Are these pickups 'out of phase' ?

[dreamert]

Hey guys,

I'm trying to hunt down a weird sound. I put a 'neck-on' switch to my Strat to turn on the neck pickup in order to use the bridge+neck and bridge+middle+neck combos. When I switch to bridge+neck is sounds very thin and shallow along with a drop in volume.

Considering there are 2 Texas Special (reverse polarity in order to cancel hum in position 2 and a DiMarzio humbucker wired to split-coil and cancel hum in position 4, would that means that when I switch over to the full humbucker and neck pickup they are out-of-phase, explaining the weird sound coming out of those ?

If so, how I modify the wiring to make them play in phase ?

Here is my wiring:

[sumgai]

dreamer,

I just had a thought, based on how you expressed your problem. What does it sound like, if you reverse the terminals where the Neck and Middle pups are connected to the switch. IOW, the "Neck On" switch becomes a "Middle On" switch. Now what happens to the tone?

The only other thing you can do is to simply reverse both leads of the Neck pickup, and both leads of the Middle pup. In my mind, that's easier than trying to figure out which wires of the humbucker to swap around.....


HTH




sumgai

[dreamert]

^that IS smart..... why didn't I think about that first, I was running for the phase reverse switch and crap.......bleh

Tried it and it works ! Back to the sound I was expecting, now I just gotta figure a way to put the bridge and neck in series when I use the neck on switch, that one should be fairly easy.

[sumgai]

Feb 16, 2011 15:14:38 GMT -5 dreamert said:

..... Back to the sound I was expecting, now I just gotta figure a way to put the bridge and neck in series when I use the neck on switch

Hold on there, Bobbalouie, just stand fast for a pea-picken' minute here!

No one ever said anything about series before this. And certainly your diagram doesn't show any such thing. Did you make a Freudian slip, perhaps?

.... that one should be fairly easy.

No, that's not gonna be easy, not without a complete re-think on what other combinations you want. Let's see what your answer is to the above question first, eh?




sumgai

[dreamert]

Yeah I know, first off was solving the out of phase thing.

Now I'd like to use my push-pull pot to turn on the neck pickup in series with the bridge (and middle if that is all possible on one switch).

I think I'll just use the switch to 'insert' the bridge pickup between the 5-way switch and the volume pot, then I'd have neck-bridge (series), middle-neck (series) and bridge-middle (parallell) + neck series.....not sure what this is good for.

Anyway of keeping the n+B+M 3 pickups parallel ?

[sumgai]

dt,

First, if you jump from using the Neck On to Bridge On, for the P-P switch, then you're gonna make a choice, possibly a difficult one - do you wanna use one or both coils for that function? Not to mention that, Second.... if you do this, then you lose the split functionality of position 4 (in combo with the Middle pup).

My suggestion would be to keep the Neck On, but if you want series, then that can be done with the Neck pup, no problem. However, leaving everything else as is, it will be an either/or choice - you won't be able to have both All 3 (parallel) and All 3 (series). Oh, wait a minute....

You never did explain what the P-P is for on the Middle pup's Tone control. I surmise it's nothing more than a control to select which pup the pot works on - Mid or Bridge. Let me now suggest that you ditch that function. By doing so, we can take that newly freed-up switch and it to select either Neck On in series, or Neck On in parallel.

Now that's an exercise best left to the student, but if you want, we'll turn newey loose on the idea, and see what he brews up for ya! ;D

HTH




sumgai

[dreamert]

I love that idea of ditching the tone select as it's of no use on the bridge pup anyway.

So, how would I go using that newly freed up switch to have a neck on series and a neckon parallel ?

[sumgai]

Feb 17, 2011 18:52:15 GMT -5 dreamert said:

I love that idea of ditching the tone select as it's of no use on the bridge pup anyway.

So, how would I go using that newly freed up switch to have a neck on series and a neckon parallel ?

Why, you just call on newey politely, possibly sugaring the request with a bit of promised Mojo^™, and I guarantee, he'll come a'runnin'! ;D

Trust me, he lives for challenges like this!




O'course, others here might also take up the gauntlet, and pop loose with a scheme that'll work.... it's not that difficult. I'm just a day or two behind in my chores right now, and I foresee that pulling up AutoCAD to whip out yet another drawing from scratch is gonna use up a wee bit of my 'alleged' free time. (Married persons here will understand what I'm talkin' about.)




sumgai