Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

[Torssonrocks]

Swapped the bridge pickup on my Road Worn Tele today to a Seymour Duncan Antiquity. I simply cut the old wires 2 inches from the pot (black) and switch (white) and connected the black and yellow (from new pickup) to them.
When I play in the neck and bridge positions it sounds great, but the middle position sounds super-weak and out of phase. Tried to change the wires on bridge pup but it sounded worse with lot of hum. On the original bridge pup there was a connector on the black wire that was connected to one of the three screws. Didn't connect it. Is this the explanation maybe?

 

[Artie]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

Welcome to the forum. The Tele Antiquity is a great pup, but you've got two issues here.

First, Seymour Duncan pickups, in general, tend to be out-of-phase with Fender pickups. Normally, this can be remedied by swapping the wires as you have done.
Secondly, Antiquity's tend to be out-of-phase with regular Duncans. (Don't know why.)

So, you'd think your Antiquity would play nice with your Fender. But there's one more problem. Coil wind direction and magnet polarity also play into the whole phase/hum-canceling scheme. Since you already tried swapping the wires, that doesn't appear to work.

I hate to sound like I'm trying to sell you more Duncan pups, but your only good solution may be to get the matching Antiquity neck pup.
(Which, by the way, would make for a very sweet Tele.)

But please wait for others to chime in.

Artie

 

[Torssonrocks]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

Welcome to the forum. The Tele Antiquity is a great pup, but you've got two issues here.

First, Seymour Duncan pickups, in general, tend to be out-of-phase with Fender pickups. Normally, this can be remedied by swapping the wires as you have done.
Secondly, Antiquity's tend to be out-of-phase with regular Duncans. (Don't know why.)

So, you'd think your Antiquity would play nice with your Fender. But there's one more problem. Coil wind direction and magnet polarity also play into the whole phase/hum-canceling scheme. Since you already tried swapping the wires, that doesn't appear to work.

I hate to sound like I'm trying to sell you more Duncan pups, but your only good solution may be to get the matching Antiquity neck pup.
(Which, by the way, would make for a very sweet Tele.)

But please wait for others to chime in.

Artie

It now works! What I did was to swap wires on the neck pickup. And voilá, no more out-of-phase in middle position
Thanks for your explanation - good to know!

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

On the original bridge pup there was a connector on the black wire that was connected to one of the three screws. Didn't connect it. Is this the explanation maybe?

This short connection from the black conductor to the metal baseplate of a Tele bridge position pickup is part of the grounding path. It needs to be connected because the baseplate and height adjustment screws form path of the grounding path to the vintage-style stamped steel bridge.

Similarly, on a Tele neck pickup, there should be a short solid wire connection between the metal pickup cover and the black conductor wire.

If you have simply reversed the two conductors of a single coil Tele neck/Rhythm pickup, the metal cover will now be on the "hot" side of the circuit. Here, it will act as an aerial for RF interference.

Your options are to EITHER reconnect the ground connection from the metal pickup cover to the conductor that is now ground OR physically separate the metal cover's ground connection from either output conductor. Run a third cable just to ground the cover. (This might come in handy if you ever try series interconnection of the two pickups.)

 

[Torssonrocks]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

This short connection from the black conductor to the metal baseplate of a Tele bridge position pickup is part of the grounding path. It needs to be connected because the baseplate and height adjustment screws form path of the grounding path to the vintage-style stamped steel bridge.

Similarly, on a Tele neck pickup, there should be a short solid wire connection between the metal pickup cover and the black conductor wire.

If you have simply reversed the two conductors of a single coil Tele neck/Rhythm pickup, the metal cover will now be on the "hot" side of the circuit. Here, it will act as an aerial for RF interference.

Your options are to EITHER reconnect the ground connection from the metal pickup cover to the conductor that is now ground OR physically separate the metal cover's ground connection from either output conductor. Run a third cable just to ground the cover. (This might come in handy if you ever try series interconnection of the two pickups.)

Thanks a lot! It sounds great now when I'm playing in the basement, but I don't want to recieve radio on it

 

[Torssonrocks]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

An additional question: on the new Seymour Duncan bridge-pickup the whole pickup has a metal plate as base (not plastic as on the one I removed), and since the height adjustment screw goes from bridge plate down through this metal base plate, I assume it's grounded and a separate wire to the bridge plate is not necessary. It's really dead silent now, no hum och buzz.

 

[Torssonrocks]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

Found another thread that said if you swapped wires on neck pickup, the tone would get darker. Maybe easier to cut the small jumper-wire on the SD bridge pickup, connect the white to ground on pot, and black to switch, and connect a new ground wire from pot to bridge-plate.

 

[Axxe73]

Re: Changed bridge pickup on Tele - now out of phase in middle position

Found another thread that said if you swapped wires on neck pickup, the tone would get darker. Maybe easier to cut the small jumper-wire on the SD bridge pickup, connect the white to ground on pot, and black to switch, and connect a new ground wire from pot to bridge-plate.

HI,
sorry to bring back this old topic, but it's still valid. I have a Texas special on the neck and Antiquity II on bridge which sounds out of phase. Now I understand I should reverse the neck pickup cables, but here comes the problem as there are 3 colors: yellow and black to pot, and white to selector. Question is which should I reverse? :33:

Thanks
Lorenzo