So, i'm being stupid, please help. (Phase problem)

[Rich_T]

Hey everyone, yet again I have done something stupid to one of my long suffering axes.

I've wired my LP out of phase (you know, that nasty, thin, nasally, no output tone).

How do I fix it? Its the stock epi humbuckers. Plain wire and black wire are already soldered together, to earth (back of the volume pot) then there is a white and a red, red is the hot i assume, so its soldered to the first lug of the volume pot, and i soldered the white to the back of the pot. What did I do wrong?

Will both pickups sound out of phase even if just one is wired wrong? Or have i made the same mistake twice?

Thanks in advance,

Richey

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: So, i'm being stupid, please help. (Phase problem)

There shouldn't be a phase problem at all when using one pickup or the other. There is no such thing a one pickup being out of phase -- there has to be at least one other pickup for it to be out of phase WITH. So if one pickup is wired out of phase, they will sound out of phase with each other. If both pickups are wired out of phase, they're actually in phase with each other.

That said, each humbucker is in reality two pickups. It's possible you might have wired one of the two coils of one of your humbuckers out of phase with the other. Does each pickup come with 3 or 4 conductors (wires)? If so, it sounds like this is exactly what you did.

1) If it's 3 conductors, one of the wires is the coil junction which allows you to wire for coil split (single coil) operation. This wire should be taped off and not soldered to anything if you want just straight humbucker operation.

2) If it's 4 conductors, two of the wires need to be soldered together to create said coil junction, and as above, taped off and soldered to nothing for pure humbucker operation.

3) In any event, there should not be two wires from the same pickup soldered to the back of the pot. REMOVE THAT WHITE WIRE FROM THE BACK OF THE POT! There should be just one lead soldered to the pot lug and one (with the bare wire) soldered to the back of the pot -- unless the bare wire actually IS the main ground lead and not just for the shielding, in which case just the bare wire should be soldered to the pot.

Unfortunately I am not familiar with Epiphone pickup wire color codes so I can't tell you which wire is which. Maybe another Epi owner can help you out.

 

[Rich_T]

Re: So, i'm being stupid, please help. (Phase problem)

I have no idea why I soldered that white wire to the back of the pot, it makes perfect sense this morning... brain fart last night obviously.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: So, i'm being stupid, please help. (Phase problem)

As the Chinese would say...mei guanxi.