Hey Tom, Cobra Special setup specs questions

[kingtone]

Tom, or anyone who wants to chime in, I just have a couple of questions on the specs on a cobra special. I have had this one for a bit and never changed anything on it, other than making sure the relief was good, tweaking intonation(back) for elixirs(he used other strings) just very minor tweaks. I bought it pre owned. It has three p-90 pickups. I mainly wanted to know about the height (polepieces to strings) and the polepieces themselves. Do you have a spec for the distance for each pickup? (X/32nds?) I just want to get it back to how it would have left TAG. Also the polepieces appear to have a strange stagger to them...for example the high E pole is very high. Do you put them more flush or is there a certain stagger you use? I have always had bridge pickups fairly flat on humbuckers...I did not want to emphasize extra high end...neck pickups with them slight raised can be ok on some guitars. Just wanted your take on it for the p-90s...Thanks!

[tom]

i run the poles flat on all p90's. i set the bridge pu as high as is comfortable for playing. then set the others so volume balance is good for me. i always like the bridge pu to be a bit louder than the others but that's just personal preference. he may have had the high e raised because it's on the verge of being far enough away from the string so it sounds weak(my main gripe about p90's other than the hum and the mounting screw holes being too close together). i'm actually working on some new p90s since we found some covers that we can put our own pole piece holes in to get them out where they need to be.

[kingtone]

Thanks for the quick reply. I will experiment with the settings a bit. I have a range of distance where I often seem to go according to a balance of tone, output, etc, but I just wanted to hear your take on it before I started tampering with this one.

Sounds interesting about the new p-90s...

On another note can you do the v boost with p-90s and how do you think it would sound? I know it works well with single coils, maybe a bit middy on humbuckers if the pickup is pretty hot. I know the p-90s in mine are pretty hot, do you have, or are you about to come up with a more vintage output version, maybe more like an hf series p-90..?

Many thanks again!

[Rhys]

A set p90s with something like the VA boost would be awesome.

[kingtone]

I am thinking so too! I wish they were humcancelling...not that big a deal though.

I just changed the setup of the poles and height a bit and I think this sounds better and actually a little more vintage than I thought I previously heard. Minor stuff but it just puts more icing on an already tasty cake!

[tom]

i think the booster on p90's would be pretty muddy since they already have so much middle. people after vintage p90's seem to like the p1 in the bridge and p1- in the neck.