A thought about the Green Magic's.

[Artie]

When the Green Magic set was introduced, my first reaction was, it was a product that bordered on "silly." Reversing the polarity of a, (4-cond), pup is dirt simple with a switch. And if you want that OOP sound hard wired, like the Green Magics do internally, then you don't even need the switch.

A recent thread about the GM's got me to thinking. This pup set provides a cool "hidden" feature. There have been many threads where folks want to split to the middle stud coils and have it remain humbucking. To do that, you have to flip the magnet and reverse wire the pup. A lot of folks are, (understandably), hesitant to mess with the pup, and possibly void the warranty.

Enter the Green Magic's. All one has to do is reverse wire the neck. White to hot, red to ground, black and green tied together. Now you have a "normal", in-phase, PAF-ish set. And when you use a push-pull to ground both "coil connections", (red/white on the bridge, and black/green on the neck), you have inside stud coils in phase, and humbucking. Warranty and return policy intact.

Now I appreciate the Green Magics. Just for a different reason.

[Mincer]

Yeah, it will do that easily. These days, I just order a pickup with a flipped magnet (if I am ok waiting for it).

[jeremy]

ive not tried these yet, and besides being out of phase, im curious how they sound

[Artie]

ive not tried these yet, and besides being out of phase, im curious how they sound

Me too. I hope that someone who has tried them can chime in.

[beaubrummels]

I thought reversing the magnet is a different sound from reversing the wires? (E.g. reversing magnetic polarity isn't as severe an out of phase tone as flipping the wires.). At least I read that somewhere where someone more technical than I was discussing why the flipped magnet version is the 'magic' sweeter sound.

[Artie]

I thought reversing the magnet is a different sound from reversing the wires?

Nope. Polarity is polarity. It's either one way or the other.

[AlexR]

The thing with OOP is that in most cases its a horribly thin/useless sound.....unless the pickups have been specially wound to keep some of the body when selected together. The PG guitar does seem to do that more than a lot of other OOP tones, and typically most specially wound PG sets do that too.
So the 'use' in a set like this is primarily the notion that it won't sound as 'crap' in the middle posi as the regular pickups that you might choose to setup OOP.

[Artie]

I need to play with the OOP sound again. I haven't in a couple decades, and then, not for very long. The Jazz's and 59's are both in a similar range to the Greenies.

[jeremy]

one of my main guitars is a dual bucker tele, lp style controls, with coil split and a phase switch. oop with both pups full up is thin and honky, not usually very usable, but as i said, if you roll one volume back a touch (or more) the sound fills in nicely and there are a ton of cool tones available by adjusting the two volumes.

ive reversed the magnet and flipped the wires on the same pup years ago when donzo and i were in our mad tone scientist days and i didnt notice any difference

[Mincer]

I need to play with the OOP sound again. I haven't in a couple decades, and then, not for very long. The Jazz's and 59's are both in a similar range to the Greenies.

It always sounded so odd to me that I couldn't figure out how I could use it.

[Artie]

It always sounded so odd to me that I couldn't figure out how I could use it.

I could see it using the "partial" OOP, using a resistor, or pot, to control the amount of cancellation. That's probably how I'll try it.

[beaubrummels]

OOP and in series is a great way to get a Fender notch sound on a Gibson LP type guitar. It has a Dire Straits Sultans of Swing or Clapton Lay Down Sally kind of sound to it.

[Artie]

I'll have to try that too. Did you mean one humbucker OOP unto itself? Or both pups split OOP?

[beaubrummels]

I'll have to try that too. Did you mean one humbucker OOP unto itself? Or both pups split OOP?

One humbucker out of phase, in series with the other humbucker, a la Jimmy Page wiring. The benefit is your level stays the same. If you split coils to get a Fendery in between tone, you lose some volume.

[Artie]

Cool. Noted.