Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

[Ace Flibble]

I've got these two sitting around and I'm finally putting them to some use in a HSH set up.

Specificially what I've got is a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat neck model with a nickel (or is it chrome?) cover, about a year old and a Fender Texas Special middle pickup, about two years old and I believe it is RW/RP but I'm not entirely sure.

I like to kepe my wiring as clean as possible so I want to check I've got everything right before I wire them in.

To stop the SD and the Fender being out of phase, I'll need to swap the Fender's two wires over so the hot becomes the ground and the ground becomes the hot, correct?

Will this then mean the two pickups stop being hum-cancelling when parallel (combined selection)? I've never understood the scienece behind the RW/RP or phase stuff to be honest, so I'm just guessing.

tl;dr version: mixing Fender single ocila nd a SD Phat Cat, what do I do to make sure they stay hum cancelling when both are selected and not out of phase?

 

[dr. ad]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

the diagrams on the main site have a note saying that fender pickups' wiring needs to be reversed when mixing with SDs; the phat cat neck is RW/RP relative to other duncans though.

i don't claim to be a strat wiring expert...
but if the fender pickup is RW/RP, i'd wire it up as you would on a fender.
if it's not RW/RP i think the standard fender polarity is opposite SD, so one of them would need to be 'flipped'

hopefully someone a bit more stratty will confirm for us

 

[Ace Flibble]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

The Fender is RW/RP.

To relieve one headache I could swap the neck Texas Special I have in another guitar with this middle one. The other guitar has George Lynch wiring so it shouldn't effect that guitar much other than I suppose the output will go up a little bit.

So, if I used a neck Texas Special (which is not RW/RP; it's just the usual Fender reverse phase compared to Seymour Duncan), that would work with the (RW/RP neck) Phat Cat, right? I'd just have to switch the hot and ground leads on the Fender pickup and that should work in phase & hum cancelling in the combined position?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

The Fender is RW/RP.

Only to other Fender Texas Special pickups.

Both the magnetic polarity and coil winding direction of your two pickups determine their phase relationship. Reversing the conductor order on the Texas Special will place the two pickups in phase with each other but the noise-cancelling effect will be lost.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

Okay, so, if I were to use the neck version (which isn't RW/RP as far as a set of Texas Specials are concerned), relative to the neck Phat Cat that would still be out of phase but not reverese wound?

 

[john9]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

Sounds like a tweak，Thanks！

 

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Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

EDIT - disregard, i've confused myself

 

[Ace Flibble]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

Yeah, the bridge is going to be a humbucker although the bridge & middle pickups will never be on at the same time. Never found a use for a bridge & middle combination regardless of which pickups were used and the guitar's got a 3-way toggle switch - I'm using a push-pull pot to select between the middle pickup or the bridge pickup, which will go to the treble selection of the toggle switch, and the neck pickup will always be on the rhythm selection. So the only combinations will be neck/neck&middle/middle and neck/neck&bridge/bridge. It's an odd way to do it but I'm making a custom build and I don't see much point in building something standard!
So really the only concern is the neck & middle combination, the bridge pickup will be a SD Alnico II Pro so there won't be any problem matching that with the neck Phat Cat.

Think I'll be giving it a go with the neck Texas Special instead then.

 

[dr. ad]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

neck phat cat + middle texas special + bridge humbucker.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Fender Texas Special and a SD Phat Cat - phase/hum query

The RW/RP (reverse wound/reverse poled) and out-of-phase is easy to understand if you think different: Just see it as box that is in-phase when it has the same magnet direction and winding direction. If you change one thing its out of phase; if you change both you are RW/RP. Fender and Gibson does not use the same winding and poleing standards.
Just give it a try. If you get a out of phase sound change the wires - than you are in-phase or RW/RP. In the latter case its quiet (BTW it only really dead quite if it has the same number of windings on both pickups). If its not quite it in phase in the case, you have to change the wires back and change the polarity on the Gibson style pickup (humbucker or Phat Cat), then you are done.