One pickup phase change

[CarlosG80s]

Hi!
I'm wonder, why reverse pickup's phase it sound little different? I don't thing about middle position 2 pickups. I mean one neck pickup on neck position. If I change phase it sound more clarity, little different but i hear IT.
My wiring is ok.
Why is this happening? ​​

 

[eclecticsynergy]

What kind of pickup is it? Humbucker, singlecoil, noiseless stack?

 

[Mincer]

Are you saying that one pickup, on by itself, sounds different when you reverse the hot and ground wires?

 

[freefrog]

If it's about a single coil played alone: don't worry, I hear it too. And Brian May is like us (more seriously: the sensitivity of human hearing to phase changes has been studied scientifically. A Google search should give you some articles to read about that).

If it's about 4 conductors humbuckers: there's potential technical reasons, linked to the stray capacitance of coils + wiring.

 

[CarlosG80s]

Are you saying that one pickup, on by itself, sounds different when you reverse the hot and ground wires?

Yes. It's Humbucker

 

[CarlosG80s]

If it's about a single coil played alone: don't worry, I hear it too. And Brian May is like us (more seriously: the sensitivity of human hearing to phase changes has been studied scientifically. A Google search should give you some articles to read about that).

If it's about 4 conductors humbuckers: there's potential technical reasons, linked to the stray capacitance of coils + wiring.

Can you tell me more? It's very interesting. Difference is small, but reverse polarity neck pickup give more clarity and dynamic. On bridge I don't checked.

 

[beaubrummels]

I've only experienced this with my Brian May Red Special. I don't know how/why it's possible, since the official web site says it's not possible. But my only guess is because the pickups are wired in series, there could be some kind of loading on the active coil by the other coils that are shut off?

On a humbucker, I haven't heard it, though I have flipped the phase on a single humbucker before. (When I had Jimmy Page wiring.)

 

[freefrog]

Can you tell me more? It's very interesting. Difference is small, but reverse polarity neck pickup give more clarity and dynamic. On bridge I don't checked.

If music-electronics wasn't down right now, I'd share a link towards a topic that I've devoted to this question, with lab measurements.

What happens is that coils have often different capacitive values in humbuckers.

This difference is increased OR compensated by the capacitance of the wires in the cable of the pickup itself, and if this cable is a 4 conductors one, tt can give two clearly separate resonant frequencies to the coils.

This "double tuning" can generate a comb filtering effect in the audio range.

This comb filtering is not the same when phase is reversed because the bare wire to ground changes the capacitance of its "neighbours" and of the coils in variable ways.

It's a RANDOM phenomenon (since it depends on the lenght and actual physical structure of the cable, among other things). It's not noticeable with some pickups and becomes very obvious with others.

For the record, the Di-Marzio Dual Resonance principle is mostly a way to take advantage of this physical fact.

 

[beaubrummels]

I thought a DiMarzio Dual Resonance was just a Super Distortion with 4-conductors? Are the coils actually different? Or something else going on inside?

 

[freefrog]

Dual-Resonance typically involves two coils with the same number of turns (and therefore the same inductance) but wound with different wire gauges - hence different DCR values but also different capacitive loads.

With some DM designs, the difference of stray capacitance in the coils compensates the average capacitive load of the 4 conductors cable plugged to them. It gives a flatter / smoother curve in the upper harmonic range. In other models, it's the contrary: the difference of capacitive load is aggravated. In this case, the comb filtering in the high range becomes obvious and noticeably frequency-selective.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Wow, that is so interesting. I had no idea that this could happen.

 

[jeremy]

I thought a DiMarzio Dual Resonance was just a Super Distortion with 4-conductors? Are the coils actually different? Or something else going on inside?

thats a dual sound