Swineshead Pickups SH90: A Single Coil Pickup Trapped In A Humbucker's Body
Swineshead Pickups has just created the SH90, a single coil pickup built in humbucker housing to fit any guitar that comes originally with standard humbuckers. Guitarists with humbucker guitars can now utilize single coil tone -- though the humbucker housing does lead to more of a tonal hybrid.
Since the SH90 is wider than your normal single coil pickup, it detects a greater length of the strings. This produces a crisp and clear tone with more warmth than you'd get from a standard single coil, but more high end and less bass than a humbucker.
Swineshead recommends using the SH90 in the neck position with a humbucker remaining in the bridge position. This will produce a very versatile setup and great middle position tone. If you want to get more specific, Swineshead recommends that you use one of their humbuckers: either the Condor, Runaway, A.M.P. or Warthog.
The SH90 is reverse wound with reverse polarity. On a 3-way toggle switch, this allows for hum to be sufficiently bucked. However, they will build special order SH90s that are not reverse wound with reverse polarity.
RW/RP
"The SH90 is reverse wound with reverse polarity."
That statement is useless unless you specify to which pickup it is reverse wound / reverse polarity to.
Pickups have magnetic polarity (North or South) and electric polarity (clockwise or counterclockwise). RW/RP merely shows the polarity as relative to another pickup. As pickups from different manufacturers have different polarities, you're just as likely to combine your SH90 with a pickup that has the same magnetic and/or electric polarity as you are with one that is RW/RP.
In this particular case, with no data available as to the exact polarities of the pickups, I'd suggest amending the quoted statement to read something like this:
"The neck version of the SH90 is reverse wound and reverse polarity with respect to the bridge version, to allow for a hum-cancelling effect when both pickups are combined."
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