Guitar Pickup wiring question

[Mr Clock]

I have a cheap Korean PRS copy- Westfield SE888. I,ve filed down the frets. At the top of the neck,near the nut,the frets were to high so that if I pressed too hard on a string the note would go up by a semitone. this would be the case up to the 5th fret. But especially on the G/B string. I,ve filed the frets down as acurately as possible using feeler gauges and a big steel rule.

Pickups. I,ve replaced the original PU's with Entwistle pickups. (check them out,a small company,cheaper than D'mazzio etc) I have a HVX humbucker at the neck and two single XS65,s at the bridge. I,ve wired them so far as 1)both HMBKR's 2) 1 Single coil HMBKR's 3) single coil XS65 bridge 4)Dual XS65 bridge. I have a 6 way,x 2 SW.

Sorry for the waffle. How do I wire the HMBR's or even the two single PU's out of phase? (An effect Brian May used to great effect) How much out of phase? 45/90/180??? Any ideas most welcome.

I realise this question may be better posted on a guitar forum. I,d rather trust proper old dudes. Thanks for looking,Andy.

PS,think 70's blues/rock,kraut rock-the wackier the better!

[tiv48]

i think its only possible to wire them 180 degrees out of phase .but if you had for instance two single coil pickups wired in serries or parrell out of phase with each other surely the output will be zero? maybe adding a cap to one of them would do the job.
rob t

[pwdrive]

I would have thought it easier to feed the guitar output into an effects unit, I have an old Korg Toneworks, it is amaziing what it can do.
So far as I am aware phasing the coils for other than 180 degree would mean the introduction of C so you would need to swot up on phase angle using L , C & R. I suspect by introducing C the predominant effect would be roll off of some sort although I couldn't swear by it.
You have to remember that although the pickup is "the generator" it is also predominately inductive.

Lawrence.

[Mr Clock]

I,ve been doing a bit of digging. Series/parallel/out of phase wiring of pickups is basicly about changing tone. With series wiring of PU's it seems you loose some high frequencys as the longer connection acts as a resistor. Most guitars are wired in parallel-pretty standard sound more due to the PU's position-neck/mid/bridge. Out of phase wiring. I,ve watched videos on Utube etc,and I,m not certain of its benefits. It can lead to to a weak sound.

On the bumf that came with my Enwistle PU's,it has a partial phasing option. Using a DPDT SW most out of phase-ing is done with two jumpers in an X shape from pole 1- 6 and pole 2-5. (six poles on a DPT SW-read 1 left top etc as one would read a book) Partial phasing uses a cap 0.002 from pole 1-6 so a Humbucker say would be partialy out of phase with its self. Without popping this setup on a scope,my maths/formula brain is unable to compute.

Back to my OP. I said I,d heard Brian May talk about OOP guitar pickups. Hope fully here is a link that shows how he wired his guitar. He does it with complex switchery.I,ll say this-my head hurts! 21 options,far too complex for me. I,ll try a few options in the following days and report back.

http://www.treblebooster.com/brian_may_pickup_mod.htm and check out http://www.diyguitarmods.com/guitar-pickups.php

[Skywave]

Re: that first link, last entry - the one with the huge number of switching arrangements. O.K., so one day you discover just the right switch pattern for a particular tune. Then you try various others for other songs. With such a huge number of switch variations, how to remember what switch arrangement you used to get what sound when you want to go back to it? All seems decidedly OTT to me.
Are we heading towards a PIC-controlled electric guitar here?

Al.

[pwdrive]

I,ve been doing a bit of digging. Series/parallel/out of phase wiring of pickups is basicly about changing tone. With series wiring of PU's it seems you loose some high frequencys as the longer connection acts as a resistor. Most guitars are wired in parallel-pretty standard sound more due to the PU's position-neck/mid/bridge. Out of phase wiring. I,ve watched videos on Utube etc,and I,m not certain of its benefits. It can lead to to a weak sound.

On the bumf that came with my Enwistle PU's,it has a partial phasing option. Using a DPDT SW most out of phase-ing is done with two jumpers in an X shape from pole 1- 6 and pole 2-5. (six poles on a DPT SW-read 1 left top etc as one would read a book) Partial phasing uses a cap 0.002 from pole 1-6 so a Humbucker say would be partialy out of phase with its self. Without popping this setup on a scope,my maths/formula brain is unable to compute.

Back to my OP. I said I,d heard Brian May talk about OOP guitar pickups. Hope fully here is a link that shows how he wired his guitar. He does it with complex switchery.I,ll say this-my head hurts! 21 options,far too complex for me. I,ll try a few options in the following days and report back.

http://www.treblebooster.com/brian_may_pickup_mod.htm and check out http://www.diyguitarmods.com/guitar-pickups.php

Hi there, in that link to the brian may pickup mod shown above it states that the strat's pickups are wired in parallel, first I've heard of that, I don't think they are wired in parallel as standard, surely they are all selectable, that's the idea of having several pickups. That article is not written very well.

Lawrence.

[Mr Clock]

Completlely agree Al on Mr Mays overly complex wiring. Never having owned a Fender or to this date done any research on them,I,m not sure Lawrence on how they wire their guitars.

My Westfield is wired thus so far.I have the HMBKR at the neck and two singles at the bridge. Switch position 1) HMBKR- Full sound,easy to distort 2) Half of the HMBKR-Less heavy sound 3) one single PU at bridge -thin treble high,good for guitar back in the mix. 4) Two singles together-fuller sound than above.

Most guitars have 3 PU choices. Its how you play em,you can do alot with a pick. and of course your amp. I dont want to get overly complex-making music is intuitive,not a science. From the soul-not the heads.

Postey just been with some shrink sleeve,I can now do a neat job, I,ll do some experimenting now and let you know the results,A.

[Skywave]

I'm not a guitar player; I am a retired electronics technician. So my viewpoint on this matter comes from the latter discipline, not the former. And that has given me the following idea: I haven't considered the practical implementation of this idea, it is only a conceptual one.
You have three transducers whose outputs you wish to select, process and combine in various ways and at your command. The multiplicity of all those functions, if integrated into a guitar body, will be difficult to implement on account of the restricted space available. That, in turn, strongly suggests a limitation on the range of variables that are available. Those factors suggest a unit with electronic processing inside it: a unit which is external to the guitar but connected to the unit by a cable - although I can see that that idea does remove the ability to make rapid and convenient changes to the pick-up arrangements that you would have if the controls, switches, etc., were located in the guitar body proper.
Such an external unit can be designed to process the tonal range, phasing, filtering, volume level, etc. of each pick-up separately. The outputs from each such processing 'block' can then be combined in a mixer, with a final 'level out' control. On account of the external nature of that unit, it can be as big or small, complex or simple as budget and ideas enable. With a three pick-up guitar, a 6-way plug / socket and screened cable will be required: miniature cable and plugs / sockets spring to mind.
I haven't specifically researched the availability of parts nor circuits for all that: it is merely the nucleus of an idea that may be worth investigating further.

Al.

[pwdrive]

Alternatively,leave the pickups as they are, fit some big fat strings, down tune them all half a tone then play like the master did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh9vFKG9T9Q&playnext=1&list=PL5921261BDAAFADDF&feature=results_main

Lawrence.

[Andrewausfa]

Original Strats had a three way switch that could only select one pick-up at a time. Of course you could carefully move the switch so it would connect with the contacts for two pick-ups and this was later replaced by a five position switch.

My Strat is wired with humbucker at the bridge and then two single pick-ups, middle and neck. This is work I did 30 years ago so I can't recall exactly the how it's connected and neither do I want to take my guitar apart to look. The idea came from a book by a guy called Adrian Legg or Pegg (come to think of it, probably the former as the latter's an actor).

All three pickups can be selected individually or together, neck+mid, bridge+mid, bridge+neck. These positions are selected by mini-toggle switches. Two of these are On/Off switches the third is Off/On/Off (or On/Off/On), selecting the centre position on the third switch puts the neck and middle pick-ups out of phase. The bridge humbucker is coil tapped via a push-pull rotary switch the bottom part being the guitar volume control. I've also got a non-latching On/Off button which kills the sound. The bridge pick-up is a DiMarzio and the mid and neck are Seymour Duncan. These would be early '80's products, I recall each having several wires, not just two. All my volume and tone controls go up to 11, not 10.

It seemed a good thing to customise your guitar back then especially as effects pedals were pretty much one trick ponies and were pretty expensive. Nowadays, I stick the guitar in a relatively cheap Zoom synthesised effects pedal and I can select any noise or tone I want at the press of a button.

Andrew