“Enjoy thick and edgy P-90 tones without major surgery”: Seymour Duncan might have just changed P-90 pickups forever with its noiseless Phat Cat Silencers
The humbucker-sized pickups offer all the tonal qualities of P-90s without extraneous noise at high-gain settings
(Image credit: Seymour Duncan)
Seymour Duncan has announced the release of its noiseless P-90 humbucker set, the Phat Cat Silencer.
The pickup set marries the firm’s P-90 Silencer design with its Phat Cat humbuckers to deliver authentic P-90 tones without any extra hum.
While the concept of noiseless P-90s isn't groundbreaking, their delivery in a standard humbucker-sized housing is, meaning any humbucker-equipped guitar can be easily modded to fit them.
The pickup wizards say its latest invention is “perfect for those looking to explore the feel and response of a P-90 without routing out a guitar”.
P-90 pickups, which serve as a halfway house between the bite of single-coils and the gluttonous girth of humbuckers, have proven hugely popular across punk, rock, and metal.
Everyone from Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong to Loathe’s Erik Bickerstaffe have fallen in love with the hybrid-style pickups.
However, their versatility and tonal charm have often been marred by their tendency to become noisy when used in high-gain contexts. Seymour Duncan also notes that their more compact size “often limits them to purpose-built guitars”.
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The Phat Cat Silencer, then, looks to rectify both those issues. They boast a noiseless nature “without the need of major guitar surgery,” which means guitarists can “enjoy thick and edgy P-90 tones” at their leisure.
Their standardized housing also opens the floodgates of possible guitars that can load them up.
(Image credit: Seymour Duncan)
Players can choose from Vintage and Hot Bridge pickup variations, which are designed to partner up with the Phat Cat Silencer Neck pickup, of which there is only one option.
All iterations are available in nickel and gold finishes. Prices start from $139.
A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.
