Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

[conorsearl]

I just put a couple push pull pots into a tele clone. The guitar has an SD Vintage stack in the neck and a little 59 in the bridge. I wanted the volume pot to split the coils, and the tone pot to put the pickups out of phase. I wired it up using a Seymour Duncan diagram and am unsure of the results.

With both pots pushed down everything is normal. The guitar sounds great, and everything works.

When I pull the volume pot up, the bridge pickup seems to split as I would expect, it has a similar tone but about half the output, the neck pickup though seems like it has quite a bit less output, and becomes quite dark. Is this because the bridge is two coils side by side, and the neck is two coils stacked? The discrepancy seems to be less noticeable with the amp dimed, but at bedroom levels the difference is almost unusable without serious tweaking.

For the out of phase switch, everything is as I would expect, the neck and bridge pickup remain unaffected when working by themselves, but get that quacky sound when put into the in between position. When I split the pickups however this effect seems to reverse, so with split pickups I seem to have to pull up the tone knob to get the pickups to work in phase.

Does this all seem normal, or did I miss something obvious? I'm pretty good at following wiring diagrams, just not very experienced with guitars with push pull pots.

[AlexR]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

The OOP will do odd things with a stack and a humbucker, as 'split' they do different things in and of themselves.

A stack is often not a good candidate for split. Just by itself it is not 2 coils contributing together to produce a sound, but most likely 2 coils working against each other. Hence there is nothing about a split tone that is in any way anticipated to be a good tone. I would never ever consider running only 1 coil of a stack - it is already designed to sound (somewhat) like a singlecoil running full.

[conorsearl]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

The OOP will do odd things with a stack and a humbucker, as 'split' they do different things in and of themselves.

A stack is often not a good candidate for split. Just by itself it is not 2 coils contributing together to produce a sound, but most likely 2 coils working against each other. Hence there is nothing about a split tone that is in any way anticipated to be a good tone. I would never ever consider running only 1 coil of a stack - it is already designed to sound (somewhat) like a singlecoil running full.

Thanks Alex, that's what I was wondering, as everything else seemed to be normal.

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

I just put a couple push pull pots into a tele clone. The guitar has an SD Vintage stack in the neck and a little 59 in the bridge. I wanted the volume pot to split the coils, and the tone pot to put the pickups out of phase. I wired it up using a Seymour Duncan diagram and am unsure of the results.

With both pots pushed down everything is normal. The guitar sounds great, and everything works.

When I pull the volume pot up, the bridge pickup seems to split as I would expect, it has a similar tone but about half the output, the neck pickup though seems like it has quite a bit less output, and becomes quite dark. Is this because the bridge is two coils side by side, and the neck is two coils stacked? The discrepancy seems to be less noticeable with the amp dimed, but at bedroom levels the difference is almost unusable without serious tweaking.

For the out of phase switch, everything is as I would expect, the neck and bridge pickup remain unaffected when working by themselves, but get that quacky sound when put into the in between position. When I split the pickups however this effect seems to reverse, so with split pickups I seem to have to pull up the tone knob to get the pickups to work in phase.

Does this all seem normal, or did I miss something obvious? I'm pretty good at following wiring diagrams, just not very experienced with guitars with push pull pots.

Maybe there is a minor error in the wiring work performed that is the cause. Post some pics of the wiring work you did and the wiring diagram you followed.

[conorsearl]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

Maybe there is a minor error in the wiring work performed that is the cause. Post some pics of the wiring work you did and the wiring diagram you followed.

It'll be pretty hard to tell from photos I think, there's a lot of wires, and tiny lugs tucked away but here is the diagram...

https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=https://www.seymourduncan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Tele_2H_3B_1VppSPL_1TppPH.pdf

I've gone over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure things are as they should be. And as I said, everything works, I'm just not sure if the sounds I'm getting are what a person should expect since I've always stuck to pretty basic circuits and never really experimented with coil splitting or phasing.

Here's a side view of the harness



Here's the volume pot, each pickup is sent to a center lug as per the diagram, and the ground is coming off the top lugs.



Here's the tone pot, the cap criss crosses with the wire that ultimately goes to the switch, and the bridge pickup is attached to either side of the center lugs.

[freefrog]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

I agree with AlexR about the stack being not a good candidate for splitting and agout the coils working against each others (it's quite clear with something like a Duncan Designed SC102, whose inductance is halved in noiseless mode, showing how the coils work in opposite directions).

Now, IMHO, the weak sound when the neck stack is split might be due to the fact that only its LOWER coil is active. Activating its UPPER coil should make the neck pickup louder and brighter in SC mode.
i'd try to reverse the ground and hot wire of this pickup and I'd listen what happens (it would be OOP with the bridge unit but as the guitar has a OOP switch, it's not really a problem)... :-)

[conorsearl]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

I agree with AlexR about the stack being not a good candidate for splitting and agout the coils working against each others (it's quite clear with something like a Duncan Designed SC102, whose inductance is halved in noiseless mode, showing how the coils work in opposite directions).

Now, IMHO, the weak sound when the neck stack is split might be due to the fact that only its LOWER coil is active. Activating its UPPER coil should make the neck pickup louder and brighter in SC mode.
i'd try to reverse the ground and hot wire of this pickup and I'd listen what happens (it would be OOP with the bridge unit but as the guitar has a OOP switch, it's not really a problem)... :-)

Currently the white wire (finish of the north coil) is coupled with the ground and soldered to the pot housing. The red wire (the finish of the north coil) is soldered to the switch. The green and black wires (the start of each coil) are coupled together and soldered to the DPDT switch.

So switch the white and red wires?

[freefrog]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

Yeah, try swapping the wire going to the pot housing and the one going to the main switch.

BTW and FWIW: usually, Duncan's are wired with green to ground, black to hot and red + white together, like in this pic:

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--_YJnJxHs--/a_exif,c_limit,e_unsharp_mask:80,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,h_620,q_90,w_620/v1473265872/jibbenb6um2waawpttnb.jpg

Your current wiring is permutating the two wires of each coil. No harm since it doesn't put one coil of the pickup OOP with the other (in which case the pickup would be really really thin sounding). But it's not designed to be wired like that AFAIK / in my understanding / unless my brain needs one more coffee... :-))

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

Yeah, try swapping the wire going to the pot housing and the one going to the main switch.

BTW and FWIW: usually, Duncan's are wired with green to ground, black to hot and red + white together, like in this pic:

https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--_YJnJxHs--/a_exif,c_limit,e_unsharp_mask:80,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_south,h_620,q_90,w_620/v1473265872/jibbenb6um2waawpttnb.jpg

Your current wiring is permutating the two wires of each coil. No harm since it doesn't put one coil of the pickup OOP with the other (in which case the pickup would be really really thin sounding). But it's not designed to be wired like that AFAIK / in my understanding / unless my brain needs one more coffee... :-))

The reason this diagram did that intentionally on the neck pickup is so that in splitcoil mode, the sound output position 2 of the pickup selector switch (both pickups active), would be hum-canceling because the two active coils would have opposite magnetic polarities.

The "inside-out" wiring could have been done on the bridge pickup instead and neck pickup could have been wired as normal, to get the same hum-canceling benefit in position 2, but because this diagram was designed primarily with two traditional, side-by-side-coil humbuckers in mind (with noiseless singlecoil pickups as an afterthought), they decided to apply that wiring to the neck , so that the generally more desirable Neck Outer Coil was active in splitcoil mode vs the Neck Inner Coil (because Neck Outer Coil is physically closer to the 24th fret node with richer harmonic content) and the generally more desirable Bridge Inner Coil was active in splitcoild mode vs the Bridge Outer Coil (which can be shrill in sound due to its closer proximity to the bridge of the guitar).

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

I agree with AlexR about the stack being not a good candidate for splitting and agout the coils working against each others (it's quite clear with something like a Duncan Designed SC102, whose inductance is halved in noiseless mode, showing how the coils work in opposite directions).

Now, IMHO, the weak sound when the neck stack is split might be due to the fact that only its LOWER coil is active. Activating its UPPER coil should make the neck pickup louder and brighter in SC mode.
i'd try to reverse the ground and hot wire of this pickup and I'd listen what happens (it would be OOP with the bridge unit but as the guitar has a OOP switch, it's not really a problem)... :-)

Agreed that if a noiseless singlecoil is being split, it should be wired so that Black wire is the hot wire (not Red wire), to ensure the Main coil remains active in splitcoil mode.

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

Currently the white wire (finish of the north coil) is coupled with the ground and soldered to the pot housing. The red wire (the finish of the north coil) is soldered to the switch. The green and black wires (the start of each coil) are coupled together and soldered to the DPDT switch.

So switch the white and red wires?

I concur with FreeFrog that if you swap just the Red & White wires, you will get the desired intent of now making the Main coil of the noiseless singlecoil active in splitcoil mode but with the tradeoff that the pickup is wired in reverse without also swapping the black &green wires, so the neck will be out of phase by default with the other pickup.

This would mean you would have to leave your out-of-phase push-pull switch in Up position instead of Down position (as that switch is currently wired) to get the two pickups in phase. Or, you could swap the Green and Black wires from the Bridge pickup on that out of phase switch to compensate so as to have the Up and Down positions work as intended instead of in reverse fashion.

Or if you are willing to do a bit more rewiring work, you could swap positions on all four of the neck pickup wires so its Main coil would become active in splitcoil mode AND that pickup would be in phase by default with the other pickup:

Black - goes to pickup selector switch
Red & White - joined together and goes to coilsplit switch (*)
Green - goes to Ground
(Bare wire ALWAYS goes to Ground)

RE: the asterisk above - my recommendation would be to not bother splitting the Neck pickup at all (ref. previous replies to this post by others about the doubtful benefits of splitting noiseless singlecoils in general), so i would recommend you instead not wire the Red & White of the Neck pickup to anything - just tape it up. Note if you do this, a tradeoff is that you will not have humcanceling in Position 2 in coilsplit mode because there is now a 3rd coil active. That would be THE one benefit from continuing to coilsplit the noiseless singlecoil.

By rewiring all four neck pickup wires *but* still having the Red &White connected to the coilsplit push-pull, a tradeoff is that you would not have humcanceling in pickup switch position 2 in coilsplit mode because now the two active coils from each pickup are the same magnetic polarity. If you still wanted that humcanceling benefit, you could rewire the Bridge pickup's four wires so that its Red wire becomes the Hot Wire ( and so in splitcoil mode the Bridge Outer coil becomes the active coil):

Red - goes to where Black currently is on the out of phase switch
Black & Green -get joined together and go to the coilsplit switch
White - goes to where Green currently is on the out of phase switch
(Bare wire ALWAYS goes to Ground).

In the last scenario, if you don't like the potentially shrill tones of the Bridge Outer coil now being the active coil in splitcoil mode, you can physically rotate that pickup 180° so that each coil now sits opposite to where they were. As long as you don't mind aesthetically that the pickup looks like it is placed in backwards.

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

It'll be pretty hard to tell from photos I think, there's a lot of wires, and tiny lugs tucked away but here is the diagram...

https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=https://www.seymourduncan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Tele_2H_3B_1VppSPL_1TppPH.pdf

I've gone over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure things are as they should be. And as I said, everything works, I'm just not sure if the sounds I'm getting are what a person should expect since I've always stuck to pretty basic circuits and never really experimented with coil splitting or phasing.

Here's a side view of the harness

[ATTACH=CONFIG]103754[/ATTACH]

Here's the volume pot, each pickup is sent to a center lug as per the diagram, and the ground is coming off the top lugs.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]103752[/ATTACH]

Here's the tone pot, the cap criss crosses with the wire that ultimately goes to the switch, and the bridge pickup is attached to either side of the center lugs.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]103753[/ATTACH]

Thanks for posting the pics, it was helpful. And, nice clean soldering work as well!

Maybe others could chime in: would the tone cap's connection to ground through the out-of-phase switch's ground wire cause any issues vs. the tone cap having its own separate route to ground? e.g. would the joined ground - which is in direct contact with the Bridge pickup Ground signal - cause the cap to be active at all times and drawing treble frequencies to ground?

I think it is unlikely that there is any adverse effect but just checking since i have never seen a cap share a ground connection with anything else.

[conorsearl]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

Thanks everyone, swapping the red and white on the neck pickup made it usable tapped, (that is it has a pleasing sound in both positions) although it probably acts more like a "boost/presence" switch that way. And reversing the green and black on the bridge pickup switched the polarity around so that switch acts as I would anticipate.

It's a little goofy as tapping the coils makes the bridge sound weaker, while the neck gets stronger sounding.

[freefrog]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

Thanks everyone, swapping the red and white on the neck pickup made it usable tapped, (that is it has a pleasing sound in both positions) although it probably acts more like a "boost/presence" switch that way. And reversing the green and black on the bridge pickup switched the polarity around so that switch acts as I would anticipate.

It's a little goofy as tapping the coils makes the bridge sound weaker, while the neck gets stronger sounding.

Glad it worked. :-)

What you experiment is normal, IMHO/AFAIK: splitting the bridge PU deprives it of one of its String sensing coils. On the contrary, splitting the neck PU disables only the lower noise sensor and "frees" the strings sensing coil...

I've a Strat with a home made dummy coil which does that too: when I enable it, it cuts the noise but it lowers the output level because it's an inert coil, adding just resistance to the PU (and inductance, of course, but it's not "useful" inductance in this case).


@Jack_TriPpEr: thx for your detailed answers! :-)

[conorsearl]

Re: Coil splitting and out of phase push pull pots, unsure about the results

So, a follow up question...

With my wiring diagram which bridge coil is active when the pickup is split. And since this is a little 59, would there even be much difference between the bridge coils?