Phase query

[christopherhopkins]

Hi guys,

I'm putting wiring up a strat at the moment where the scratchplate only has routing holes for neck and bridge pickups - whoever had it made was a big Blackmore fan.

I'm going to wire it up using either a superswitch or the fender 4-way tele switch and I'm thinking of add a phase switch so that you can have 6 options (i.e neck+bridge in series or parallel, in or out of phase).

Which pickup is it best to put out of phase?

[ranchtooth]

Either or. If you have the option to switch both out of phase, you will find that the sound remains relatively unchanged. It's because the pickups have had a 180 degree phase reversal but remain in phase with one another. Thus, having the neck in phase and the bridge out, or the bridge in phase and the neck out, yield relatively the same sound, 1 in and 1 out of phase. This does not always apply when you really crank the gain though, cause different phase selections make your axe react differently to feedback. Just play around with it, the more versatility the better!