It will also depend on how your polepieces are adjusted. If you have them set so that the screw coils are closer (or further away) from the strings than the slug coils then that will make a difference when you turn the pickups around.
Some people think, the purpose of asymmetrical winding is to produce slightly different resonance frequency in the two coils thus providing wider peak frequency enhancement range overall in the hum-bucker. No. The original purpose of such winding technique is the fact that the metallic mass and therefore the relative magnetic permeability is different in the screw side versus the slug side. The purpose was to bring the two halves to the same inductance level ( measured in Henry) because that matters more than dc resistance. So the slug side-higher in relative magnetic permeability- requires less turns i.e. less dc resistance than the screws side. But even with such asymmetric design, despite of less turns, the slug side is stronger in inductance and higher in Q factor. But you are right with the conclusion regarding tone difference coming from the reversal of screw and slug side. All magnetic guitar pickups designed so that only that string motion is picked up which is perpendicular to the pickup plane. This is why you cannot reverse the phase with such pickup turning inside the coil plane, even if Seymour Duncan promotes this myth about the Peter Green guitar. ( He sells a dedicated pickup for this purpose).
The story of Peter Green's Les Paul revolves around a repair guy not trained to repair guitars. The pickup started working again after the job, but it was out of phase with the other one. The magnet was put the other way round into the pickup (confirmed by @Ed Reynolds earlier in the comments and Seymour Duncan in an interview). This not the 'normal' way of doing it, because only several among Joe Bonamassa's Bursts have this bug (or feature). What also speaks for magnet theory is my own experience. I had the magnet of my neck pickup turned by my local guitar tech once after my request and I ordered a custom set of humbuckers with out of phase mod. The pickup winder placed the magnet the 'wrong' way round on purpose.
If you expressed the ' desired effect ' of doing this, i missed it. I also don't know very many terms, technical, about guitar wiring and that lot... I guess what I'm asking is why do this ? what is the desired effect ?
Hey man, it’s a subtle difference for sure. For the most part it’s not even worth the trouble. I’d only experiment with the direction if I was really unsatisfied with the pickups tone.
If asymmetrical coils lead to different output levels per coil, it would stand to reason that there will be more hum. I have built hybrids using coils from different humbuckers and have always found this to be true. Now DiMarzio has many models that offer dual resonance but the different wire gauges are used for each coil such that they cancel hum. However, they also choose different pole pieces and will even embed additional ferrous material between pole pieces which can create an imbalance in output but it won’t lead to an increase in hum. This is where orientation will make a marked difference. Back to the results, I can’t really tell much of a difference between the orientations. If anything I think the screw coil is producing more output. With the neck pickup it seems the tone is fatter with the screws closest to the neck. Seeing that this wasn’t a blind test my confidence isn’t very highly. This is good news since I’m not going to agonize about this next time I play Frankenstein.
I think it’s not only asymmetrical winding, but just the pole pieces/screws, since moving them closer to a string changes the sound it should also change the sound if that pole piece/screw is moved a bit forwards/backwards 🤔 Thx for the vid btw :D I turned one of my neck PUs around just as a shortcut to have the inner coil active when split instead of the outer one 🙈
I have a HSH "super strat" style Ibanez prestige and I don't turned my pickups but I turned wiring. I mean when I split my SD sh2 jazz, I use the neck side coil and when I split my sh4 jb I use the bridge side coil. Well it sound more Telecaster in split bridge pickup and more Strat in the split 4 and 5 position. If I dont use the split pot it work normaly.
If you want your neck out of phase with your bridge; you take the hot wire & ground wire from the neck pickup and swap them over. The hot wire will initially go to the pickup selector switch and the ground wire will most-likely be soldered to the back of a volume or tone pot, so just find them and swap them over. I mean you'll need a little soldering iron confidence to do that but I just did the mod in around 70 seconds to see what it was like, so an inexperienced person should be able to do it in a few minutes.
An example of a guitar that comes from the factory with the neck pickup rotated would be the Jackson Juggernaut, Misha Mansoor’s signature guitar. This allows selection of the inside and outside coils to be selected in positions 2 & 4 on the five way selector. It keeps the tone difference from being as subtle to allow a wider variety of tones from the guitar. This only really works in a situation where you have a split coil selection.
You don’t need to rotate to do inner/outer coil selection. If you want the other coil of one pick up in a switching scheme, you can just swap it’s north start and south finish wires, and then it’s north finish and south start wires. Then you’ll get the other coil in your split/splits for that pick up but series and parallel settings will still work the same. (Had to do this wire switch myself after following someone else’s triple shot style switching with two push pulls schematic… Finished it and realised the middle position wasn’t humbucking in either single coil mode with both pick ups selected. D’oh. Swapped it around and now it’s inner/outer coils).
This helped me alot. I recently did cheap guitar's wiring, and the middle pickup was scrapped up from another guitar. The 2 and 4 positions were out of phase, and mind you the middle pickup had a ceramic magnet that came off during the work and I stuck it back there without checking the magnet polarity. So I wired the middle pickup wires reversed, thinking that it would solve the problem. It didn't sound out of phase anymore, but I read the resistance waay higher in the middle positions. Now I know why! It's now RWRP in the middle positions. Let's see if we fix that or not!
I recently wound my own humbucker and assembled it on pre-made parts. When I tested it, it worked just fine-by itself. But later, when I added it to a guitar with a single humbucker, the center position was weaker and had a funky sound. I surmised that the homemade pickup was out of phase with the old one. Reversing the magnet would have worked, but I decided to get a new hot rail instead.
Thanks for doing another interesting, video, Kris. HBs are two coils in one, so no matter how you orient the pup it will always have coils under the strings in the same locations. However, some pups have a 'main' coil and a 'dummy' coil where the dummy is weaker than the main. In cases like that, rotating will make more difference. Raising the main coil's pole piece screws can also create more difference between coil signal strength, making the rotation more useful.
When you look at the construction of so-called PAF humbuckers, what’s interesting to note is that the screw pole pieces screw into a metal strip with holes on one side of the magnet and on the other side of the magnet there’s a plastic strip and just regular pole pieces. If they were to use a metal strip instead of the plastic strip, I don’t think that would matter, but what does matter is that the metal strip with the screws probably becomes magnetized by the magnet, which means that it matters for the strings whether the screws are facing the neck or the bridge. The way a pickup works, the magnet magnetizes the strings, and the coils pick up the vibrations through the changing magnetic field when you pluck the strings. If you turn the pickups away from the neck toward the bridge, they might pick up more high end because of that and when the pickups face the neck, away from the bridge, you’ll get a bit more low end.
With symmetrical coils and turned around the focus of the pickup screws is in the brighter area of the strings frequencies being closer to the bridge and one can adjust the height of those pickup screws to get a brighter sound.
The other explanation is that each pickup only has one row of bolts whether the actual coils are wound the same or not and the same applies if one has rails but not both the same or if each have different screws like the Duncan Screamin’ Demon; the direction of a pickup regarding that doesn’t matter if wired with 1-2 others or by itself, but I’ve only noticed the differences recently since I actually bother to stagger the poles like for a Strat but even more extreme for better string volume balance though compressed pickups need staggering less.
In a covered pickup, the pole piece screws are going to be set a little higher from the factory to begin with, so even if the coils are completely symmetrical, the adjustable pole piece side will have stronger output and there will be a noticeable difference in sound depending on its position being closer to or further from the neck or bridge. As you raise the poles this effect becomes even more pronounced. If the adjustable poles are lowered almost completely, there will be little or no noticeable difference if the coils are symmetrical. Of course, it is possible to adjust the poles to virtually negate any sonic difference caused by asymmetrical coil winds but this would be difficult to determine with any certainty. On my PAF loaded guitars I raise the poles a bit to get more clarity and articulation and currently prefer both pickups flipped around for less boomy neck and warmer bridge pickup sounds. The effect is definitely most noticeable with the neck pickup where I have the poles raised the most but also significant with the bridge pickup.
great ! well kris tell me if i'm wrong : maybe the height of screws related to the magnets are in a different distance to the strings if you turn it upside down so theres a mismatch in the balance with the magnetic field and maybe thats why im hearing a weaker frequency balance in the tone when the pickup is turned ?
Thanks for doing the work to show this. I have tried the mentioned fixes to muddy/dark bridge LP pickups (lowering p/u, raising poles), but minimal results really. Turning the pickup around has had the most impact. I'm a believer. I am still considering, however, going with just the bridge p/u but still have the p/u selector and rhythm controls wired in so I can have the rhythm position vol/tone dialed in differently than the treble position on the same pickup. Any thoughts?
It will if the two spools of humbucker elements are differently wired. Different thickness of the wire or the one spool has more wire on it. In other words custom ordered hand wired pickups or really really old hand wired humbuckers can* have an effect being flipped. It can get out of phase either you flip the magnet or switch the wires from hot to ground and ground to hot. I do that with a push push knob so it becomes selectable.
Usually, less bass and bottom when reversed, perhaps pole pieces picking up the picking sound, big example is Gary Moore's Still got the blues Les Paul.
Don’t know much about in phase, out of phase, phase shifting, phase inducers or warp drive but on my LP studio it did ever so slightly brighten the neck pup.
Even if the coils are perfectly symmetrical wrt windings, the different cores will change the inductance of each coil. Slug coils will *generally* have a significantly lower inductance than a screw coil. This will vary the resonant peak of the coil and the output. You can play with different slug/screw geometries to minimize or maximize the differences in the coils and impact the tone.
If the pups are wired in phase, the simplest explanation of physics for tonal changes is the bridge inhibits string vibration, so tones are thinner with higher frequencies giving bite towards the bridge. Wider and fatter towards the neck with more string vibration. Then add in the positioning of the pole pieces that pickup the vibrations in the string path. Poles placed toward the neck are fatter and warmer, towards the bridge they are thinner and treble is emphasized. In the middle pup position you get a nice blend of both for clean rhythm. The poles on each pup are normally positioned to pickup the two extremes for maximum tonal range. Some older pup selector rings used to say treble and bass to differentiate the bridge and neck pups. I tend to favor a hotter bridge pup with a lower resonant frequency to get a fatter lead tone in the bridge.
Coil taps or splits on both Humbuckers can go a long way towards modifying the normal tone path also. The Epiphone Les Paul Modern has a built in phase push pull on one of the tones to get your out of phase tones between the two pups, with coil splits on the two volumes. It's very versatile.
As many would say, the screws adjusts the volume. If you remove the cover you will see that the other poles are way lower. So, if screws are closer to neck, more bass on tone. If the screws are away from the neck, less bass on tone.
I doubt its asymmetrical winding. It's most likely the covers your pickups have on them. The neck pickup was brighter when the exposed pole pieces were flipped closer to the bridge. If you did this same test with a pickup with both sets of pole pieces exposed and the same size (not a standard one with slugs on one side screws in the other) like a dimarzio or something of the sort you'd find that the tone doesn't change at all. How do I know this? Because I wind pickups in both styles and have already tried this test both ways.
Came back here after listening to it couple times.The bridge humbucker does not sound like changeing at all, while the neck kinda gets bit sparkliers, but less lowmid push when flipped. Sounded better clean and worse driven. It was most obvious in middle position. But all in all, nothing drastic. Like the two versus one pickup, there was big difference and I was not expecting that. Here I expect more and it was less :).
No, but it will give you a slight raise in treble on the neck pickup if it is a bit flabby sounding. Most handwound and mid to high end pickups are wound to make the screw-poles slightly hotter than the fixed poles, so rotating the pickups alters tone slightly. p.s. I wrote this before watching the video.
Kris , a question if I may You know I’ve had some issues with arthritis and I’ve dropped down to 9 gauge strings to be able to play without it hurting too much BUT I’ve lost some bite with the thinner strings A litlle thinner tone and the distortion is less growls Any ideas oh wise one 😁😁 I’ll Pay for those silly comments If we ever meet 😁😁 Thanks Man 👍👍
Turn the magnet upside down it changes the sound I got a guitar with P 90s and in the middle position for some reason they canceled each other out so I turn the magnet in the neck which was ceramic to a alnico two and upside down now they work fine
Tim Mills from BKP mentioned, that the old PAF was not only asymetricaly wound, but also the bobins have diffefent size of widings. Flipping those around will make bigger difference. Here it was relatively mild.
I keep my pole pieces backed out about 2mm to get a tone that's a little more aggressive, like a touch of p90 is how it sounds when done right and in my guitar's case when I did some work on the wiring I didn't leave myself enough wire for my bridge pickup so the only way I could fit it in was upside down and I noticed with the raised full pieces being further away from the bridge it sounds less brittle and the high notes I warmer , less ice picky, so perhaps another reason could be people's pole pieces and how they're adjusted as well as how close they are having them to the strings. If I back my pickups down away from the strings before long they just sound like any other humbuckers but when I have them adjusted fairly close to the strings I can hear the difference for sure.
Turning the pickup upside down will not change the phase of the pickup, because you are also turning the magnet over. i.e. north to the top will become south to the top, as well as turning the winding direction around. However, doing that could ruin your hum cancelling effect if you have single coils. Also, the pickups could sound different when turned around because the pole piece heights are different for the treble and bass ends. When you turn them around, the pickups are tuned differently. Another reason could be because the magnets or windings are different in the two coils, and you have swapped their position relative to the bridge or neck.
You nailed the explanation! Pickups with asymmetrical coil windings will sound different when turned around. I’ve had some pickups with virtually no difference and then some with a big difference. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the Peter Green out of phase sound had something to do with the magnet. He turned the magnet around the opposite way or upside down.
Thanks buddy! Yeah, I’m not sure if Peter Green did that mod himself, or if it was a stock feature on that guitar. A “mistake” if you will. 🤷♂️ Could be both and I’m sure someone can tell us the truth.
Okay if you want a cmment this is long but well worth it not my words. I recorded a close friend of mine about greeny the 59 lp. This is his words exactly as he said. Peter bought the les paul from selmers in London late 1965 and used it when he joined the Peter BS. By Christmas 1965. He didnt have it for the 3 gigs with mayall in october 1965 during claptons absence. For those gigs he used his harmony meteor. In late 1967 Greene told me that as well as the les paul he had a les paul special and a les paul melody maker. It is not thought that he used the melody maker peter Bs or mayall. The orientation of the pickup makes no difference to the sound. Early recordings including some of the hard rock album reveal aurally that the pick-ups were in faze. So it was not a factory accident.the neck pickup failed late october early November 1966 and was removed. And rewound by london luthier Sam li. It was replaced briefly in feb 1967.and removed again until early april. I believe it was intentionally put out of phase. Photographs exist os peter playing the guitar during this time when the pickup was removed. And i personally saw it. Dantzig states all solder joints were untouched when he examined it. But this obviously is not true. He also failed to mention that neck pickup had its coax cable replaced by sam li.instead of Gibson braided coax li changed it to grey plastic coax. The above information comes from personal observations and conversations with Peter Greenbaum.
Same here. Actually the bridge sounded a tiny bit more nasal when turned around. But nothing serious. The neck was a little more dull turned around. I definitely preferred both of them in their normal direction.
You spin me right round bucker right round, like a record bucker … wait what? Asymmetrical for less volume drop when split… wonder how many folks have added lil boost circuits to more symmetrical pups .. what 3db boost that activates with the same switch that splits the coils… oh so many options. Have a safe week Sir
Hi Kris! I think the main reason they sound different is because when you reverse the HB, the magnetic field is picking up a different part of the string. Similar to when you place your hand neer the bridge or neer the neck. Does it make any sense? Thanks!
Guys I have a humbucker split but I want the coil closer to be neck activated now... Can I just flip the humbucker without resoldering anything? I'm a complete noob at electronics...
Out of phase is what happens between two pickups are wired together wrong. You won't hear out of phase on either the neck or bridge pickup separately. When wired together "wrong" they have to both be turned on to hear that thin quacky out of phase tone.
something I always knew and would tell people, thankfully you have this video to bust the myths! I do hear a slight difference with the bridge pickup, sounds a little bit more strat-like when turned around and the neck a bit warmer sounding. The asymetrical winds is a plausible reason, also maybe the slugs might change that, I saw a few videos on people actually removing the screw slugs to alter pickup sounds. Thanks for sharing this video, well done, sir!
i'm having doubts to whether change my stock PUPS to dimarzio Fred? is it all marketing hype? or does it really makes a difference on how the note is perceived? or should i just invest in a guitar EQ?
Hey, so EQs can’t really be a substitute for a good pickup. You know what, the full answer would be too long, I’ll throw your comment in my next Comment Time video.
By simply rotating the PU by 180 degrees, the tone of the guitar will certainly change, but only to that extent in relation to it, because the screws on the PU, which are more protruding in relation to the part under the cover where the coils are, are in a different position compared to the previous one,+pole - piece staggered and that is logical, because the strings do not vibrate the same on every part of their length, and PU will register that. . The point is, it will by no means bring the PU "OUT OF PHASE" - definitely. This happens only by changing the orientation-polarity of the insert-magnet itself - or in some cases by changing the place of the wires during soldering.
Was thinking building a hommage micawbre tellie that way with upside down and all that jazz, but just now my understanding of the whole thing, above ny paygrade. So better leave it alone
As adjusting the height of the pickup (even by just 1/8 of a screw turn!) or the pole pieces yield differences in tone, this may add to the asymmetrical coils in determining a tonal difference. Or it might explain a difference when the coils are actually symmetrical.
It would be great to see this with staggered/non staggered single coils. As left handed player I've had a lot of headaches around this. Your recording sound is killer, one of the bests. Thank you for the great job and vibes Kris!!
I had a no name oem and unknown Dimarzio installed with the poles inward as an experiment which made it out of phase with both on though I think it might have to do with the contrasting tones or wired funny though they were used; maybe someone flipped the magnet, but the tone of one pickup if it had the same design for both coils wouldn’t change the tone much if mounting it in the wrong direction unless you flip the entire pickup around which is obviously stupid if not impossible without routing more.
How did Carvin do it in the '80s with just a mini toggle switch? I own several '80s Carvin guitars (original owner of a late 1984 DC160T). They all have 3 mini toggle switches. The two that are together are for coil splitting (one for the neck, one for the bridge pickup) and the mini toggle switch by itself above the other 2 is the one for our of phase. Just put the pickup selector in the middle for both pickups, and put the mini toggle switch up (toward the player) and you get the Peter Green out of phase sound. No switching the pickup or magnet around.
Reversing the polarity of the two pickup leads (wires) will make it 180 deg out of phase with the other pickup. I unknowingly did this on my first pickup mod and got a nice surprise in the middle position!
If you want to get this "Freddie King/Peter Green/etc" out of phase tone, the proper way to achieve it is by flipping the magnet 180º. Other ways could work or not, or not at 100%.
I am gonna say something and get shit on for it. I FEEL like I hear a nice difference, the neck has less boom and snap but smoother in the reverse position.. by a smidge. The bridge has less bite and chime but again smoother. I think maybe the blend of the two reversed would be least sought after, and a less noticeable difference when toggling but for playability pretty cool to have one guitar with them reversed. Also I’m on my iPhone and don’t really know shit 😂🤦🏼
I made two episodes of that, one for the whole guitar’s wood and one specifically for necks. With very interesting results. 🙂 You’ll find them on my channel (or just search for “Guitar myth-busting Kris” on youtube).
You will ONLY get an 'out of phase' sound with BOTH pick ups ON in parallel! The rest is utter bollocks! 1 pick up needs to be ELECTRICALLY out of phase with another to get that sound! I have it on 1 of my custom SGs, wired to a push pull pot to swap the polarity!
Phase is about electrical wiring, not about magnets. Lots of guitars -- my LP modern, for example -- have switchable phase. The switch can't flip the magnets. it switches the wiring. Peter Green's LP was wired wrong. If the - and + leads of the two pickups get crossed, it'll be OOP. If they agree, it'll be IP. This also means that for most (like almost all) two-humbucker guitars, phase **only matters** when both pickups are in the circuit. You can't hear the differene between a pickup at 180 degrees phase vs the same pickup at 0 degrees. You can only hear the difference when one is 180 and the other 0. If you're hearing a *difference* with a single pickup it's either asymmetry -- or -- difference in spacing so that the magnets don't line up with the anti-node of the string's vibration.
Exactly. That’s why I wanted to show all the combinations of both pickups. First of all to prove the point, that it’s not gonna be out of phase just because you turn it, and also to show if anything changes at all. 👍
Old guitars, like BB King's, came out of the factory out of phase. It was intentional. Not sure of Peter Greens was out-of-phase stock or not, but it's a simple thing to reverse the positive and negative pup wires. BB's known more for his use of the variac switching, but he made a ton of recordings with just the out-of-phase middle position tone.
Full disclosure. My degrees are in Mech Eng. although Electronics has been a large part of my life for over 30 years. And although i have years of plucking strings under my belt, i am in no way a musician. Peters instance has already been covered and im sure everyone here understands the parts and function of a guitar. So... im this conversation the out of phase has more to do with the wiring since the hardware of the pickup remains the same. Its all about impidence here. Impedance for us mericans. Forget about music and electricity for a moment and picture a wave moving through the water as a result of something smacking it. Now, in the path of that wave, add another smacking something. That second wave can build that first wave, add more waves, orrrr take away from that first wave both(either or) frequency and amplitude. Simple as two equal but opposite forces canceling each other out. Back to guitars and electronics. Obviously those waves are the signal and those somthings smacking are strings above the pickups. Or the resulting “phase” in the signal. So just like your pole pieces having the magnet flipped can take away sound, having the wires swapped will result in the same effect. An oscilloscope would be best to explain but the water wave analogy is usually pretty intuitive. And since i know i often dont come across as a present person...i am in no way saying what was said in the video was wrong. I loved it.
![เปิดใจ "อาจารย์เบียร์ คนตื่นธรรม" อดีตเคยสุดทุกทาง ถ้าใช้หนี้หมดไปบวชแน่ l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IxeE0xVhy08/mqdefault.jpg)
It will also depend on how your polepieces are adjusted. If you have them set so that the screw coils are closer (or further away) from the strings than the slug coils then that will make a difference when you turn the pickups around.
Indeed!! 100% true.
That’s one of the most beautiful guitars I’ve seen in some time. Subtle, stylish touches all over it. Congrats to PJD Guitars - the guy has talent!
Some people think, the purpose of asymmetrical winding is to produce slightly different resonance frequency in the two coils thus providing wider peak frequency enhancement range overall in the hum-bucker. No. The original purpose of such winding technique is the fact that the metallic mass and therefore the relative magnetic permeability is different in the screw side versus the slug side. The purpose was to bring the two halves to the same inductance level ( measured in Henry) because that matters more than dc resistance. So the slug side-higher in relative magnetic permeability- requires less turns i.e. less dc resistance than the screws side. But even with such asymmetric design, despite of less turns, the slug side is stronger in inductance and higher in Q factor. But you are right with the conclusion regarding tone difference coming from the reversal of screw and slug side. All magnetic guitar pickups designed so that only that string motion is picked up which is perpendicular to the pickup plane. This is why you cannot reverse the phase with such pickup turning inside the coil plane, even if Seymour Duncan promotes this myth about the Peter Green guitar. ( He sells a dedicated pickup for this purpose).
Just did it and it helped me nail the King Buzzo tone. Very much recommended for high gain players
The story of Peter Green's Les Paul revolves around a repair guy not trained to repair guitars. The pickup started working again after the job, but it was out of phase with the other one. The magnet was put the other way round into the pickup (confirmed by @Ed Reynolds earlier in the comments and Seymour Duncan in an interview). This not the 'normal' way of doing it, because only several among Joe Bonamassa's Bursts have this bug (or feature). What also speaks for magnet theory is my own experience. I had the magnet of my neck pickup turned by my local guitar tech once after my request and I ordered a custom set of humbuckers with out of phase mod. The pickup winder placed the magnet the 'wrong' way round on purpose.
Thanks Ivan! That's exactly what I was hoping to read here. Cheers!
If you expressed the ' desired effect ' of doing this, i missed it.
I also don't know very many terms, technical, about guitar wiring and that lot... I guess what I'm asking is why do this ? what is the desired effect ?
Great explanation. Asymmetrical winding is what you want if you want a good coil split tone. Well done... 🎸
Heard a difference and the explanation makes total sense to me! Thanks Kris! 😊👍
Hey man, it’s a subtle difference for sure. For the most part it’s not even worth the trouble. I’d only experiment with the direction if I was really unsatisfied with the pickups tone.
If asymmetrical coils lead to different output levels per coil, it would stand to reason that there will be more hum. I have built hybrids using coils from different humbuckers and have always found this to be true. Now DiMarzio has many models that offer dual resonance but the different wire gauges are used for each coil such that they cancel hum. However, they also choose different pole pieces and will even embed additional ferrous material between pole pieces which can create an imbalance in output but it won’t lead to an increase in hum. This is where orientation will make a marked difference.
Back to the results, I can’t really tell much of a difference between the orientations. If anything I think the screw coil is producing more output. With the neck pickup it seems the tone is fatter with the screws closest to the neck. Seeing that this wasn’t a blind test my confidence isn’t very highly. This is good news since I’m not going to agonize about this next time I play Frankenstein.
I think it’s not only asymmetrical winding, but just the pole pieces/screws, since moving them closer to a string changes the sound it should also change the sound if that pole piece/screw is moved a bit forwards/backwards 🤔 Thx for the vid btw :D I turned one of my neck PUs around just as a shortcut to have the inner coil active when split instead of the outer one 🙈
Always an interesting post. Thanks Kris.
I have a HSH "super strat" style Ibanez prestige and I don't turned my pickups but I turned wiring. I mean when I split my SD sh2 jazz, I use the neck side coil and when I split my sh4 jb I use the bridge side coil. Well it sound more Telecaster in split bridge pickup and more Strat in the split 4 and 5 position. If I dont use the split pot it work normaly.
Thanks for the video Chris. May you could do a video of "How to go out of phase" with a push-pull like JD Simo uses it all the time!
Thanks Michael! That sounds like a fun idea! 🤩
If you want your neck out of phase with your bridge; you take the hot wire & ground wire from the neck pickup and swap them over. The hot wire will initially go to the pickup selector switch and the ground wire will most-likely be soldered to the back of a volume or tone pot, so just find them and swap them over. I mean you'll need a little soldering iron confidence to do that but I just did the mod in around 70 seconds to see what it was like, so an inexperienced person should be able to do it in a few minutes.
An example of a guitar that comes from the factory with the neck pickup rotated would be the Jackson Juggernaut, Misha Mansoor’s signature guitar. This allows selection of the inside and outside coils to be selected in positions 2 & 4 on the five way selector. It keeps the tone difference from being as subtle to allow a wider variety of tones from the guitar. This only really works in a situation where you have a split coil selection.
You don’t need to rotate to do inner/outer coil selection. If you want the other coil of one pick up in a switching scheme, you can just swap it’s north start and south finish wires, and then it’s north finish and south start wires.
Then you’ll get the other coil in your split/splits for that pick up but series and parallel settings will still work the same.
(Had to do this wire switch myself after following someone else’s triple shot style switching with two push pulls schematic… Finished it and realised the middle position wasn’t humbucking in either single coil mode with both pick ups selected. D’oh. Swapped it around and now it’s inner/outer coils).
This helped me alot. I recently did cheap guitar's wiring, and the middle pickup was scrapped up from another guitar. The 2 and 4 positions were out of phase, and mind you the middle pickup had a ceramic magnet that came off during the work and I stuck it back there without checking the magnet polarity. So I wired the middle pickup wires reversed, thinking that it would solve the problem. It didn't sound out of phase anymore, but I read the resistance waay higher in the middle positions. Now I know why! It's now RWRP in the middle positions. Let's see if we fix that or not!
I recently wound my own humbucker and assembled it on pre-made parts. When I tested it, it worked just fine-by itself. But later, when I added it to a guitar with a single humbucker, the center position was weaker and had a funky sound. I surmised that the homemade pickup was out of phase with the old one. Reversing the magnet would have worked, but I decided to get a new hot rail instead.
Thanks for doing another interesting, video, Kris.
HBs are two coils in one, so no matter how you orient the pup it will always have coils under the strings in the same locations.
However, some pups have a 'main' coil and a 'dummy' coil where the dummy is weaker than the main. In cases like that, rotating will make more difference.
Raising the main coil's pole piece screws can also create more difference between coil signal strength, making the rotation more useful.
When you look at the construction of so-called PAF humbuckers, what’s interesting to note is that the screw pole pieces screw into a metal strip with holes on one side of the magnet and on the other side of the magnet there’s a plastic strip and just regular pole pieces.
If they were to use a metal strip instead of the plastic strip, I don’t think that would matter, but what does matter is that the metal strip with the screws probably becomes magnetized by the magnet, which means that it matters for the strings whether the screws are facing the neck or the bridge.
The way a pickup works, the magnet magnetizes the strings, and the coils pick up the vibrations through the changing magnetic field when you pluck the strings. If you turn the pickups away from the neck toward the bridge, they might pick up more high end because of that and when the pickups face the neck, away from the bridge, you’ll get a bit more low end.
Great video! Thank you for it. Can you tell us what pickups are in this guitar?
With symmetrical coils and turned around the focus of the pickup screws is in the brighter area of the strings frequencies being closer to the bridge and one can adjust the height of those pickup screws to get a brighter sound.
The other explanation is that each pickup only has one row of bolts whether the actual coils are wound the same or not and the same applies if one has rails but not both the same or if each have different screws like the Duncan Screamin’ Demon; the direction of a pickup regarding that doesn’t matter if wired with 1-2 others or by itself, but I’ve only noticed the differences recently since I actually bother to stagger the poles like for a Strat but even more extreme for better string volume balance though compressed pickups need staggering less.
In a covered pickup, the pole piece screws are going to be set a little higher from the factory to begin with, so even if the coils are completely symmetrical, the adjustable pole piece side will have stronger output and there will be a noticeable difference in sound depending on its position being closer to or further from the neck or bridge. As you raise the poles this effect becomes even more pronounced. If the adjustable poles are lowered almost completely, there will be little or no noticeable difference if the coils are symmetrical. Of course, it is possible to adjust the poles to virtually negate any sonic difference caused by asymmetrical coil winds but this would be difficult to determine with any certainty. On my PAF loaded guitars I raise the poles a bit to get more clarity and articulation and currently prefer both pickups flipped around for less boomy neck and warmer bridge pickup sounds. The effect is definitely most noticeable with the neck pickup where I have the poles raised the most but also significant with the bridge pickup.
great ! well kris tell me if i'm wrong : maybe the height of screws related to the magnets are in a different distance to the strings if you turn it upside down so theres a mismatch in the balance with the magnetic field and maybe thats why im hearing a weaker frequency balance in the tone when the pickup is turned ?
Minutiae!
Thank you soooo much for your advice regarding the Empress compressor - it has improved my tone so much also regarding the distortion.
Thanks for doing the work to show this. I have tried the mentioned fixes to muddy/dark bridge LP pickups (lowering p/u, raising poles), but minimal results really. Turning the pickup around has had the most impact. I'm a believer. I am still considering, however, going with just the bridge p/u but still have the p/u selector and rhythm controls wired in so I can have the rhythm position vol/tone dialed in differently than the treble position on the same pickup. Any thoughts?
It will if the two spools of humbucker elements are differently wired.
Different thickness of the wire or the one spool has more wire on it. In other words custom ordered hand wired pickups or really really old hand wired humbuckers can* have an effect being flipped.
It can get out of phase either you flip the magnet or switch the wires from hot to ground and ground to hot.
I do that with a push push knob so it becomes selectable.
Usually, less bass and bottom when reversed, perhaps pole pieces picking up the picking sound, big example is Gary Moore's Still got the blues Les Paul.
Don’t know much about in phase, out of phase, phase shifting, phase inducers or warp drive but on my LP studio it did ever so slightly brighten the neck pup.
You must be a mind reader..I was just thinking if the tone would change..all I can tell it takes the crispness away..great video kris. 2thumbs up.
James, thanks a lot! That’s a nice little coincidence there. 😁
It was wired backwards that gave it the out of phase sound - easy mod :)
This is what dimebag did to his bridge pickup to achieve his sound. It plays such a large part to his sound other than the Randall amps
what did he do
Even if the coils are perfectly symmetrical wrt windings, the different cores will change the inductance of each coil. Slug coils will *generally* have a significantly lower inductance than a screw coil. This will vary the resonant peak of the coil and the output. You can play with different slug/screw geometries to minimize or maximize the differences in the coils and impact the tone.
If the pups are wired in phase, the simplest explanation of physics for tonal changes is the bridge inhibits string vibration, so tones are thinner with higher frequencies giving bite towards the bridge. Wider and fatter towards the neck with more string vibration. Then add in the positioning of the pole pieces that pickup the vibrations in the string path. Poles placed toward the neck are fatter and warmer, towards the bridge they are thinner and treble is emphasized. In the middle pup position you get a nice blend of both for clean rhythm. The poles on each pup are normally positioned to pickup the two extremes for maximum tonal range. Some older pup selector rings used to say treble and bass to differentiate the bridge and neck pups. I tend to favor a hotter bridge pup with a lower resonant frequency to get a fatter lead tone in the bridge.
Coil taps or splits on both Humbuckers can go a long way towards modifying the normal tone path also. The Epiphone Les Paul Modern has a built in phase push pull on one of the tones to get your out of phase tones between the two pups, with coil splits on the two volumes. It's very versatile.
As many would say, the screws adjusts the volume. If you remove the cover you will see that the other poles are way lower. So, if screws are closer to neck, more bass on tone. If the screws are away from the neck, less bass on tone.
No phase just turning mic but I wonder maybe get bit more brighter sound turning neck pickup.
So if you do the Peter Green mod and actually switch the magnet within the pickup , it doesn't matter which way you put the pickup back in the guitar?
I doubt its asymmetrical winding. It's most likely the covers your pickups have on them. The neck pickup was brighter when the exposed pole pieces were flipped closer to the bridge. If you did this same test with a pickup with both sets of pole pieces exposed and the same size (not a standard one with slugs on one side screws in the other) like a dimarzio or something of the sort you'd find that the tone doesn't change at all. How do I know this? Because I wind pickups in both styles and have already tried this test both ways.
Came back here after listening to it couple times.The bridge humbucker does not sound like changeing at all, while the neck kinda gets bit sparkliers, but less lowmid push when flipped. Sounded better clean and worse driven. It was most obvious in middle position.
But all in all, nothing drastic. Like the two versus one pickup, there was big difference and I was not expecting that. Here I expect more and it was less :).
No, but it will give you a slight raise in treble on the neck pickup if it is a bit flabby sounding. Most handwound and mid to high end pickups are wound to make the screw-poles slightly hotter than the fixed poles, so rotating the pickups alters tone slightly. p.s. I wrote this before watching the video.
Dimebag was well known for flipping his pickups backwards he liked the tone
Kris , a question if I may
You know I’ve had some issues with arthritis and I’ve dropped down to 9 gauge strings to be able to play without it hurting too much BUT
I’ve lost some bite with the thinner strings
A litlle thinner tone and the distortion is less growls
Any ideas oh wise one 😁😁
I’ll
Pay for those silly comments If we ever meet 😁😁
Thanks Man 👍👍
i use 11s tuned down to DGCFAD for the same reason and i am happy with the result..
Turn the magnet upside down it changes the sound I got a guitar with P 90s and in the middle position for some reason they canceled each other out so I turn the magnet in the neck which was ceramic to a alnico two and upside down now they work fine
Tim Mills from BKP mentioned, that the old PAF was not only asymetricaly wound, but also the bobins have diffefent size of widings. Flipping those around will make bigger difference. Here it was relatively mild.
I didn’t know that, thanks Stan! Tim knows what he’s talking about. 🙌
I keep my pole pieces backed out about 2mm to get a tone that's a little more aggressive, like a touch of p90 is how it sounds when done right and in my guitar's case when I did some work on the wiring I didn't leave myself enough wire for my bridge pickup so the only way I could fit it in was upside down and I noticed with the raised full pieces being further away from the bridge it sounds less brittle and the high notes I warmer , less ice picky, so perhaps another reason could be people's pole pieces and how they're adjusted as well as how close they are having them to the strings. If I back my pickups down away from the strings before long they just sound like any other humbuckers but when I have them adjusted fairly close to the strings I can hear the difference for sure.
Kris is that a set neck or a screw in neck ,i like that guitar with les Paul/tele neck
Turning the pickup upside down will not change the phase of the pickup, because you are also turning the magnet over. i.e. north to the top will become south to the top, as well as turning the winding direction around. However, doing that could ruin your hum cancelling effect if you have single coils.
Also, the pickups could sound different when turned around because the pole piece heights are different for the treble and bass ends. When you turn them around, the pickups are tuned differently. Another reason could be because the magnets or windings are different in the two coils, and you have swapped their position relative to the bridge or neck.
You nailed the explanation! Pickups with asymmetrical coil windings will sound different when turned around. I’ve had some pickups with virtually no difference and then some with a big difference. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the Peter Green out of phase sound had something to do with the magnet. He turned the magnet around the opposite way or upside down.
Thanks buddy! Yeah, I’m not sure if Peter Green did that mod himself, or if it was a stock feature on that guitar. A “mistake” if you will. 🤷♂️ Could be both and I’m sure someone can tell us the truth.
@@KrisBarocsi One of those “mysteries” that probably shouldn’t be solved.. Just to keep the mystery alive!
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Okay if you want a cmment this is long but well worth it not my words. I recorded a close friend of mine about greeny the 59 lp. This is his words exactly as he said.
Peter bought the les paul from selmers in London late 1965 and used it when he joined the Peter BS. By Christmas 1965. He didnt have it for the 3 gigs with mayall in october 1965 during claptons absence. For those gigs he used his harmony meteor. In late 1967 Greene told me that as well as the les paul he had a les paul special and a les paul melody maker. It is not thought that he used the melody maker peter Bs or mayall. The orientation of the pickup makes no difference to the sound. Early recordings including some of the hard rock album reveal aurally that the pick-ups were in faze. So it was not a factory accident.the neck pickup failed late october early November 1966 and was removed. And rewound by london luthier Sam li. It was replaced briefly in feb 1967.and removed again until early april. I believe it was intentionally put out of phase. Photographs exist os peter playing the guitar during this time when the pickup was removed. And i personally saw it. Dantzig states all solder joints were untouched when he examined it. But this obviously is not true. He also failed to mention that neck pickup had its coax cable replaced by sam li.instead of Gibson braided coax li changed it to grey plastic coax.
The above information comes from personal observations and conversations with Peter Greenbaum.
The only difference I heard was the neck PUP sounded slightly duller. The Bridge no discernible distinguishability?
Same here. Actually the bridge sounded a tiny bit more nasal when turned around. But nothing serious. The neck was a little more dull turned around. I definitely preferred both of them in their normal direction.
@@KrisBarocsi agree!
You spin me right round bucker right round, like a record bucker … wait what? Asymmetrical for less volume drop when split… wonder how many folks have added lil boost circuits to more symmetrical pups .. what 3db boost that activates with the same switch that splits the coils… oh so many options.
Have a safe week Sir
I usually add "series" switching to my guitars.
I think the difference on sounds is more because one side you have the pols exposed and the other you have the pickup cover.
I wants to try this
You are wrong, the Peter Green mod does NOT flip any magnet upside down Homie, it only swings it 180 degrees in the pickup!
Love the guitar in this video. What kind is it.
Thanks! It's a PJD Carey Elite. Check them out, they make insane guitars. The link is in the description box under the video. Cheers!
Hi Kris! I think the main reason they sound different is because when you reverse the HB, the magnetic field is picking up a different part of the string. Similar to when you place your hand neer the bridge or neer the neck. Does it make any sense?
Thanks!
It MIGHT, but it DOESN'T change the phase in relation to the other!
Guys I have a humbucker split but I want the coil closer to be neck activated now... Can I just flip the humbucker without resoldering anything? I'm a complete noob at electronics...
also: adjustment screws catch more disturbance in magnetic field
Out of phase is what happens between two pickups are wired together wrong. You won't hear out of phase on either the neck or bridge pickup separately. When wired together "wrong" they have to both be turned on to hear that thin quacky out of phase tone.
What about Keef's Micawber?
something I always knew and would tell people, thankfully you have this video to bust the myths! I do hear a slight difference with the bridge pickup, sounds a little bit more strat-like when turned around and the neck a bit warmer sounding. The asymetrical winds is a plausible reason, also maybe the slugs might change that, I saw a few videos on people actually removing the screw slugs to alter pickup sounds. Thanks for sharing this video, well done, sir!
Much appreciated Mark! 👍 I’m all about the myth busting. 😅
i'm having doubts to whether change my stock PUPS to dimarzio Fred? is it all marketing hype? or does it really makes a difference on how the note is perceived? or should i just invest in a guitar EQ?
Hey, so EQs can’t really be a substitute for a good pickup. You know what, the full answer would be too long, I’ll throw your comment in my next Comment Time video.
@@KrisBarocsi thanks Kris!
By simply rotating the PU by 180 degrees, the tone of the guitar will certainly change, but only to that extent in relation to it, because the screws on the PU, which are more protruding in relation to the part under the cover where the coils are, are in a different position compared to the previous one,+pole - piece staggered and that is logical, because the strings do not vibrate the same on every part of their length, and PU will register that. . The point is, it will by no means bring the PU "OUT OF PHASE" - definitely.
This happens only by changing the orientation-polarity of the insert-magnet itself - or in some cases by changing the place of the wires during soldering.
Was thinking building a hommage micawbre tellie that way with upside down and all that jazz, but just now my understanding of the whole thing, above ny paygrade. So better leave it alone
Really interesting video, my friend!!
Thanks my dude! Glad you enjoyed it!
Flipping the bridge pickup when youbhave coil split makes it more usable
HI, Chris !!
Strangely, it doesn't work on your guitar. It worked on mine, with 2 completely identical humbuckers.
As adjusting the height of the pickup (even by just 1/8 of a screw turn!) or the pole pieces yield differences in tone, this may add to the asymmetrical coils in determining a tonal difference. Or it might explain a difference when the coils are actually symmetrical.
It would be great to see this with staggered/non staggered single coils. As left handed player I've had a lot of headaches around this.
Your recording sound is killer, one of the bests. Thank you for the great job and vibes Kris!!
dude, you should watch the chris buck video about the peter peter green neck pickup.
Does anybody know how to tell the orientation of the pickup if it's a cheaper pickup with no screws?
The bass response is a bit better imo. It also depends on high the pole screws are specially in singlecoil mode.
It’s not the pickup, it’s the magnet. You spin the magnet 180 and now it’s backwards. That’s the out of phase sound. 🤓
Exactly 💯
@@BeefMalPassado - Any evidence to prove me wrong? No?! Then STFU.
I had a no name oem and unknown Dimarzio installed with the poles inward as an experiment which made it out of phase with both on though I think it might have to do with the contrasting tones or wired funny though they were used; maybe someone flipped the magnet, but the tone of one pickup if it had the same design for both coils wouldn’t change the tone much if mounting it in the wrong direction unless you flip the entire pickup around which is obviously stupid if not impossible without routing more.
How did Carvin do it in the '80s with just a mini toggle switch? I own several '80s Carvin guitars (original owner of a late 1984 DC160T). They all have 3 mini toggle switches. The two that are together are for coil splitting (one for the neck, one for the bridge pickup) and the mini toggle switch by itself above the other 2 is the one for our of phase. Just put the pickup selector in the middle for both pickups, and put the mini toggle switch up (toward the player) and you get the Peter Green out of phase sound. No switching the pickup or magnet around.
@@sopwithsnoopy8779 - Probably with a diode in that switch to reverse the direction of the flow. I haven’t taken one apart, so that’s a guess.
Reversing the polarity of the two pickup leads (wires) will make it 180 deg out of phase with the other pickup.
I unknowingly did this on my first pickup mod and got a nice surprise in the middle position!
What if you use a neck pickup as a bridge pickup? And vice versa ?
That’s simple: sometimes you’ll get great results. Mostly though a neck pu in the bridge position will sound super thin and vice versa.
it is too hard to know listening from here, but I did notice a difference in the middle position. Otherwise, I could not tell a difference.
If you want to get this "Freddie King/Peter Green/etc" out of phase tone, the proper way to achieve it is by flipping the magnet 180º. Other ways could work or not, or not at 100%.
Why not just install a phase switch?
What’s that purple double sided pedal?? 🤔😂
😆 Ohh it’s nothing interesting. Just a cheapo, mass produced pedal. 🤪
@@KrisBarocsi Haha! It's two more weeks on the list for me. Which equals approx. 2 months in real life currently :D
@@fraenkiboii 2 months? If you’re lucky. 😅😅 Fingers crossed buddy! 🤞
Would be interesting to see the same comparison with coil split when you turn around. Nice video by the way!
I am gonna say something and get shit on for it. I FEEL like I hear a nice difference, the neck has less boom and snap but smoother in the reverse position.. by a smidge. The bridge has less bite and chime but again smoother. I think maybe the blend of the two reversed would be least sought after, and a less noticeable difference when toggling but for playability pretty cool to have one guitar with them reversed. Also I’m on my iPhone and don’t really know shit 😂🤦🏼
Surprising how many people dont understand this.
That's true. But hey, we all learn something new every day, right? Hopefully this helps a few players to see and hear it for themselves. Cheers!
@@KrisBarocsi True!
They're probably all flat earthers
@@righty-o3585fricken funny
@@righty-o3585 ...hey, wait! You mean to tell me that although every other celestial body is spherical, our Earth is not shaped like a Frisbee?
Well since we're busting myths, Kris. What about...dare, i say it... tOaN wOuLd?
I made two episodes of that, one for the whole guitar’s wood and one specifically for necks. With very interesting results. 🙂 You’ll find them on my channel (or just search for “Guitar myth-busting Kris” on youtube).
You will ONLY get an 'out of phase' sound with BOTH pick ups ON in parallel! The rest is utter bollocks! 1 pick up needs to be ELECTRICALLY out of phase with another to get that sound! I have it on 1 of my custom SGs, wired to a push pull pot to swap the polarity!
The reason the myth persists is the hope that something so basic will make us sound like Peter Green. Same with most other guitar myths
😆 True!
Sounds like it took the bite out of it to me.
Phase is about electrical wiring, not about magnets. Lots of guitars -- my LP modern, for example -- have switchable phase. The switch can't flip the magnets. it switches the wiring. Peter Green's LP was wired wrong. If the - and + leads of the two pickups get crossed, it'll be OOP. If they agree, it'll be IP.
This also means that for most (like almost all) two-humbucker guitars, phase **only matters** when both pickups are in the circuit.
You can't hear the differene between a pickup at 180 degrees phase vs the same pickup at 0 degrees. You can only hear the difference when one is 180 and the other 0.
If you're hearing a *difference* with a single pickup it's either asymmetry -- or -- difference in spacing so that the magnets don't line up with the anti-node of the string's vibration.
Exactly. That’s why I wanted to show all the combinations of both pickups. First of all to prove the point, that it’s not gonna be out of phase just because you turn it, and also to show if anything changes at all. 👍
Polarity is all about magnets, no magnetic field = no sound, no air (vacuum) = no sound en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_wiring
Old guitars, like BB King's, came out of the factory out of phase. It was intentional. Not sure of Peter Greens was out-of-phase stock or not, but it's a simple thing to reverse the positive and negative pup wires.
BB's known more for his use of the variac switching, but he made a ton of recordings with just the out-of-phase middle position tone.
There was a smoother sound when reversed in my humble opinion. Not something I’ll do but whatever floats their boat…. Cheers from upstate New York
That’s exactly what I’ve heard too. Cheers Steve!
Full disclosure. My degrees are in Mech Eng. although Electronics has been a large part of my life for over 30 years. And although i have years of plucking strings under my belt, i am in no way a musician.
Peters instance has already been covered and im sure everyone here understands the parts and function of a guitar. So... im this conversation the out of phase has more to do with the wiring since the hardware of the pickup remains the same.
Its all about impidence here. Impedance for us mericans.
Forget about music and electricity for a moment and picture a wave moving through the water as a result of something smacking it. Now, in the path of that wave, add another smacking something. That second wave can build that first wave, add more waves, orrrr take away from that first wave both(either or) frequency and amplitude. Simple as two equal but opposite forces canceling each other out.
Back to guitars and electronics. Obviously those waves are the signal and those somthings smacking are strings above the pickups. Or the resulting “phase” in the signal. So just like your pole pieces having the magnet flipped can take away sound, having the wires swapped will result in the same effect.
An oscilloscope would be best to explain but the water wave analogy is usually pretty intuitive.
And since i know i often dont come across as a present person...i am in no way saying what was said in the video was wrong. I loved it.
Missing that bite
First?
You nailed it buddy! 🙌😁
🏁🏁🍾
No, Sir.