatever you do don't fall into the temptation of boring the thing out a little to accomodate a full-sized humbucker... there are so many P90/minihum offerings out there that it's just not worth molesting the instrument over. Oh, some links...

http://www.riograndepickups.com
http://www.seymourduncan.com
http://www.dimarzio.com
http://www.gibson.com"...

Use the search icon at the top of the page, annd type in P90 as the keyword. You'll find plenty of good advice.