Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

[FJNIII]

Apologies for asking a question that has been addressed many times, but the issues of pick-up polarity and phase are still confusing to me. I would like to put a Fender Fat 50's in the neck and middle position of a strat, with an SSL5 in the bridge position. The Fat 50's have a rw/rp middle pick-up for hum cancelling.

Can someone please tell me which SSL5 pick-up to buy, the normal pick-up, or the rw/rp pick-up? I understand that I may have to reverse the leads in the SSL5 to address phase issues, but I do not understand the polarity issues. I do not care so much about the hum cancelling in 2 and 4, but I do have a blender pot and intend to use the neck and bridge together.

Thanks for any help.

 

[The Dali]

Re: Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

I would think you buy the standard SSL5 and just invert wires.

 

[FJNIII]

Re: Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

The Dali

Thanks for the confirmation, that is probably what I will do. However, after several hours of straining my eyes on the interweb, I have found the following information about pick-up magnet polarity, which may or may not be true.

Fat 50's magnet polarity:
- Neck = South
- Middle = North
- Bridge = South

SSL5 Standard magnet polarity = South
SSL5 RW/RP magnet polarity = North

Thus, am I way off-base in assuming that if I use:
- A standard SSL5, I would have hum cancellation in positions 2 (bridge & middle), 4 (neck & middle), and all 3 pick-ups together, but not with only the bridge and neck pickups selected.
- A RW/RP SSL5, I would have hum cancellation in positions 4, bridge and neck pick-ups selected, and with all 3 pick-ups selected?

The reason I raise this question is because with my blender pot, as far as pick-up combinations go, I tend to use position 2 sometimes, position 4 rarely, but the bridge and neck together fairly often. Thus, if I had a choice, I would rather have hum cancellation on the bridge & neck combination.

I understand that this is kind of a trivial issue, but I would rather learn a little bit and make an informed decision, rather than make a decision based on guess-work and then have to fiddle with my instruments often.

Any thoughts or inputs that you may have would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Kevin Harvey]

Re: Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

Can someone please tell me which SSL5 pick-up to buy, the normal pick-up, or the rw/rp pick-up? I understand that I may have to reverse the leads in the SSL5 to address phase issues, but I do not understand the polarity issues. I do not care so much about the hum cancelling in 2 and 4, but I do have a blender pot and intend to use the neck and bridge together.

That is a great question! Phase and polarity issues are common when utilizing pickups from multiple brands in one guitar. Its always good to do your research.

In this case, I would recommend getting a standard SSL-5 for the bridge position. This will give you hum-canceling function when blending in the SSL-5 bridge position pickup with the Fat 50s neck position pickup, because our standard SSL-5 is RWRP in relation to the standard Fat 50s neck pickup. Unfortunately, with this set up, you will not have hum-canceling functioning in positions 2 and 4 on your 5-way selector.

Thanks again for the question! Good luck with the pickup hunt!

 

[FJNIII]

Re: Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

That is a great question! Phase and polarity issues are common when utilizing pickups from multiple brands in one guitar. Its always good to do your research.

In this case, I would recommend getting a standard SSL-5 for the bridge position. This will give you hum-canceling function when blending in the SSL-5 bridge position pickup with the Fat 50s neck position pickup, because our standard SSL-5 is RWRP in relation to the standard Fat 50s neck pickup. Unfortunately, with this set up, you will not have hum-canceling functioning in positions 2 and 4 on your 5-way selector.

Thanks again for the question! Good luck with the pickup hunt!

Kevin and Mr. Dali

Thanks very much for the clear and accurate advice! SSL5 Standard now ordered. Very excited about this pick-up and I look forward to some monster tone!

Regards

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

Also, you'll never have him cancelling with 3 single coils.

 

[deemic]

Re: Fender Fat 50's (RW/RP middle) with SSL5 neck

I had this same dilemma yesterday.
I'm running Fat 50's in the neck and middle, with RWRP in the middle, and a standard SSL-5 in the bridge.
Quite honestly, it sounded horrible before I did the following.....

You really only need to switch the hot and ground wires coming off the SSL-5 to get what you need.
So solder the white wire to the ground that the other fender pickups (black wires) are going to (usually the top of the volume pot?)
Solder the black wire to the pickup side of the selector switch.
Hum cancelling works fine.

The bigger issue in my opinion, is to make sure you take the SSL-5 out of the tone circuit.
For some reason, the tone pot sucks the life right out the pickup.

Cut the jumper on the tone side of the selector switch and your pickup will come alive.
If you want to eliminate even more noise, line the entire body cavity with copper foil, and make sure you ground all of the pots to each other, and run a ground wire to the trem claw as well.
Making these modifications, the difference it made in my strat was night and day and now it simply sounds incredible.