Inverting one humbucker

[xblue]

I have a guitar with two humbuckers. If I rotate the bridge humbucker by 180°, then when both humbuckers are selected I will get an out-of-phase sound (Right? Correct me if I'm wrong!).
Now, if I add a switch on the bridge humbucker the inverts the phase (out-of-phase switch), that gives the option to have the two humbuckers back in phase.
Is it correct my reasoning? Do you see any potential problem doing so?

[freefrog]

To put an humbucker out of phase with the other just by changing its physical position, you would have to put it upside down (with the baseplate above the strings, IOW towards the exterior, and the magnetic poles towards the strings and body).

If you want to invert the phase, what you have to "rotate" of 180° is the magnet under the coils: once the south and north coils permuted, the pickup will be out of phase with the other, until or unless you flip the "hot" and "ground" wires.

[freefrog]

Post scriptum: it goes without saying that swapping hot and ground is also the simplest, quickest and safest way to obtain OOP sounds, but requires 4 conductors + independent ground: a 2 conductors coaxial cable can't be used to reverse the phase without bringing various kinds of noise.

[ThreeChordWonder]

Unless you start gutting the pickup, flipping magnets around, etc. you're not going to change the phase of the pickup. The pickup doesn't care which way round its put in. The "hot" will always be the "hot", the "cold" the "cold".

A caveat here - S-D wind their coils in the opposite direction to, say, Fender, so they're wound 180 degrees out of phase with some other brands. It's a bit like Duracell labeling their batteries back to front compared to Everready, but it is what it is.

To flip the phase on an installed pickup, you should use either a push-pull, a push-push or a separate DPDT mini-switch to "cross" the inputs over between the pickup and the selector switch. The switch flips the "hot" input wire from the pickup to be the "cold" output to the selector switch. The "cold" wire from the pickup becomes the "hot" wire to the switch.



Useful link:

https://www.fralinpickups.com/2017/0...ull-pots-mods/

[freefrog]

To put an humbucker out of phase with the other just by changing its physical position, you would have to put it upside down (with the baseplate above the strings and the magnetic poles towards the body).

Never two without three: I've forgotten to tell that I've wrote what I quote above because I'm familiar with this phenomenon: when I work on a pickup, I test it sometimes by suspending it above the strings of a test guitar instead of mounting it in the guitar. It's way easier than having to detune / retune the strings and so on. It's also playable if the PU is suspended in neck position... It's always funny to hear a same tested PU out of phase with the other when upside down then in phase when mounted normally.

That's something that anybody will be able to check by himself or herself: it requires only to hold a pickup "upside down" above the strings while ir's connected to the output jack of the guitar by two alligator clips...

I've another way to test pickups since my main testing guitar has a hole through the body allowing to change the bridge PU in a few seconds... But it only works for bridge position, precisely. ;-)

EDIT - I've corrected my initial statement: as I had "swapped" a word with its opposite in my first post, it was ambiguous and legitimately discussible. Talk me about being "out of phase"... Sorry, English is still not my daily language.

[jeremy]

I have a guitar with two humbuckers. If I rotate the bridge humbucker by 180°, then when both humbuckers are selected I will get an out-of-phase sound (Right? Correct me if I'm wrong!).
Now, if I add a switch on the bridge humbucker the inverts the phase (out-of-phase switch), that gives the option to have the two humbuckers back in phase.
Is it correct my reasoning? Do you see any potential problem doing so?

so, as others have said, your first point is incorrect. if you flip the pup, itll still be in phase but the screws/slugs will be in the opposite orientation. if you have a 4 cond pup, you can install a mini switch to flip phase which is a fine idea. doesnt matter which pup you flip the phase of

[xblue]

so, as others have said, your first point is incorrect. if you flip the pup, itll still be in phase but the screws/slugs will be in the opposite orientation. if you have a 4 cond pup, you can install a mini switch to flip phase which is a fine idea. doesnt matter which pup you flip the phase of

Yes, my first point was incorrect. Thank you everyone for your help!

[jeremy]

out of phase can be cool, especially if you have independent volumes, but its not a sound i want all the time

[ThreeChordWonder]

so, as others have said, your first point is incorrect. if you flip the pup, itll still be in phase but the screws/slugs will be in the opposite orientation. if you have a 4 cond pup, you can install a mini switch to flip phase which is a fine idea. doesnt matter which pup you flip the phase of

You can flip the phase of a two-wire, as a whole, just as easily.

And the Pedant of the Day award goes to....

ThreeChordWonder!!!

[jeremy]

you can flip the phase of a two wire, as long as there is a separate ground. if you have a typical braided shield itll be noisy as hell when you flip phase due to the baseplate being hot. 4 cond wiring is usually 5 wires, one being the ground which is why i suggested that if you have 4 cond wiring you can wire up a phase switch.

[ThreeChordWonder]

^Agreed.