p90 backing plate experience?

[dcoyle]

I notice an effect from different backing plates on 8K wind humbuckers, where I feel the fiberback is a little bit more "open", for better or worse.

I was thinking of checking out a fiberback on a p90 to get a little more upper end. While the humbucker has one magnet between two coils and a bit of space on the outboard of the coils where I imagine the the varying magnetic field could impinge on the backing plate and cause eddy currents, the p90 has two magnets directly above the plate and I wonder if they would short/swamp any varying mag field on the backing plate, making the effect of nonconducting backing plate moot (and not worth the trouble of trying).

Any thoughts?

Any experience?

Thanks.

Dan

[Zhangliqun]

Have not tried it, I make my own nickel-silver baseplates for soapbars and don't feel a need to try something non-conductive, in part because to my ear they wound fine but also because P90's are noisy enough as it is!

But a forbon (or whatever fiber) baseplate would certainly be a just a bit brighter than nickle-silver, a lot brighter than a steel or brass baseplate. You might also need to find a way to ground the pole screws, mount screws and magnets to cut down some on the increased noise, but any solution I can think of (shielding) would just slightly darken the tone like a standard baseplate would.

[dcoyle]

Thank you Zhangligun, for your thoughts.

Yeah, I guess by definition, one would have to say p90's sound just fine with brass, as that's what Gibson used, but I find it interesting you bother to use nickle-silver. Do have a characterization of what you hear different from brass vrs Ni-Ag backed p90's?

When I want to ground free floating metal pickup parts, I fold aluminum foil to 8 layers by an 1/8" wide and try to jam it in place under the case . A bit of 30 ga wire wrap around the end of the folded foil, a gentle pliers squeeze and some soft shrink tube on the junction. Good enough for experimenting, anyway.

thanks

[Zhangliqun]

Brass would darken the tone more than nickel-silver. I even experimented with a steel baseplate but it darkened a bit too much on the particular wind I tried, though it might work with a low wind bridge with A5 mags.

Thank you Zhangligun, for your thoughts.

Yeah, I guess by definition, one would have to say p90's sound just fine with brass, as that's what Gibson used, but I find it interesting you bother to use nickle-silver. Do have a characterization of what you hear different from brass vrs Ni-Ag backed p90's?

When I want to ground free floating metal pickup parts, I fold aluminum foil to 8 layers by an 1/8" wide and try to jam it in place under the case . A bit of 30 ga wire wrap around the end of the folded foil, a gentle pliers squeeze and some soft shrink tube on the junction. Good enough for experimenting, anyway.

thanks