The Clips || The Recording Setup || The Guitar || The Results
P-90 (P90) Pickup Comparison - Rio Grande vs. Harmonic Design
The comparison clips can be found on Soundclick here.
These clips compare tones between the Rio Grande P-90 set - the Jazz Bar (neck) and the Blues Bar (bridge) and the Harmonic Design P-90 set, otherwise known as "VP-90." There are three clips - one each for clean (neck only) overdrive neck, and overdrive bridge. Each clip begins with the Rio, then switches to the HD. I found this to be useful because you can slide the transport button on the player back and forth between the two pickups' clips so the comparison is immediate - for example, :11 and :34 on the clean clip each put you right at the same chord change, but on different pickups. The playing is my usual sloppy stuff, comprised of rhythm riffs intended to show how the pickups respond to full bar chords, 4-string chords and diads, with medium to hard attack.
Long had I searched for replacement pickups for my Heatley Standard, which came with the Rios installed. I felt the neck pickup was too muddy, and overall the set was too high-powered for my needs. I considered Lollars, Harmonic Design and Wolfetones and ultimately settled on the Harmonic Designs (so far).
The clips were recorded with the Line 6 Tone Port UX2, using Ableton Live 5.
The clean model came from the preset titled "'Lux Verb Chorus" which I modified by pulling most of the Chorus out. It has a little bit of the following effects in the model: Standard Spring Reverb, Compressor, and Sine Chorus. It is basically a nice fat clean tone from a blackface Deluxe Reverb. Here's a screen shot of the settings:
The overdrive model is very basic, and represents a tone I use a lot with real amps - I call it "Blacklux Rat" as it is simply the blackface Deluxe Reverb model with the Rat stompbox model. Here is a screen shot of the settings used:
I recorded the Rios, then swapped the pickups and recorded the HDs. I set the pickup heights the same - neck pickup pretty low, bridge pickup pretty high. I left the models exactly the same. I didn't do any processing in Live, other than to cut the clips up and arrange them into three clips of two pickups each.
I have to say, I am totally impressed with the Tone Port and the Ableton Live software. In my somewhat humble opinion, these clips sound very good (sloppy playing aside!). What a fun, easy way to record guitar, build songs, while away the hours. Line 6 really knocked it out of the park with the Tone Port.
This is a fully hollow, carved top and back killer beauty-beast. The top and back are maple, the mid guitar (sides and neck) is carved from one piece of mahogany. The fingerboard is cocobolo. Acoustically the guitar is very bright and articulate, very clean and crisp. For more pics of the guitar, see these at Scott Heatley's site and also my Web Shots area.
I definitely came out of the experience with a renewed respect for the Rios. This test forced me to spend more quality time with them, and I think they sound great. The differences I detected between the sets are not massive - they are nuanced in some cases, and slightly more than that in others. I like the HDs better, at least for this guitar, which was designed to be clean and crisp. I found them to be more articulate, brilliant, complex, and slightly cleaner. The audio clip graph (can't remember what you call that thing) on the computer tells the story as well - the Rios' graph is tight and compact (dense-looking), the HDs' has a lot more peaks and valleys, and is more open-looking. The HDs clearly have a broader frequency range both aurally and visually. Unfortunately the MP3 files don't totally do the clips justice. The wav files (huge size) present more obvious differences. Having heard people say that the HDs are more "hi-fi" and less organic, I was worried they might sound sterile. In my opinion, that is not the case at all. They sound kick-ass. They are warm yet crisp, meaty yet clean - everything I wanted in a P-90 for this guitar. "Vintage Plus" is an appropriate name for the HDs, because they retain the flavor of P-90s that makes them so desirable, yet they go a step further in terms of clarity, brilliance and response.
That being said, the Rios do not suck at all. They are great pickups. They are warm and very organic. I believe some might hear these clips and like them better.
The Clips || The Recording Setup || The Guitar || The Results || Top