SD Quarter Pounder - out of phase question

[stratman52]

Hi everyone. So I finally did a pickup swap for the first time myself in my ESP LTD ST-213 strat. I replaced the stock single coil in the bridge with a Quarter Pounder. Just recently I brought my guitar in to a local tech near me for fretwork and when he was completing the final setup he noticed that when the selector switch is in position 4 (bridge and middle PU together) it is out of phase (he described a weak thin sound ) and told me he would correct it for me.

Can anyone here explain this to me ? When I installed the quarter pounder I soldered the white wire (hot) to the selector switch terminal and the black wire (ground) to the back of the volume pot.- this is exactly how the previous stock single coil in the bridge was wired as well.. I just followed the same way with the new pickup. Is this incorrect? Or does the out of phase issue have to do with the wiring of the middle pickup ? I’m just curious because to my ears when in position 5 (just bridge pickup ) it sounds great. I’m new to this and trying to learn as much as I can so any help would be appreciated !

[DavidRavenMoon]

Because the stock pickups either have the winding in the other direction or the magnet is the opposite polarity.

Sometimes two different brands of pickups don’t match up.


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[AlexR]

Pickups are magnetic devices. If 2 pickups with opposite magnet orientations are connected/selected together the polarities of the two will cancel the signals. Individually they are fine as there is no absolute/right phase (being A/C).
Additionally there is no right position for a white wire and a black wire to be connected both from the pickup coil ends, nor onto the components in a guitar wiring scheme. There is merely convention....with history having several conventions to possibly follow. So you simply have to adapt your hooking up of a pickup to match either the other pickups, or what is in the guitar's wiring scheme.

[Mincer]

This is a common issue when pickups from 2 different makers are used in the same guitar. It is an easy fix- swap the hot and ground on the new pickup. But it is something to test when installing it. If you have a switch position where 2 pickups are on at once, one old and one new pickup, listen for a thin, hollow, lower-output sound. That is the sound of 2 out-of-phase pickups. While some people like that sound, many don't (I don't).

[stratman52]

Thank you guys this is all so helpful!