Dial-A-Phase

'59

Active member
Is there any way to have a knob that performs a variable amount of phase shift using passive components, or is that not a thing?
 
Is there any way to have a knob that performs a variable amount of phase shift using passive components, or is that not a thing?

It can be done with passive components. But the amount of phase shift varies with frequency, so there will not an absolute amount of shift. The amount of shift will be relative to the frequency. I think active phasers correct for this and all frequencies are shifted the same amount.
 
are you speaking of out of phase pickups?
wouldn't the volume control of the second pickup do that function?

It would be similar, but I think he wants one end of the knob to be two pickups in phase, and the other be two pickups out of phase, yours switches between two pickups OOP and a single pickup.

Is it possible? Yeah, you could do it with a blend pot. Send the black wire of the neck pickup to the 1st lug of the top pot, send the second lug to ground, send the third lug to the volume input. Send the white wire of the neck to the first lug of the bottom pot, send the second lug to volume, send the third lug to ground.

How well would it work? I don't know, I've never tried it, nor has anyone else I know.
 
Is there any way to have a knob that performs a variable amount of phase shift using passive components, or is that not a thing?

There's a long-standing "pot control based" method for doing that, that you may already have wired to work this way in your guitar without having to do any special wiring. That being, having individual volume controls for the two pups that are creating the OoP effect. Since the OoP tone relies on two pickups (one being wired out of phase with respect to the other) you can maximize that effect by having the volume controls for both pups set to 10, or soften that OoP sound by dialing down either of the two volume controls.
 
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It can be done with passive components. But the amount of phase shift varies with frequency, so there will not an absolute amount of shift. The amount of shift will be relative to the frequency. I think active phasers correct for this and all frequencies are shifted the same amount.

:smack:

When I saw using passive components, I thought the goal was an on-board phase shifter. Wrong tree again. ...or maybe a sign I have been reading too many pedal topics.

:D
 
Cool idea, seems a bit fussy and one-trick. Seems like you could get a similar effect by finding a point in your wah sweep that gets a sound you like. Not an exact replica of the sound that a dial-a-phase would theoretically get, but one that serves a similar purpose.
 
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