Very helpful! Very clear and easy to understand how they work. I appreciate the last bit on how to avoid grounding problems!

Thanks a lot! I have never wired a guitar before and have been thinking of working on one of my older electric guitars. Your video's have been very helpful and given me much more of an idea of what I should be doing. Once again thanks.

Brilliant tutorial, easy to understand and just what I needed. Many thanks!!

cool, thanks for the response, my pickups are uncovered so I don't believe I would encounter a problem. I have both of them connected to a single push pull volume pot, I am looking to install either a mini toggle or another push pull pot for the out of phase mod. this video has been helpful

Thanks for letting me know! It's my pleasure.

so simple, thanks ...the cover issue was an eye opener for me

@aaronstonebeat

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks!

Very helpful. Thanks.

Thank you sir, helped me find a solution.

Good explanation, thanks!

What is with this guy's speech patterns? Is he related to count Dracula? Or maybe he is Count Choc ula?

@iveryexcellentonspeakingen1546

8 жыл бұрын

+flurng more like christopher walken

@wxb200

5 жыл бұрын

To answer your question: 42/yes...

@5Bird5

4 жыл бұрын

Asshole. By the look of his name and accent, I would guess that he is either Dutch or Belgian. By the look of comment,I'm guessing that you are an imbecile. He obviously speaks more than one language. How is your Flemish? Taking bets? I'll have 5 on you being from the USA and another 5 that you've never left your home state let alone your country.

@aaronstonebeat

4 жыл бұрын

@@5Bird5 Thank you! I am indeed Dutch.

@InfernoXII

3 жыл бұрын

@@5Bird5 it's a joke chill

Yes, it will be on the inside, one of the leads from the coils soldered to the mounting bracket. It may seem a bit tricky but if it's possible to disconnect the coils from the bracket (usually 4 screws on the back) the soldered spot is easy to reach and unsolder. The cover most likely is also soldered to the mounting bracket so that too will have to be undone. Just be careful and delicate, you should be alright.

ok thanks, I will watch that video to have a better idea. I am using DiMarzio Humbuckers,. their diagram shows the bare wire going to the back of the volume pot and the black wire to one of the legs of the DPDT switch. I just got a DPDT mini switch today, it's a 2position switch, hopefully it will work out. I'm going to wire it up and test it before I commit to drilling another hole in my guitar, thanks for all your help

You are so helpfull thank you!!

If you just reverse the connections of a pickup with a metal cover the metal cover gets connected to the hot side of the circuit. It depends on the construction of a specific pickup whether it's easy to reach the ground connection to the cover or not. On telecaster neck pickups it's very easy: There is a short lead from one of the pickup wires to the cover; cut it and connect the cover directly to ground. This basic principle goes for all pickups with grounded metal parts.

Most humbuckers have a metal 'foot' that is connected internally to the ground side of one of the coils. I you reverse such a pickup the grounded part will become hot and cause considerable hum. The metal mounting bracket should get its own separate connection to ground irrespective of the direction the pickup is connected.

And for phase and serial switching you would have to take a look at the grounding of your humbuckers; specifically disconnect the existing grounding between the coils and the mounting bracket and give the latter a separate connection to ground

thank you so much.. so much help bro :)

Wow, thank you very much!

My video "XI - Series switching - grounding issue" is about this problem and it applies to out of phase switching as well.

Yes, it is just one pickup that has to be put out of phase (when there are two) and it doesn't matter which one. Just be sure you don't connect any metal pickup covers, mounting brackets etc. to the hot side of the circuit when switching out of phase.

You get more combinations. Theoretically it can be a real lot depending on how many switches you want to use. Take a look at Brian May's Red Special: each pickup can be turned on and off individually and be put in or out of phase with wathever is switched on otherwise. With three coils it's something around fourteen or fifteen different combinations if I'm not mistaken. Imagine what happens if you can also switch coils from parallel to series ;-) Electronically interesting but not practical.

You may need some power in the soldering iron for these kind of jobs. You could cut tabs with a hobby tool I suppose but you still need to solder them back because you want the cover to be electrically connected to ground. Also if it is not set tight it can cause microfonics and feedback. A little molten wax is no problem. To be sure if the pickup still works you have to measure it (resistance) or connect it to an amplifier.

It is possible; the phase switch would have to be a 2PDT, (you only have to put one pickup out of phase with the other one) and the series/parallel switch has to be a 2PDT (with or without the phase switch). If you have built up from parallel wiring the toggle switch will be dead when in series wiring. I have that setup in one of my guitars; one superswitch could probably do the same thing (I even think I have drawn a diagram) and still have one position for an extra setting.

Sure. Make a direct switchable connection from the 'middle' of the humbucker to ground. If it is connected the humbucker is split in position 4 and 5; if it is not connected the humbucker is only split in position 4.

Very informative. Just one question.What if you have three pick-ups?

My guitar has 2 humbuckers and a phase switch and a series paralell switch. When in middle and neck position with phase switch and series paralell switch up, there is no output.

@raphory I'm afraid not. Both leads must be reversed; plus has to go to minus and minus has to go to plus.

Hi... i have a question!! Is there a way to wire a HSS guitar, with the position 4 auto split like in this video, BUT then have an additional mini toggle switch the changes the bridge position from Humbucker to split but without affecting the position 4 ??? So in other words position 4 is ALWAYS split regardless of the status of the mini toggle for position 5.

hi this is a great vid.. just wanna knw if i can wire two pickups into the same toggle switch so it would act as a master switch to phase and another master switch to series/parallel both my humbuckers.. is that ok?

Thanks Mark! And this way leaves position4 always split? Giving me a total of 6 pickup switching options? I think I'm going to use a pull-pull on the middle tone pot instead of mini toggle. Is there any chance you could draw and email me a quick schematic please? If you get time. Thanks again for your response!

quick question, is it just one of the pickups that connects to the dpdt switch ? and which one .. neck or bridge ? or does it even matter ? thanks

I don't thinks so. You'd have to reverse the connection of one of the pickups to its pre amp and since everything is built into one casing it would quite an operation, if possible at all.

Theoretically, couldn't you wire a phase switch to both pickups? So that either the front or rear could be out of phase, but obviously not both. or would there be no difference in sound?

Do you know if it is possible to install an active pickups (specificaly Seymour Duncan Blackouts AHB-3) in a out of phase mode?? Thanks!

Yes, 6 options. A message with a link to a diagram is in your inbox.

Can i ask a question, it might sound silly cause i dont know much at all about wireing.. But can i have the 2pdt inside the guitar without an on/off switch, since im going to havethe middle strat pickup out of phase at all time. Is that possible?

I'm not sure what you really mean but if the middle pickup is to be out of phase at all times there is no need for a switch besides the normal toggle switch.

I'm looking to build a guitar with 2x single coils. I'd like one single coil to be on all the time and the other to be blended in and out (giving a single coil sound when it's blended down and a humbucker sound when it's blended in). I believe they used to do this a lot with old lap steels. How would I wire this? Many thanks. Ps a master volume nob would be awesome too!

@Eeuwit

6 жыл бұрын

Chris Raggatt I know you posted this a while ago, but maybe this can help you. Look up the scemes of the Fender Professional Jaguar. This guitar has the circuit you need. Maybe if you look at the scemes on the fender site you can recreate it for yourself.

Currently looking at a tele that has a 4 way switch and a DPDT on the tone pot to flip the phase on positions 4 and 2. Position 4 (P4) has the neck and bridge wired in series and P3 is the neck. I am going to rewire the switch and swap P4 with P3. Will I need to do anything to the wiring on the DPDT so that the new positions 3 (series) and 2 (parallel) can be put out of phase?

@aaronstonebeat

Жыл бұрын

I'm thinking about it, I'm guessing it will be OK but a schematic would be very helpful.

@aaronduboise5277

Жыл бұрын

@@aaronstonebeat Sorry I think this the right diagram www.guitar-mod.com/wiring/tele4way_phasereversal.gif

@aaronstonebeat

Жыл бұрын

@@aaronduboise5277 Thanks, that's enlightening! You can swap the wires of positions 3 and 4 on both sides of the switch and everything will be alright. The wiring of the toggle switch is completely independent of the wiring of the phase reversal switch.

is the wiring the same for an on-off-on?

Hi, I'd like to mod my 2 humbucker guitar to be able to get the reverse phase sound, and I'd like to do it with a 4 way pickup toggle. Is it possible to wire the guitar so that one position on the toggle would be the two pickups out of phase?

@aaronstonebeat

10 жыл бұрын

That depends on the switch; not any old switch will be able to do this for you. It would need three rows with four connectors and a separate common each; fifteen connectors all together. Also the pickup that is to be switched out of phase must have a separate connector to ground the mounting bracket (and the metal cover if there is one); if not you will need to perform some surgery on the pickup to convert it.

Can you put three pickups out of phase with one 2pdt?

Hi, I'm looking into converting an acoustic guitar into an electro percussive guitar. Using a single coil acoustic pup in the soundhole and 3 piezo disc pickups mounted inside the guitar body and coming out of a separate 1/4" jack socket. I watched a video by Mike Dawes about his setup which I'm guessing is the same, but he uses an out of phase soundhole pup because he says it can cancel out the piezo's when IN phase. Does that only apply if they're all connected or will it still cancel out the piezo's even if they wired to a different output jack? Cheers Gary

@aaronstonebeat

3 жыл бұрын

Can you give me link to that video? A single pickup (a single coil) can only be in or out of phase with another one, not by itself. So I'm not sure what he would mean by an 'out of phase pickup'.

@SONGSTICKS

3 жыл бұрын

@@aaronstonebeat Hi Marc, I'll go find it again and post the link.

@SONGSTICKS

3 жыл бұрын

@@aaronstonebeat Here it is. Thinking about it, praps he has an under saddle pickup as well as piezo's? kzread.info/dash/bejne/mnhql66Ok5WbocY.html

@aaronstonebeat

3 жыл бұрын

@@SONGSTICKS Thanks! He's an amazing guitar player! I think he has an under saddle pickup, the DiMarzio Black Angel and a microphone inside the guitar. In the video he explains that if there is an issue with the under saddle piezo being out of phase with the magnetic pickup, the option to reverse the phase of the magnetic pickup resolves this issue.

@SONGSTICKS

3 жыл бұрын

@@aaronstonebeat That's good news for me then, as I won't have an under saddle pup. Just an acoustic soundhole magnetic pup and 3 piezo's in the body. That Dimarzio Black Angel sounds great but woah... Expensive !! Mike Dawes is an amazing guitarist. Check out this performance in New York kzread.info/dash/bejne/pGeLxKd9crbQdJM.html He makes it look so easy.

Wait am I supposed to put an extra hole in my guitar and have this as a 2nd switch? My dad just replaced the original switch with the new switch.

@aaronstonebeat

4 жыл бұрын

You don't have to, you can use a push-pull volume or tone control.

great video. I have two humbuckers with metal coversin a Les paul type guitar, one pickup has 4 wires and the other one has a vintage braided type wiring. can I have this mod without modification of the vintage braided pickup? since the other pickup has 4 wires? many many thanks

@aaronstonebeat

8 жыл бұрын

+mmoris1360 It all depends on where the four wires come from. If one of the wires is connected to ground - most likely the back of one of the potentiometers - and also to the metal cover of the pickup (zero ohms resistance between that wire and the cover) you'll need some internal modification of that pickup. I also have a video about metal parts of pickups and out of phase switching.

@mmore

8 жыл бұрын

thanks for the reply, I meant to say one has 5 conductor wire( one of them is bare). also which of of phase wiring do you recommend in general?( series or parallel). many thanks

@aaronstonebeat

8 жыл бұрын

+mmoris1360 Alright, so one of the conductors and the bare wire are connected to ground; if these two are not connected internally you can just switch the hot and the ground connector and leave the bare wire connected to ground. Series or parallel is a matter of taste. Parallel out of phase sounds quite thin and trebly, funky; series out of phase sound fatter, a bit like Brian May in some solos.

And no, I'm afraid there is no other way to reduce the hum if you want to go out of phase.

so what if you have a Tele neck pup with 4 conductor wires (eg: SD stk-t1n) how would you grn it?

@aaronstonebeat

9 жыл бұрын

Actually the SD stk-t1n is a 5 conductor pickup; bare always goes to ground, the other four wires can be juggled around. Normally black is hot (goes to the switch) and green ground (paired with the bare wire); if you reverse black and green the pickup is out of phase.

@prowily1

9 жыл бұрын

I'm sorry, Yes 5 conductor, your vid said if you have a pup with a metal plate cover like the Tele stk-t1n you have to run a wire from the plate to grond, but I don't need to do that w/ the stk-t1n cus it is 5 conductor. that wire already exists (bare/green) is that right?

@aaronstonebeat

9 жыл бұрын

Wil Rey Yes, that is right.

Dracula is a guitar player. Who knew?

Ok another question so you need to 2 picks on at once to hear it OoP if you wire a humbucker OoP (since its 2 single coil) will it still sound OoP selected alone? or you still need the neck pup on as well?

@aaronstonebeat

9 жыл бұрын

Yes it will sound out of phase because, as you say, the two coils are wired out of phase. In most cases this is not very useful though because the level of cancelation in the signal will be very high. What you hear when two pickups are out of phase is the difference between them; everything that is the same gets cancelled out. So humbuckers are usually only wired out of phase if the coils are dissimilar.

@prowily1

9 жыл бұрын

Is there a difference in tone whether you wire the bridge pup or neck pup OoP. Most diagram I see have the neck pup OoP.

@aaronstonebeat

9 жыл бұрын

Wil Rey No difference.

@aaronstonebeat

9 жыл бұрын

No it won't. You get an extra sound and you can still switch back to the original sound.

@aaronstonebeat

9 жыл бұрын

***** I'm not sure what you mean. Can you be more specific? How is the coil tap switched? What kind of extra knob are you planning to install?

so if I have seperate metal cover I will solder it to the ground connection?

@aaronstonebeat

4 жыл бұрын

Yes, correct.

@matsum2332

4 жыл бұрын

@@aaronstonebeat thank you

Hi Aaron well first I just want to shake your hand, and add your a friggen genius you know that right. So let me get this straight and I have been watching your videos starting at 1 and stopping here at 16 just long enough to ask you if what your teaching me is on the same track with what you know. So what is unfolding in my head is this The electronic system of a guitar works the same and has the same principals as say Planets rotating around the sun Photons being exchanged using electromagnetic energy. Dude if this is what you are saying I think I am seeing a much needed picture of us strumming a string affect's not just our surroundings but the whole universe through resonance and frequency? Or have I just completely lost my mind? And thank you so much there are not very many people in the world that can paint a picture in my head but you just did.

@aaronstonebeat

10 жыл бұрын

Thank you very much, derredmax! I don't know exactly how to answer. When I started to figure out how an electric guitar works I first revisited classical mechanics and that gave me all practical answers I needed as far as understanding these fairly simple circuits is concerned. But new questions started keeping me awake; how is it possible that a magnetic field affects electrons in a conductor through empty space? Quantum mechanics was the next step; indeed an electric guitar is a photon machine :-) And, even in a more classical sense, vibrational states (of strings for instance) definitely have a quantized character. I can't say I fully understand quantum mechanics (who can?) but I have some grasp of it by now. And still new questions keep arising. So I read about string theory, M-theory etcetera. There is no end, I suspect; but there is a lot of joy in finding out about these things! Quite recently I stumbled upon 'quantum cognition' and 'microtubules'; Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are some big names in this field. It doesn't matter where you start I guess, just keep asking 'how' and 'why'.

@DerredmaxTRIAX

10 жыл бұрын

Thank you very very much for your amazing efforts, I am starting to lean towards questions that may result in our conception of the universe as one grand composure of music or billions of little ones. I think we should get together again sometime in the near future and shear thoughts. I salute you Aaron you are one of the good ones

I came here to try to figure out how to wire my p90’s out of phase

What about a strat with 3 hot rails?

@aaronstonebeat

3 жыл бұрын

That would give you a tremendous amount of switching possibilities!

Dude sounds lik Sean Connery.

Eric Carmen? - And, ...wha...t...?!

This guy sounds like buffalo bill