p-90 out of phase mod

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luvcrap2000

New member
How would I make a p-90 neck PU to take more advantage of the out of phase tone? I know about the 180 of the magnets, but Would upping or downgrading the magnetic strength of the magnets influence the tone in particular that would make any difference? I think they have alnico V mags in it now. maybe alnico 2 would be better? Ceramic 8 I think would be way to harsh.
 
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Re: p-90 out of phase mod

You are better off doing it electrically with a switch or push pull, easy to do with a 2 conductor pickup. More tricky if it's old school using outer braid as ground but can be done.


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Re: p-90 out of phase mod

If a p90 is 2 conductor it is more often than not going to be braided connector.
I would separate the coil wire out so chassis ground is separate.

As to tonally......there is nothing that can be predicted with OOP. It will be glorious or suck based on both the individual pickup and the guitar.

As to modifying tone with mags, there is no way you can predict what will work. That combination works due to the combing of the parallel selection and the phase cancellation. I can't see any benefit to guessing or speculation on what 'might happen'.
 
Re: p-90 out of phase mod

AlexR said:
If a p90 is 2 conductor it is more often than not going to be braided connector.
I would separate the coil wire out so chassis ground is separate.

As to tonally......there is nothing that can be predicted with OOP. It will be glorious or suck based on both the individual pickup and the guitar.

As to modifying tone with mags, there is no way you can predict what will work. That combination works due to the combing of the parallel selection and the phase cancellation. I can't see any benefit to guessing or speculation on what 'might happen'.
Click to expand...

I am a BIG fan of out of phase.

I did intalled out of phase on a push pull on my Maxons whose conductor wiring is as you described above, as well as coil splitting (but that's not relevant to this discussion).

I insulated the entire cable with heat shrink tube exposing the last 3 mm of the braid. I tinned the end of the braid and on the terminal of the push pull, I tinned the terminal that would connect to the pickup ground. I prepared the crossover wires then soldered the inner hot lead to the other terminal and then held the tinned braid to the tinned terminal and applied the hot soldering iron to get solder to flow - just like soldering to the back of a pot only more fiddly. It works well, hasn't come loose or had any accidental shorting due to the braid touching any grounded part when the phase is reversed.

I find out of phase sounds pretty good on humbuckers in fact awesome on the 2 humbucker guitars I have installed it on., but not so good on single coils where it can sound very thin, unless you have separate volume controls for the pickups to roll one back a touch. Not the case on my strat...

So on single coils I find using a 0.1uF cap on the switch to send ground to hot fattens that tone and gives a nice scooped sound that retains bass as the cap acts as a bass throttle reversing some of the phase cancellation. I got the idea from the phostenicd 1/2 out of phase mod, just used a different capacitor to throttle different frequencies. I have a blend pot on my strat with out of phase as well as the cap so I can control more of the phase cancellation by prioritising one pickup over another.


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Re: p-90 out of phase mod

I have flipped magnets before and it's really easier than doing electrical work. P-90s are easier than humbuckers. I wanted more "Character" out of the pickup so I was thinking of either swapping mags out/combination or just getting a different p-90(maybe after the low cost mag swap), I've read A5/A2 is the way to go, I dunno.
 
Re: p-90 out of phase mod

Flipping mags is technically easier, as you keep hot where it is.

Which pickup were you reading where A5/A2 is the 'way to go' for.....every pickup model is different in what mags suit it best. I've had a guitar where a pickup set that was out of phase by accident sounded great. I swapped them out into another guitar - that very same pickup set now sounded crap.....no mag swaps were done yet they now didn't have it.

So, less on what you read and more on what you find.
 
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