P90 or Humbucker for Tony Iommi Guitar Tone!
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- In this video I compare a 1967 Gibson SG Special to a Custom Shop Gibson SG Standard. So we're comparing P90 to Humbucker to see which comes closest to Tony Iommi's Black Sabbath Guitar tone! I'm using a 1977 Marshall Super Lead through a 1968 Marshall 1982A for the comparison but we also have references with Laney Super Group and a Laney Klipp Cab, both Goodman equipped.
Treble booster is essential for the sound!!!
Yep.
P90s with a Treble Booster is what it takes.
And playing riffs with the neck pick-up, soloing with the bridge one
johan masson stop spreading that myth, he always played the riffs on the bridge pickup
@@flipflapfungus4958 LOL!
@@DMSProduktions Everything is done on the bridge.
He told it himself.
And if you watch every single live he did, you can clearly see it.
Well it definitely depends on what era of Sabbath tone you’re going for. The early years P90 without a doubt. 80’s to recent stuff is definitely a humbucker. I prefer his early P90 tone though.
totally
I love the look of a P90 mounted on a SG. These soapbars are beautiful.
Love closing my eyes to your comparison videos, to open them right when you stop playing to discover which guitar it was !
I’m really glad to hear that!
Toni Iommi - The Hand of Doom !
Clint will pass away soon. So get ready for it.
Great demo as usual! I closed my eyes during the test and 9/10 couldn’t tell the difference to be perfectly honest. Great tones and sweet riffs my man.
Thanks my friend! Yeah guitars influence more by how they feel to play rather than tone. Cheers
Some people have a lot of ear wax buildup in their ears.
Pre 1975 is p90. Post 75 it was more Humbuckers. As the years rolled on the Humbucker winds got more extreme too. Dallas Range Master with a full range mod is is essential.
So is HI WATT amps.
@@dreyn7780 He never used Hi Watts.
@@cornfilledscreamer614 the dude has played everything.
You’re absurd.
What do you think stay at home millionaires do with their time?
@@dreyn7780 Find me a picture of Tony playing through Hiwatts, and I'll be the first to say I was wrong.
@@cornfilledscreamer614 he's said it himself in video interviews.
You're just using your own knowledge to educate yourself.
THAT was some some fine copywrite infringement avoidance!
the p90's are much more his sound
kinna counterintuitive that the heaviest sound ever would involve single coils
Thanks Vinnie!
Jimi Hendrix says hi
And very light strings.
But yeah, Tony has said he used his red SG on everything up until around 1975. So that's pretty much everything up to Sabotage. If that's the sound you want, then you need P90's, and of course a modified Treble booster.
©opyright.
Not even close.
P90 is tony on training wheels.
He put his name on the pickup he thinks is WORTH BUYING for you, the customer.
You do what sane buyers/fans do and you went and bought them as soon as they were offered for sale. And you NEVER looked back.
Gibson Tony Iommi signature pickups. That’s what you buy.
You don’t muck around with anything else.
This video reminds me of why I have come to embrace single coil pickups more these days. I still love humbuckers and I consider them to be home ground. But, single coils rock hard, especially on a Fender scale guitar.
Tony doesn’t think so. He put his name on the humbucker.
Johan wow! Both are awesome I have vintage les Paul’s also hollow body’s teles strats vintage blackface twin reverb bassman with Cab and a Marshall JVM 410 thru 1960. The one thing I’ve yet to get my hands on is a Gibson with those beautiful P90s I can see getting one by this summer for sure after really hearing the differences which to my ear are smoother sweeter The sound of rock and roll! Thanks for spending so much time money and soul into your channel!!
Thanks JJ, I’m glad to hear that!
Those lead lines are where I can really hear the p90s in the Iommi setup. They have that violin like quality. I wish they didn't make noise though, they hum like crazy with fuzz and drive which makes them hard to use for me. Great video as always!
Thanks, glad to hear it! Yeah the noise of P90s is a dealbreaker for many mixes
It's ok, we all cry sometimes. No need to try and hide it Johan. As for the tone I think the P90's work a little better here. They sound more raw and "dangerous" than the humbuckers. The humbuckers do sound great though. Very focused in the midrange as you would expect. If it was live I'd pick the humbuckers for the noise cancellation and in the studio I'd favor the P90's. Great video!
Thanks!
Where are they this week? With a window and a new cab... Very intriguing!!
Hi, Johan!
My sister is my solo-guitar in my band, and she has 12 SG, all brought by me, because I was playing on ESP and Washburn by demand, taking Fenders for the records and Takamine for work. But she has the really Iommi model (24 frets) and one with p90, but I think, SG has a great sound in all their combinations. The only reason I have no SG is my extra long hands. It's just looks like ukulele with me. So I am playing on the big ones.
But back to the topic: both of guitars are sounds good, and I don't know, I was watching twice, with closen eyes, and it's hard to say, what was what. SG is always SG!:-) Nice guitar!
Have a great weekend, see you!
Zigfrid
Have a great weekend my friend!
To be 'authentic', he needs a LANEY amp as well! Iomi didn'y use Marshalls!
Johan, great playing as always, for me the P90's had the edge on the Humbuckers. Tony Iommi lived not that far away from where I am, Laney also had their production facility in pretty much the same area. Sorry to hear that your suffering from hay fever.
Thanks! Lots of great music from your neighborhood!
Yes that's right, John Bonham was from around here as well.
Great Review (as usual) Johan. I really appreciate your professional approach to keeping everything at constant levels & configurations, and playing the same riffs, so we can hear the differences between the sounds of the equipment reviewed is. You also have a Kick-ass taste in music.
The thing is, I think Mr. Iommi's sound varied over the many albums and tours he did as part of Black Sabbath. How he sounded on the first record vs how he sounded with Dio, vs. his sound on later records I think has a lot of factors to consider ->
Different tunings (standard vs. standard -0.5 vs. standard -1 vs. standard -1.5);
SG vs. non-SG (along with humbucker vs. P-90);
Laneys vs. Marshalls (amps and cabs);
treble booster vs. amp overdrive;
string gauges/brands;
his playing style due to using thimbles on his fingers, etc.
Even if one focuses solely on the early Sabbath records, many of those factors are in play.
So it's really hard to listen here and try and compare because his sound changed in lot of ways over many years. I would say both are somewhat 'Sabbath-y' to some extent.
Thanks, that’s a great summary
Well iommi used laney amps, p90s, a treble booster, and thin strings on all the early sabbath records and live but you are right about the later years being much different. After sabotage he started using humbuckers and around when dio joined his treble booster got tossed by someone I believe and he started to use other amps.
Indeed.
And surprisingly my favourite tone from him has been found between 2007 and 2009, when he started back with Dio on his GH100TI signature amp.
He was using the Rangemaster in it's regular setup on the first two albums. It got modded in '71. Go and listen to shows in '70, and you'll hear that his stuff was actually still pretty clean. Then you'll notice a major difference in '71 - live and very much so on MOR. He actually also recorded MOR with Laney Klipps. Everything else was on the SuperGroup. There was a major sound difference on Sabotage (a lot of it was using the new Birch guitar), but he still used the SuperGroup on that one as well (I actually asked him on his web site about that!). Obviously, there were EQ differences, and definitely different mic placements going on - which they screwed around with on Vol. 4 and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath as well.
When they were recording Heaven & Hell, that's when his Rangemaster was accidentally thrown away! H&H and Mob Rules were all done with Marshalls, and then a lot of Born Again was done on Boogies...
Excellent comparison! P90's are far better and have more clarity in the mids while humbuckers sound muddy. Santana and Toni Iommi had their best times when using P90.
I think the p90s are very distinctive, it's what tony played too!
Johan, Tony STARTED with a STRAT, but it buggered up, so he went to his SG Special!
Later, he had JOHN BIRCH make him several SGs, along with the pick ups! They were a P90 sized hum bucker!
Birch made many guitars also for SLADE during the 70s!
IF you look at MONKEY, it has metal shelled, P90 Hum bucker Birch pick ups!
He did, but I believe the early records had P90’s on them
The recording of Wicked World used the white Strat before it had the bridge pickup die and switched to Monkey.
They were single coils up until technical ecstasy. Simplux in the neck and rewound gibson p90 in the bridge, both in stainless steel John Birch casings. On technical ecstasy onwards they were a John birch Hyperflux in the neck and John Birch Magnum in the bridge, both humbuckers.
@@orokusaki8291 Cool. There was a REASON Dave Hill, & Jim Lea loved them!
They weren’t humbucker sized p90s, they were regular sized p90s but with chrome covers and the neck one was made by birch but iommi never really used the neck pickup anyway
The humbuckers have their characteristic smoother, slightly rounder tonality--even while Johan's got plenty of bite dialed in! But I'm going to up-vote the barky growl of the P-90's on this vid; really sounds great. P-90's truly occupy their own tonal space, and retain a kind of chimey clarity cranked up through those JMP mv Marshalls. With compliments to Johan (and Simon)!
Johan, you are INCREDIBLE!!! Thank you yet again for everything you do !
Wow, supernice comparison, thank you for your effort :) Hard to choose one, all the fans definitely needs both :)
I have Gibson Les Paul Special with P-90's and a CatalinBread SabraCaddabra pedal. Through my Marshall DSL-40C I can get it pretty damn close.
P-90's are the ticket
Omg! I love that 67 special! Excellent demo as usual. Keep up the good work Johan. Cheers.
It depends on which era if sabbath you are going for . On the first 5 albums he used a an sg special with johm birch p90 in the neck and the original gibson p90 in the bridge rewound by john birch for more output and placed inside a john birch casing. In 1975 he swiched to a john birch sg copy which was the black one with the crucifix inlays and it had high output john birch hyperflux humbuckers . They had outputs of over 20k. They were smaller then a full size humbucker but bigger then a mini hum. John birch pickups whether they were humbuckers or p90s had a very unique sound which can be hard to duplicate with standard humbuckers or p90s . I have an iommi signature and the gibson iommi pickups due a decenr job covering thr sabotage onwards sound which was the johm birch humbucker era.
GREAT clip - AGAIN !!!
Thank you very much Johan . . . keep 'em coming !
i thought the p90's sounded closer, especially for the lead guitar parts
Awesome! While I definitely prefer the tone you got with the P90’s, I think the humbucker SG sounded closer to Tony’s sound. Great video all around!
P-90’s all the way. Smoother sounding to my ears.
P90s!
P90s are so versatile!
The P90s have such a compelling tone. The Humbuckers are rounder sounding, but the P90 just has special something.
P90s really work for that tone
Thanks Carlos!
For such a niche channel, you always come up with excellent ideas, Johan!
Thanks, I’m glad to hear that!
It's okay to cry Johan! But P90s are definitely closer.
The SG Standard sounds great, but the Sg Special Is spot on! Tony Iommi' s Monkey SG had an overwound p-90 cast in epoxy resin to avoid squealing! Once again great comparison Johan, cheers!
Thanks Vincenzo!
Love the P90's
Range master plus super trebly amp settings: fuzzed out sustain gtr vol on max, turn down gtr vol slightly so RM isn't clipping for super bright clean(ish) sound
P-90’s are my favorite.
The one with P-90's does sound more early Sabbath. The humbucker sounds smoother. Oh, man, gotta have both!
I'm going to install the DiMarzio Fantom P90. It should be the best of both worlds as it is a noiseless P90 in a standard humbucker format. I'll keep in touch. Thanks Johan for all your interesting videos !
Either humbucker or p90 works for Iommi’s sound. Personally I liked the p90s a bit more, closer to the classic sounds on the first four Sabbath records. I think another factor in his sound was the use of light string gauges due to his famous/infamous injury
I live in Wales and your accent in English sometimes goes into that sing-songy Welsh territory. It‘s a lovely accent and is quite unique... p90s I reckon btw
tks so much for the vid, exactly what i needed
Not crying yet? God, I am. My allergies are really killing me this year. Oh yeah, great sounds too! For definitely-not-paranoid I preferred the humbuckers and it goes back and forth from there. Not a bad sound from either, of course
Thanks, yeah the grass allergy kicked in for real yesterday
Though they are sold as p90s , phat cats by Seymour Duncan are kinda a bridge in between the two distinctive sound. Had them on my epi lp a year ago and still in love with them. Give em a go
I personally Love The 490/498 p/u's in my S G's.It's a very Powerful sound goin; Thru my Engl.And I Love Me sum Black Sabbath and Tony was the guy who taught me how to play.I think a lot of us started out with Iommi's massive Riffs.But to really nail the sound of the First 2 Albums you do need The P90's & a good tremble boost.I will pickup an S G w/ P90's simply because it's a great sound & will fun to really target the Tone of those early albums.BTW great demo=I love how you played in the style of Tony instead of just playing Paranoid or Supernaut-Cheers Nice Demo...
Thanks, I’m glad to hear that, Cheers!
Speak for yourself, not us.
A lot of us didn’t start out like that at all.
Let’s remind you of BACK THEN. Back then MOST PEOPLE went to CHURCH.
Nobody had a telephone. TV’s weren’t colour. Everyone who started playing music WENT TO A PROFESSIONAL MUSIC TEACHER.
P90's all the way..buckers just don't have the growl for it.
I preferred P90s here too
If you raise the pole pieces up, you can get growl out of humbuckers, but not like the p90s
@@TheChadPad voltage louder than current.
I still like the sound of humbuckers for high gain, power chord riffing. But for leads, cleans and almost everything else give me p90’s or single coils
Both were great!
Thanks Michel!
Both sound good
Great sounds! I love the barking, raw tone of a P90. The issue that you face with them is how noisy they are with a high gain amp or distortion pedal. Do you have any words to the wise in terms of mitigating that high noise floor, while keeping all the great nuances of a P90s sound?
Patrick Tracy The volume and tone knob and you’ll need to play with both. Then standing perpendicular to the speaker will cut out feedback even when standing so close, but moving lets you make harmonics just by letting off the strings. Manual noise gate in a way
Thanks Patrick! I think for these riffs the noise of the P90 was manageable, I preferred it too the Humbucker. I think The Oven has a good point in his comment on the mitigation. I’m generally lousy dealing with single coils.
Cripes (!) they both sound so good...
BUT... there's always a but... ha ha
Special's got some kind of smooth magic going on
cheers Johan
Thanks Jonny, the P90s definitely have more balls here. Cheers!
Both sounded awesome, I am just a humbucker type guy
My seasonal allergies are kicking my behind too. I love both pickups, but the P90 holds a special place in my heart. God bless and rock on 😎👍🎸
Thanks brother!
Both sounds very nice but the P90 sounds a fair bit more early Sabbath. Cheers!
There are photos of Sabbath in the studio recording the 'Paranoid' album and Tony is playing his white SG Custom with humbuckers. Most likely because he wanted less signal noise in the studio. I think everything after the 1st album is humbuckers.
Tony says the 1st 4 albums were the Gibson "Monkey" SG, and it had an overwound P90 in the bridge. I've seen the pictures of the Custom as well, but I'm going to take Tony's word for it.
The P90s sound better here. I always feel that, regardless of the pickup, Iommi's guitar lacks the complete Sabbath sound without Butler's bass reinforcing it.
There was a period around 1969-70 when a number of players were doing some of their best work with P90-equipped Gibsons. These included Pete Townsend, Tony Iommi, Carlos Santana and Leslie West. Each of them achieved a distinctive sound using essentially the same pickup. Santana and West achieved two of my favourite guitar tones of all time. Santana used a modified SG Special, and West a Les Paul Junior.
Yeah many classic tones with P90 then
What about his signature pickup?
Designed after Jaydee/Birch pickups. Gibson TI pickups are not conventional humbucker pickups. They sound more powerful and darker too.
@@clem2867 wound to 24k
Humbucker definitely. Has the extra bite needed for his tone.
I definitely think the most underestimated part of Tony's classic tone are the Goodman's Audiom speakers. Apparently it was common in the UK in the late 60s and 70s to swap out Celestions for the Goodman's because of their higher power rating and lower efficiency (seeming to overdrive at "lower" volumes).
Yeah they’re really important from the third album and on in the 70s
Play lots Iommi . More fun then most heavy guitarist , his feedback live is intense just on edge threshold !
Love that P-90 growl!
Thanks Sam
Hey Johan! Great Vid of and comparison! Love both of course!
I've suffered with allergies all of my 64 years, hate pills so turn to natural remedies like local honey and fresh unprocessed food. It helps sometimes! Have a great weekend Brother and Be Well All!
Thanks man, yeah I have some good results from food too. Have a great weekend my friend!
That's it! I always wanted a guitar with p 90s but they a fickle under lights in small clubs. But I love them ever since I saw Neil Young play old black, you know before time began. Ps tell Simon I like his right pants.... on him.
Who else can't stop staring at that bird with the human face in the background.
Not yet at least 😅, that one made me laugh, thanks
Could you do one sometime
With the sg special, treble booster, the supergroup and the goodman’s? If you find them the custom pick ups also would rule
I have 3 stacked Ceramic P90's on my Stock Vintage V6P thought not true P90 roll down the tone you can get that tone the P90's give it a more fuller tone perfect for Sabbath riffs, and those amps would not hurt the neighbours would love me if i had those amps
i love the symptom of the universe riff.
its got massive thrash vibes.
in this video i love the dirt from the p90, personally i would always go for humbuckers because of the noise.
Thanks!
P90s nail it better (though your humbuckered SG sounds awesome). I think this live video gives a good example of the range of Tony's early tone, because it goes from clean-with-an-edge to thicker overdrive via his treble booster: czcams.com/video/iCeG4AKCLrU/video.html
Thanks!
Man, that Laney rig sounded great! Too bad there was only a tiny clip of it in the video....
I prefer the special, has that bite to it!
More heavy sounding than expected by a SG, P90 or humbucker, tak for demonstrationen og god weekend, Johan og good health (Propolis spray on your palete/ roof of mouth for allergier)
Thanks Steffen! Have a great weekend you too!
You nailed it with the p90's fantastic as always did you fall in love with the special it suites you!
Thanks! I did! I’m gonna put a P90 in my SG now!
He has a sig pickup in some epiphone sig guitars🙃🙃🙃 love those amps and savory licks✌✌
Thanks Jason
Hey Johan, would you consider maybe trying a couple of methods of aging tolex, can't seem to find any videos. I want to build a plexi replica with jmp internals, i plan on using it for metal and 70s rock so i need a bit more dirt.
Ask Pleximaster at his CZcams channel. His amps sounds and looks great.
Is it just me, or do the p90s sound more thick/dense? Not that the humbuckers sound bad, they just seem to have a thinner/more highs than the p90s.
My dad told me that in the 80’s he had a Gibson SG that had 24 frets, coil split, vibrola, double humbuckers, and Grover tuners. Someone stole it shortly after he bought it. Obviously no production Gibson has those specs, so if it was a Gibson it had to have been an expensive custom prototype!
Death penalty. At some point there is no other moral option.
Johan, the rock machine!!
P90 forever !
Also .... peaple dont realize alot of that 1st BS album was played on a stratocaster & not a sg .. SO some of the guitar stuff can be done on a stratocaster on that 1st album.
Yeah Wicked World is done with a strat. Then he sounds like Hendrix
For the best sabbath tones you need a combination of gold foil and piezo pickups.
Oh and I prefer the P-90!
It’s a no from me.
Get rid of the BOSS tuner and use a clip on tuner, for vibration tuning.
Only the first short clip sounded like BS. The rest was a mile away from anything tony has done. And I’m judging from a home theatre setup.
Tony’s Gibson signature pickup humbucker makes a sound MUCH BIGGER than all other Gibson pickups.
The only Marshall that comes close is the cascade mod 1959RR. But with unusual cab called mode 4, 400.
Tony’s custom MULTI POLE humbucker is extremely unique. You can easily hear 4 notes form 1 string from THAT pickup.
Definitely the P90's, but you need to treble booster as well Johan.
Well, to me, neither one sounded like Tony. IMO, your tone was better! You were getting an aggressive, crunchy, metallic edge, which was mostly missing in Tony's tones. A quick way to ge5 closer to his tone would be to roll the guitar tone knobs way back, but I don't know if that's what he actually did. Maybe it was the miking technique, post EQ, or whatever. But his old Sabbath tone was always a tease and a disappointment to me. You have improved upon it a lot! I especially liked your "Symptom of the Universe" riff, much more tasty and satisfying than the original. Tony should take lessons from you.
Marshall è e rimane sempre il TOP!. ..... HAIL DI'AUL 😈🐐...,. HAIL THE SABBATH 😇
Bitchin tones! Hope' you feelm better goodsir.
Thanks my friend!
1982 cab has 12h30 speakers, yes?
Yeah it’s got the G12H30 55Hz (T1281) speakers. The Celestion equipped cabs Tony iommi used back then probably had G12H30 75Hz (T1976 or T1217) or G12M25 75Hz (T1221)
How about a shootout comparing feedback potential w/
different pups spkr's, amps, cabs, etcetera
That’s a great idea!
Grass allergy? Shouldn't smoke so much 😁
I'm not sure I actually had a preference here, some riffs I preferred the P90s and others the humbuckers, but early humbuckers essentially sounded similar to a fat single coil pickup anyway.
Hahaha! ;-)
Always got to be humbucker.
Tony had a bizarre set up, which I think worked well in a band set up, but doesn’t sound particularly great playing by yourself. He used Laneys, but the supergroups were basically clones of plexi Marshalls. He used a treble booster, and set his EQ really weird. Bass on zero, mid and treble all the way up. He used an SG with P90s, but later tuned things down to C# standard because of his missing finger tips.
Yeah very bizarre. P90s which are very midrange heavy and on the amp Midrange and treble on 10 with bass on zero WITH a treble booster. I guess he was just getting alot of bass from the amp and cab. Also geezer filled the low end immensely. Goes to show dont be afraid to find your sound even if it's weird on its own
P90
The p90 just screams Iommi. Man it just cuts through, but of course the bucker doesn't sound bad for these riffs! Just different!
What are you listening from? Headphones? TV FROM THE 60’s?
Is that an abominable snowman doll Johan? I want one!
It is! I bought it in Denver!
Considering to put a P90 on my strat, is it a good idea?
If its reversibel it doesn’t harm to try! Let us know how it works out!
P90's Raw
P90's Raucous
P90's Slutty
Humbuckets- nah.
P90 or Humbucker? Germanium Treble booster and normal channel
So you think P90 vs Humbucker is negligible as long as you use a treble booster and the normal channel? As far as I know Tony Iommis Rangemaster was modified for full range boost. It usually doesn’t pay off to be dead sure about stuff, Jack.
@@JohanSegeborn No, but is an essential part of the sound. With p90 is better of course, but you can use humbucker without any problems in my opinion.
Try it with normal channel and rangemaster, trust me
We played a Supergroup halfstack using both channels, with and without a Rangemaster in this video:
czcams.com/video/uy3hw3JZEZY/video.html&app=desktop
@@JohanSegeborn Oh yeah, I remember that video... Nice early black sabbath "fuzzy" tone in normal (bass) channel. This is what I mean. Works good also with humbucker
No Treblebooster, no Iommi..