Re: Phat Cat in 3 PU Les Paul Custom
paul zahl said:
So That's it??? Ive heard the neck Phat Cats are wound out of phase to the bridge Pu's ...but I dont know what the means in relation to my 1987 humbuckers??? Which should I put in the middle of my 3PU LP Custom????...Comeonn guys....you can do better than THIS....Please!!!>>>>>>>>>>>>PZ
Ignore them all, I say! I'm the man you must consult!
Seriously, the Phat-Cat-in-the-middle idea is exactly what I'm going to do when I get the 3-pu Historic Custom to go with it.
Phat Cats will not cause you any sort of out-of-phase problems in conjunction with other pickups. As proof, I have one in the neck of my LP Standard and there are no phase issues with the Burstbucker #3 in the bridge. (Even if there were, all you'd have to do is flip over the magnets in the Phat Cat.)
The Phat Cat is a great choice for a middle pickup precisely because it is a single coil -- by which I mean the pole pieces on a single coil line up exactly under the right harmonic node to get the classic Strat "cluck" tones in conjunction with the bridge or neck pickup. (No, I'm not saying it sounds like a Strat exactly, just that it "clucks" like it should.)
I know this because I had a Lucille that I routed for a middle pickup and the regular humbuckers I tried were just too dull sounding. I got desperate and bought a gold minihumbucker and -- voila! -- the cluck was THERE. It looked weird but the sound was righteous.
The reason for that is the minihums bobbins are so narrow that the magnetic field is so concentrated that it's almost like a single coil, while the two rows of poles on regular humbuckers bracket that "cluck" node of the string but don't hit it.
A few recommendations, though:
1) If your guitar is too bassy for you, a bridge Phat Cat might be ideal in the bridge position for you.
2) You only need one push/pull pot to get all 7 pickup combinations. Just wire the hot lead of the middle pu to the switch, and wire the switch directly to the hot side of the jack.
3) My Phat Cat is custom wound to 7.0k -- 8.0k is too hot for the neck position on this pickup (it ain't called Phat for nothin') and therefore too hot for the middle too.
I orginally got my Phat Cat to put in the middle position of a 3-pu LP but tried it in the neck of my Standard and it sounds SO good that I'm going to have to order another one (or just get one off the shelf and unwind it by hand) whenever I do get that 3-pu LP.