R4 Folks:

Do you like them better than 'Buckered TOM guitars? If So, why?
Or if you like both, then what brings you to pull out the P-90s when you do?

I played one of those wraptail standards with humbuckers ala Jeff Beck and prefer this over the stop tp / ABR-1 setup at the moment.

For P-90 sound, I tend to prefer the Juniors (i.e. non-maple capped body) over the R4. :jim

Love mine to death.

And in fact in regards to p90's, they're in ALL of my Gibson guitars.

Its that 50's style LP into hairy cranked tweed that gets me off.

I just love that sound.

I wouldn't say that they're two different animals, but they're definitely two different breeds...

In my opinion, the wraptail is a major part of the equation that sets the R4 apart from other P90 LP's... It's a "feel thing"... It doesn't mean that I wouldn't want an R6, but it would always be second to an R4, to me...

I grab my R4 more often than my R8... Why? The P90's cover more tonal turf, especially when rolling off the volume, yet they can still burn the paint off the walls when cranked... Even when cracked, the P90's seem to be more expressive... In my hands, anyway...

Like other wraptails, their true beauty is in their simplicity... The strings go from the tail to the nut... Plain and simple, and it just WORKS... :salude

It's like the ultimate was reached with the P90's. They could have stopped right there, but NO! "Another row would be easier to sell, no wait! Let's put two coils together!" Then they moved to razor blades and the boat of humanity listed greatly to starboard.

T.B. : you're a foster Bro!!!

http://youtu.be/Eu4-LlEgtQ4

R4 with holmes pickups

Cogswell said:

Do you like them better than 'Buckered TOM guitars? If So, why?
Or if you like both, then what brings you to pull out the P-90s when you do?

Click to expand...

I need new glasses. First time through I read your post as "Do you like them better than Buckethead Toms guitars" and I thought who the f is that?

Love my R4 and my Tele. Never had a Gibson HB w/ TOM but did have a Carvin with such and a Firebird V with mini hums and TOM. They were ok.

Then there was the SG w/ P90s and wraptail. A production Pete Townshend model that was sold to buy the R4.

There's not much ground the R4 can't cover. Through my 5F4 clone it's incredible, through the old Pro Reverb it's sublime.

TT

I have a 96 Les Paul Special with an ABR 1 and Seymour Duncan "vintage soap bar SP90-1" pickups since, well, 1996 and I just very recently bought a Wildwood featherweight R4 with the Wildwood spec'ed under wound p90s. As far as PAF style pickups, most recently I had a G0 with stock burst buckers since 2006, that I recently sold to get funds for the R4.

It did take me a short spell to figure out where my right hand would most comfortably be held with the R4 in comparison with the ABR1 bridge, but I've made a successful transition and now have a consistent position while using both styles.

The guitars are all different, but the R4 definitely has more snap and sustain, and a more twangy character to it. I was looking for the cliche "fat telecaster sound" and I think the R4 takes me where I want to go. This is probably due to the the bridge but also the pickups.

The factory P90 set up on the R4 puts them really close to the strings. This allows a more savage, upper mid pronounced, loud, tone with the volume on 10, and with some overdrive you can get killer Johnny Thunders type sounds. I don't have a tweed, but I imagine that it would give a killer raw bluesy breaking up tweed type of tone as well.

However, I usually go for a cleaner tone for the current stuff I'm playing. I use a Deluxe Reverb handwired clone (a Vintage Sound 22) and get a big, round, slightly edgy, clean sound with lot of presence, with as much snap, chime and twang that I can dial in, if you can imagine what I mean.

Running with a relatively loud amp and guitar volume rolled back gives the p90s a glassy, 3D, complex, chimey type of character that is just amazing, and to me that constitutes the best clean sound I've ever heard in a guitar, and I've had or played Strats, Jaguars, and Tele's. Turning back up to 10 gives me a savage blues tone that crushes everything in its path. The ability to go from that, back to that amazing clean sound is not anything my other guitars can do, including my recently sold G0 (which was a killer guitar by the way and I thought did the PAF thing very well). But also including my 96 Les Paul special, but I think the pickups and electronics (plus 50's wiring) in the R4 are superior. Having said this I set up the Duncans in a lowered position plus tall pole piece style and I get a great clean tone out of them, but those pickups and that set up does not give me the versatility of the R4. On that note, you cannot lower the R4 pickups as they are hard screwed into the pickup cavity.
I hope this helps.

J.D. said:

I played one of those wraptail standards with humbuckers ala Jeff Beck and prefer this over the stop tp / ABR-1 setup at the moment.

For P-90 sound, I tend to prefer the Juniors (i.e. non-maple capped body) over the R4. :jim

Click to expand...

Yep, me too.:salude

I love my R4 it has definitely become my go to guitar, put simply it covers a lot af bases. All I now need to take to my gigs is my R4 :salude

lonesomesheik said:

T.B. : you're a foster Bro!!!

Click to expand...

I appreciate the love mi amigo.

But in truth I'ma' bastige.

In mother Russia I am known affectionately as son of beetch.

@TB : no problemo:spabout
@PetervanDorst : so you ha to carve a bit!

Texas Blues said:

Love mine to death.

And in fact in regards to p90's, they're in ALL of my Gibson guitars.

Its that 50's style LP into hairy cranked tweed that gets me off.

I just love that sound.

Click to expand...

That's kind of what I had in my head- a tweed Deluxe & maybe some slapback but no reverb.

Cogs,

A heads up, but if you go R4, the stock pickups are fairly hot and drive my Tweed Dlx into overdrive almost right away. Once you dial it in though, its pretty damned nice.

id love an R4! i have a wraptail LP and the feel and attack are where its at, IMO...

I think I'd love one!

Mine sounded pretty damn good and had a significantly different offering than humbuckers. She's quite the looker too:

Yes I agree that the R4 really responds to volume so you've got to learn to work those knobs. Middle position cancels any buzz, but you can still get the growl by setting the volume right.

The only other thing that affects things is the bridge and string intonation. I have a Pigtail bridge on mine but really do not care about tiny out of tune stuff in the upper register.