Quick Polarity & Peter Green Sound

[zozoe]

greetings,,,I'm not really looking for that sound... , I totally get +/- polarity when it comes to proper phase..... & I get the magnetic polarity & direction..
And when folks flip that magnet for the P Green thing, why can't you simply flip that neck p/u around?? wouldn't that enact the same magnet flip, & you're there, or am I missing something more involved?
Thanks folksॐ

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

The polarity of the pickup has nothing to do with its physical orientation relative to the planet.

In ways that I'm far too old and uneducated in electromagnetics to understand, it's all to do with relative magnetic field polarity and the winding direction, or wiring connections, of the pickup.

It doesn't matter whether the coil is wound anticlockwise instead of clockwise, or whether you wire the start ends of the coils to eachother instead of the finish ends (Seymour Duncans have the coil starts connected to eachother), but not both. So it's the "sense" of the coil winding / wiring relative to the magnet that matters.

Hum canceling occurs because the two coils are either wound in opposite directions, or because their starts (or finishes with SDs) are wired together. If they were wired start to finish you wouldn't get hum canceling. Thus the "senses" of the two coils react 180 degrees out of phase to a spurious electromagnetic signal, like from a flourescent light for example. The signal induced in one coil is 180 degrees out of phase with the other, so if the two coils are identical, the two hum signals cancel eachother out.

Humbucker magnets don't have their poles at their ends (the short sides) like the bar magnets you probably played with in school. Rather, the poles are along the long edges. On Seymour Duncan pickups the north pole of the magnet is under the plain or slug pole pieces, so those become magnetized "north" as well. The screw coils are over the south pole and so become magnetized as "souths".

Peter Green, if I remember the story correctly, was messing about with his neck humbucker, took it apart, then put it back together with the magnet upside down. He thus flipped the polarity of the pickup. He attempted to fix this by putting the pickup in the wrong way round, with the slug coils nearest the neck, but this didn't fix the problem. If he had connected the wires back to front as well, which would have been difficult with a vintage PAF with a single core "hot" plus a braided sheath "ground", he would have created a reverse wired reverse polarity (RWRP) pickup, and fixed the problem. But then he wouldn't have created that sound.

If you want to recreate the Peter Green sound, you can take the pickup apart, flip the magnet by turning it through 90 degrees once (and once only), putting it back together and wiring it in normally. Alternatively, you can just flip the black and green wire connections. Electromagnetically speaking either should do, but not both together. Do both and youve created a RWRP humbucker. Remember the bare, if there is one, always goes to ground though. For the last part, put the pickup in the wrong way round. Some say having the neck pickup slug poles nearer the neck subtely changes the neck pickup tone and is the final touch.

 

[zozoe]

I think I get it,,,, actually room the tutorials I saw on Green, they don't flip the magnet like you said, but slipped it out & turned it 180°,, & not the flip... I'm not even after that sound cuz I like my middle quacky funky sounds & I hate that nasally oop sound, tho it worked fot the old Mac stuff which is killer for the 1st 4 albums,,,, it's a signature dound...
I build ALL my own pickguards & I'm just seeking knowledge, & as to why he couldn't have simply flipped the pup, but as you said, with the slug now at the neck, it probably wasn't perfect for him,,,,, I'm more of a strat guy now, & I make em 4-ways gor B-BM-BN-N,,, The typical #4 position & solo middle never thrill me,,,, I've converted everything over to 4-ways, with 2 positions hum free...
thnx guy!! be well.....

 

[beaubrummels]

Flipping the pickup doesn't change anything because the coils were wound in a direction and electrons are still flowing through that coil in the same direction relative to the magnet polarity. Flipping the magnet, OR flipping the coil wires, changes the flow of electrons relative to the polarity of the magnet.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Yah, rotating the pickup doesn't change the polarity of the output. Only flipping the magnet or reversing the wiring will do that.

As for flipping magnets, either turning one over or removing it and turning it end-to-end can do that.
On a pickup bar the poles are the narrow edges, so both methods do the same thing - reversing those edges.
IMO it's easier just to flip it over. And less risk of mixups.

FWIW, humbucker bar mags often are marked on the North polarity edge.
If not, it helps to mark them with a Sharpie while you have them out, just in case you ever remove them again.

 

[hamerfan]

Peter Green, if I remember the story correctly, was messing about with his neck humbucker, took it apart, then put it back together with the magnet upside down. He thus flipped the polarity of the pickup. He attempted to fix this by putting the pickup in the wrong way round, with the slug coils nearest the neck, but this didn't fix the problem. If he had connected the wires back to front as well, which would have been difficult with a vintage PAF with a single core "hot" plus a braided sheath "ground", he would have created a reverse wired reverse polarity (RWRP) pickup, and fixed the problem. But then he wouldn't have created that sound.

If you want to recreate the Peter Green sound, you can take the pickup apart, flip the magnet by turning it through 90 degrees once (and once only), putting it back together and wiring it in normally. Alternatively, you can just flip the black and green wire connections. Electromagnetically speaking either should do, but not both together. Do both and youve created a RWRP humbucker. Remember the bare, if there is one, always goes to ground though. For the last part, put the pickup in the wrong way round. Some say having the neck pickup slug poles nearer the neck subtely changes the neck pickup tone and is the final touch.

To save Peter Greens reputation, it was not Green but his luthier who was messing around with the pickup. Peter just recognized that his pickup went south one day and visited his luthier.
This guy was a wizard with wood and lacquer, but only had very small experence with pickus. He just just repaired Fender pups before. So he had the wrong winding wire (Formvar instead of Plain enamel wire) und did not record the magnet orientation an the winding orientation of the pickup. This lead to three mistakes and - voila - a new sound.

 

[freefrog]

The polarity of the pickup has nothing to do with its physical orientation relative to the planet.

FWIW, it's still possible to put a pickup OOP with another one by flipping it... upside down, above the strings, instead of simply rotating it on an horizontal axis under the strings.

Been there, done that: I'm a bit mad sometimes.

 

[Artie]

FWIW, it's still possible to put a pickup OOP with another one by flipping it... upside down, above the strings, instead of simply rotating it on an horizontal axis under the strings.

Been there, done that: I'm a bit mad sometimes.

That does make sense. A pickup responds to the strings moving closer and away. Not back and forth. (It's one of the few things Seth got wrong in a Duncan interview.) So, if one pup is above the strings, the string will be moving towards one while moving away from the other.

 

[freefrog]

That does make sense. A pickup responds to the strings moving closer and away. Not back and forth. (It's one of the few things Seth got wrong in a Duncan interview.) So, if one pup is above the strings, the string will be moving towards one while moving away from the other.

Yep, that's exactly what I've thought.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

FWIW, it's still possible to put a pickup OOP with another one by flipping it... upside down, above the strings, instead of simply rotating it on an horizontal axis under the strings.

Been there, done that: I'm a bit mad sometimes.

Bit of a bugger to play though :naughty:

 

[freefrog]

Bit of a bugger to play though :naughty:

LOL. Yes. Actually, what I described has been a way for me to check if some pickups would be in phase once mounted, when I didn't know if they were RW. Connecting them directly to the jack of a cable, itself plugged in the guitar with its own pickup(s) enabled, allowed me to hear both pickups in parallel and to verify if they were OOP or not (which is easy to hear with a hand holding a pickup upside down and the other hand picking the strings).

 

[Artie]

LOL. Yes. Actually, what I described has been a way for me to check if some pickups would be in phase once mounted . . .

But imagine something like the Rick Turner Model T, with two thin pups. Like Jaguars or such. With one mounted below and one above, where that metal plate is. (I think thats actually the mag for the coils below.) Wire the top one OOP, to bring it back in phase. Could be interesting.