Out of Phase Pickups

[IanHenry]

Has anyone on here reversed the polarity of the magnet in their neck pickup to try and get the "Peter Green" tone?  My understanding is that the individual pickups stay the same when selected on their own, it's only in the middle position that they are affected.  As I rarely play in the middle position at present, I was thinking it might be worth a try,

If anyone has any experience of this I'd appreciate any suggestions.   

[Sgt. Pepper]

3 minutes ago, IanHenry said:

Has anyone on here reversed the polarity of the magnet in their neck pickup to try and get the "Peter Green" tone?  My understanding is that the individual pickups stay the same when selected on their own, it's only in the middle position that they are affected.  As I rarely play in the middle position at present, I was thinking it might be worth a try,

If anyone has any experience of this I'd appreciate any suggestions.   

You can never be out of phase on just one pup, you need two. Can't you connect just ONE of the pups leads backwards and its out of phase when the selector switch is in the middle (both) position? 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Sgt. Pepper

[mihcmac]

 

[IanHenry]

2 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

You can never be out of phase on just one pup, you need two. Can't you connect just ONE of the pups leads backwards and its out of phase when the selector switch is in the middle (both) position? 

I think it's simpler to swap the pickup magnet around so you don't have to re solder anything.

[Sgt. Pepper]

43 minutes ago, IanHenry said:

I think it's simpler to swap the pickup magnet around so you don't have to re solder anything.

How is that simpler than changing 2 solder connections? Don’t the stings need to come off, then messing with the magnets inside the pup? And unsoldering where the cover is grounding the pup?

Edited September 8, 2022 by Sgt. Pepper

[mihcmac]

A humbucking pickup has one magnet and two coils in opposing polarity. A typical phasing switch uses a pickup with 4 wires and a ground. The phasing switch reverses the polarity of one of the coils making them out of phase.  This is the way my SG-X was setup with its very hot ceramic humbucker and when switched on it would get a tone kind of like the mid position of a wah pedal.

This is not what is described in the first part of the Peter Green tone video that I posted above. They just flipped the magnet (end to end) and rotated the pickup.

Edited September 8, 2022 by mihcmac

[jdgm]

Here's the story, via Throbak pickups:

• While playing with John Mayall, Peter Green brought his guitar to Sam Li for a neck pickup repair.
• Sam Li determines that one neck pickup coil needs a rewind.
• Sam Li rewinds the coil with Heavy Formvar wire on hand from a previous Fender pickup repair.
• Inexperienced with pickup repairs, Sam Li rewinds the failed PAF coil in the reverse direction using a record turn table.
• Because of the reverse wound coil, the assembled pickup is out of phase with itself and Peter Green returns the pickup saying it does not sound right.
• In his quest to fix the problem, Sam Li reverses the start/finish wiring of the repaired coil which fixes the internal pickup phase issue but accidentally flips the magnet in the process, causing the neck and bridge pickups to be out of phase in the middle position.
• Not fully understanding the phase relationship, Sam Li also mounts the neck pickup backwards into the guitar as a possible remedy.
• Peter Green picks up the guitar, with Sam Li recounting the episode that, "Since the guitar did not come back, it must be fixed".

For me as a pickup maker, the most interesting tonal details of this story are the reverse wound Formvar wire rewind, changing the signal direction of the rewound coil and the magnet flip. All of these impact the tone of the pickup. Since Sam Li was not well experienced in the phase relationship of wind direction, signal direction and magnet polarity his approach to the repair makes sense given the early days of electric guitar repair and the limited need for rewind repairs.

There are photos of Green playing the LP without the neck pickup, which sort of bears this story out.

Throbak does a PG-style humbucker - https://www.throbak.com/peter-green-paf-pickups.html

Corsa guitars Manalishi pickups - https://corsaguitars.com/product/original-pg-mod-manalishi-pickups/

It's worth noting that for not much more than the price of a set of the Corsas and much less than the Throbaks,  you could buy a Vintage PGM 100 LP copy which is wired with a modern version of the PG mod, Wilkinson pickups and is so good I bought one myself to gig with.  The mid position is the one.  The pickups and sound are amazing IMO.   Incidentally Robbie Krieger used what the called a 'reverse pickup' on the Doors 'Peace Frog' - the introduction. 

Edited September 8, 2022 by jdgm

[Murph]

My '72 Les Paul Recording had a switch for in/out phase from the factory.

And other goodies, too.

 

[IanHenry]

15 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

How is that simpler than changing 2 solder connections? Don’t the stings need to come off, then messing with the magnets inside the pup? And unsoldering where the cover is grounding the pup?

I want to leave the solder and wiring as it is, I don't want any re-soldered joints.

[Sgt. Pepper]

5 hours ago, IanHenry said:

I want to leave the solder and wiring as it is, I don't want any re-soldered joints.

But if you have covered pups (not sure if you do or not) you will have to unsolder/solder where the cover gets soldered.

[IanHenry]

2 hours ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

But if you have covered pups (not sure if you do or not) you will have to unsolder/solder where the cover gets soldered.

No, the guitar in question has uncovered pickups.

[Twang Gang]

Sorry, can't offer any advice as my 2017 LP Standard has a push/pull that I can use to put the pickups out-of-phase in the middle position.  Frankly I don't care for the sound that much and rarely use it.  I don't know what the push/pull is really doing, as it certainly isn't rewinding any bobbins or flipping any magnets around, but it does sound like examples of "out-of-phase" pickups that I have heard.  This would lead me to believe that there is something that can be done quite simply (some sort of filter perhaps?) to get that sound other than reversing magnets and all that.

My point being that maybe a really knowledgeable tech who knows what the push/pull switch does when pulled up, to get that sound, might have a simpler solution than reworking the pickups in the guitar?    

[OrdinaryNimda]

2 hours ago, Twang Gang said:

Sorry, can't offer any advice as my 2017 LP Standard has a push/pull that I can use to put the pickups out-of-phase in the middle position.  Frankly I don't care for the sound that much and rarely use it.  I don't know what the push/pull is really doing, as it certainly isn't rewinding any bobbins or flipping any magnets around, but it does sound like examples of "out-of-phase" pickups that I have heard.  This would lead me to believe that there is something that can be done quite simply (some sort of filter perhaps?) to get that sound other than reversing magnets and all that.

My point being that maybe a really knowledgeable tech who knows what the push/pull switch does when pulled up, to get that sound, might have a simpler solution than reworking the pickups in the guitar?    

It just reverses the electric current flow direction of the pickup involved.

[Sgt. Pepper]

16 hours ago, OrdinaryNimda said:

It just reverses the electric current flow direction of the pickup involved.

That is does, or another way of saying it is it puts it out of phase with the other one.  No matter what way current flows through only ONE pickup it will never be out of phase. You need two pickups to be out of phase.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/pickup-polarity-and-phase-made-simple

Edited September 10, 2022 by Sgt. Pepper

[OrdinaryNimda]

1 hour ago, Sgt. Pepper said:

That is does, or another way of saying it is it puts it out of phase with the other one.  No matter what way current flows through only ONE pickup it will never be out of phase. You need two pickups to be out of phase.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/pickup-polarity-and-phase-made-simple

Yes, that is what I meant.
Great link, these guys are good 👍

You can have pickups In-Phase in a way, that they are NOT hum-cancelling. So, two pickups have the same magnetic polarity and same electric flow direction, making them In-Phase, but not hum-cancelling. (Applies also to 3, 4 and more...) The article does say this too.

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by OrdinaryNimda

[IanHenry]

After trying reversing the magnet in the neck pickup but not reversing the pickup itself (so that it appeared as normal) I found the out of phase sound to be a little half hearted, so I reversed the pickup (as per Peter Green's).  The effect was dramatic to say the least, the neck pickup became super loud because of the placement of the poll pieces I'm guessing, so I had to screw down the neck pickup and raise the bridge one. That had the desired effect but I still didn't sound like Peter Green, I can't think why☺️

The problems that I had with this mod, is when using the middle out of phase position it was a great deal quieter than when using individual pickups and as I wanted to use the out of phase sound for lead work, setting the levels for band practice just became a massive juggling act.  I've now reverted the guitar back to it's original set-up.   

 

[duane v]

Positions 4 and 6 on my L6-S rotary knob put both pickups out of phase..... So it is done through the wiring. 

[Valeriy]

IanHenry, if your humbuckers did not match well in out-of-phase switching for good sound, then just forget about it and return everything back to its place. A good sound from out-of-phase requires a certain correspondence between the Bridge and Neck humbuckers' parameters. Peter Green just got lucky with that with his pickups. In turn, Brian May used out-of-phase for middle and neck pickups more often (including Bohemian Rhapsody), as I understood from one of his interviews. By the way, on my 3-humbucker guitar, the out-of-phase sound from Neck-Bridge positions is also so-so and I almost never use it in this guitar but use more often it in the Neck-Middle.  It remains only to come up with my own Bohemian Rhapsody .

Edited February 1, 2023 by Valeriy

[Dub-T-123]

On 9/10/2022 at 9:36 AM, Sgt. Pepper said:

That is does, or another way of saying it is it puts it out of phase with the other one.  No matter what way current flows through only ONE pickup it will never be out of phase. You need two pickups to be out of phase.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/latest-updates/pickup-polarity-and-phase-made-simple

One pickup can be “out of phase” as described in the Sam Li repair.. remember a humbucker has two coils.

 

We’re also abusing the word phase here when we should call it polarity 

[Dub-T-123]

22 hours ago, IanHenry said:

After trying reversing the magnet in the neck pickup but not reversing the pickup itself (so that it appeared as normal) I found the out of phase sound to be a little half hearted, so I reversed the pickup (as per Peter Green's).  The effect was dramatic to say the least, the neck pickup became super loud because of the placement of the poll pieces I'm guessing, so I had to screw down the neck pickup and raise the bridge one. That had the desired effect but I still didn't sound like Peter Green, I can't think why☺️

The problems that I had with this mod, is when using the middle out of phase position it was a great deal quieter than when using individual pickups and as I wanted to use the out of phase sound for lead work, setting the levels for band practice just became a massive juggling act.  I've now reverted the guitar back to it's original set-up.   

 

You should expect it to be quieter in the middle position. If you’re using a cranked up tube amp like Peter would have then the inherent compression will lessen the volume difference 

[IanHenry]

18 hours ago, Dub-T-123 said:

You should expect it to be quieter in the middle position. If you’re using a cranked up tube amp like Peter would have then the inherent compression will lessen the volume difference 

Yes Dub, I was expecting some volume difference but not as much as I actually finished up with.  I never tried using it in a live scenario because I think getting the levels & tone right would have been just to much of a juggling act as I don't use any pedals.  

[Karloff]

On 9/8/2022 at 6:45 PM, Murph said:

My '72 Les Paul Recording had a switch for in/out phase from the factory.

And other goodies, too.

 

do you still have that LP ?