Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

[marvelous_seven]

First of all, I already searched for related topics but couldn't find it so I thought I'd ask. I'm browsing through a luthier's website that makes guitars for Mr.Fastfinger (Ben Reuters) and I saw one of the guitars he made has Distortion pickup in the bridge that rotated so the screws pole are on the neck side of humbucker and slug poles on the bridge side.
Mr.Fastfingers himself have a guitar with rotated Jazz neck pickup too.
Here's the pics:

So what could I expect when I turn my pickups like that?
Looser bass? Rounded treble?
Anyone have tried this mod in their guitars? :thanks:

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

No law against doing that. Pickups without the pad printed logo would look better.

 

[marvelous_seven]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

No law against doing that. Pickups without the pad printed logo would look better.

How about it tonewise?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

Tonewise, the way that the adjustable screws are set relative to the strings will have some effect and, obviously, they will be sensing a whole 11/16ths of an inch further away from the bridge.

Er, how overdriven is your amplifier when you play through it?

 

[marvar]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

if you do that, when both pickups are on at the same time, it will be thin and weak sounding, you are basically putting the pups out of phase with each other.
When using just one pup, it most likely will sound more treble or more bass, depending on which pickup you turn around. bridge position-more lows, neck position, more highs.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

if you do that, when both pickups are on at the same time, it will be thin and weak sounding, you are basically putting the pups out of phase with each other.

When using just one pup, it most likely will sound more treble or more bass, depending on which pickup you turn around. bridge position-more lows, neck position, more highs.

Incorrect. The pickups will still be in the same electrical phase relationship with each other.

Changing the electrical phase relationship would involve changing the order in which the conductor cables of the bridge pickup are soldered.

 

[marvar]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

Incorrect. The pickups will still be in the same electrical phase relationship with each other.

Changing the electrical phase relationship would involve changing the order in which the conductor cables of the bridge pickup are soldered.

THere is 2 types of phaseing- mechanical, and electronic, physcally moving the pickup is going to be the mechanical type.
The reasone I know this, is because once I replaced a magnet backwards, and the pups were out of phase- once I put it back in correctly, all was well. I didn't change any of the wiring.

 

[marvelous_seven]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

Tonewise, the way that the adjustable screws are set relative to the strings will have some effect and, obviously, they will be sensing a whole 11/16ths of an inch further away from the bridge.

Er, how overdriven is your amplifier when you play through it?

Um,that's not my guitar btw. I'm just browsing around and find those kind of setup.
So if example I have Full Shred in bridge and Pearly Gates in neck,then I turn both pickups,would I get chunky Full Shred and searing Pearly Gates?
Just wondering.. :scratchch

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

THere is 2 types of phaseing- mechanical, and electronic, physcally moving the pickup is going to be the mechanical type.
The reasone I know this, is because once I replaced a magnet backwards, and the pups were out of phase- once I put it back in correctly, all was well. I didn't change any of the wiring.

Yes. This is how Peter Green came by the trademark sound of his Les Paul (later owned by Gary Moore). A repairman goofed. Mounting the neck pickup with its polepieces nearer the bridge was Peter's attempt to "reverse" the repairer's mistake. It made no difference. The rest is history.

 

[Varg]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

No law against doing that. Pickups without the pad printed logo would look better.

+1

Dimebag did it too.

 

[Varg]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

THere is 2 types of phaseing- mechanical, and electronic, physcally moving the pickup is going to be the mechanical type.

And how will that affect things tonally, this mechanical out of phase thing?

 

[marvar]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

And how will that affect things tonally, this mechanical out of phase thing?

Its the same sound as electronically out of phase, it will have that nasal sort of sound.

as said before- it will be thin and weak sounding when using both pickups at full volume, it will have all mids, not much lows or treble. . It will effectively be cancelling out certain frequencies, and each other, it sorta reminds me of a strat in the "in between" position.
f you decrease the volume of one of pups, it won't be as noticeable, as it would be with both pickups dimed, but still won't sound as when the pickups are in phase.
Some people like this sound, others don't-Hey, we are only talking about loosening the strings, removing the pickup ring screws and turning the pup around- why don't you try this for yourself and see if you like it or not.

 

[Varg]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

we are only talking about loosening the strings, removing the pickup ring screws and turning the pup around- why don't you try this for yourself and see if you like it or not.

I've come to the conclusion I won't use out of phase sounds or anything much else other than the standard bridge or neck sounds. I've tried various things and it all comes back to the fact these things don't sound that much different TO ME once I'm playing with the band.
For recording, sure, but that's something I don't do much now.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

I've never rotated a bridge pickup but neck pickups get a little brighter... tad less woolly. Never had a phase issue doing it either, and I've actually wired some of my dual-bucker guitars to be out of phase on purpose.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

I always turn my neck pickups.

 

[Rich_S]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

Marvar, you should get out of this thread because you're confusing the poor guy and you're WRONG. Rotating the pickup without rewiring or messing with the magnet will leave the overall pickup-to-pickup phase the same as it was before. Turning the whole pickup reverses the coils (electrical polarity) and it reverses the magnets (magnetic polarity). In total, reversing two things is the same as not reversing at all.

So, let's stop talking about phase althogether. The pickup phase after rotating one or boith pickups will be the same as when you started.

Turning pickups with their screw poles in toward the middle might make a slight difference, because it moves the emphasized sensing point (assuming the screws sense the string's vibrations a bit stronger than the slugs). So rotating the neck pickup might make it bit clearer (as Moose noted). Rotating a bridge pickup might make it a bit fatter and louder, but the difference will be slight.

This assumes of course that the pickups are balanced with two of the same coils. In the case of itentionally unbalanced pickup with different coils (like the 59/Custom hybrids talked about around here so much) the difference from rotating the pickup will be greater.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

Marvar, you should get out of this thread because you're confusing the poor guy and you're WRONG. Rotating the pickup without rewiring or messing with the magnet will leave the overall pickup-to-pickup phase the same as it was before.

+1

Turning the whole pickup reverses the coils (electrical polarity) and it reverses the magnets (magnetic polarity). In total, reversing two things is the same as not reversing at all.

No, it does not.
Reason 1) The coil(s) will still have the same winding direction as before.
Reason 2) The magnet(s) will still be the same way up.

What WILL change is the section of string that the adjustable polepieces sense. When two pickups are selected, altering the distance between them will affect the phase relationship of the signals that they generate. This, in turn, may affect any frequency cancellation effects between the two signals when they are combined.

Turning pickups with their screw poles in toward the middle might make a slight difference because it moves the emphasized sensing point (assuming the screws sense the string's vibrations a bit stronger than the slugs). So rotating the neck pickup might make it bit clearer (as Moose noted). Rotating a bridge pickup might make it a bit fatter and louder, but the difference will be slight.

This assumes of course that the pickups are balanced with two of the same coils. In the case of itentionally unbalanced pickup with different coils (like the 59/Custom hybrids talked about around here so much) the difference from rotating the pickup will be greater.

+1 again

 

[marcello252]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

marvar, you should get out of this thread because you're confusing the poor guy and you're wrong. Rotating the pickup without rewiring or messing with the magnet will leave the overall pickup-to-pickup phase the same as it was before.

+1

 

[marvar]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

Marvar, you should get out of this thread because you're confusing the poor guy and you're WRONG. .

One can wire a pup, in phase with the other,out of phase with the other,one in phase with it's self, or out of phase with it's self. And all variations in between. When 2 humbuckers are on together, they are parallel,alone they are series. Take one, and flip it in the hole. and they become out of phase with one another.

As for the other, you will NEVER see me here again-

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Turn/rotate pickup? I'm curious..

When two humbuckers are on together, they are in parallel WITH EACH OTHER. But each humbucker is still both coils in series.

But you CANNOT reverse the phasing by just turning the pickup 180 degrees. Phasing is electrical, it's not about physical positioning.

The one exception to this is if you had one pickup ABOVE the strings and the other below. In that case they are reading the string vibrations opposite each other -- on the same vibration, the string is always moving simultaneously toward one pickup and away from the other -- so they are then once again electrically out of phase, one pickup generating a positive current, the other negative.

(I know this from hard experience because I drove myself crazy one night trying to test a pickup without installing it by holding it above the strings with the other pickup in the guitar. I know I wired this @#$% pickup right and have the magnets facing the right way (checked with polarity tester), so why are they out of phase??? So I put the same pickup IN the guitar with the other pickup without reversing the leads or flipping the magnets, and whaddaya know, in phase again. Try this sometime if you're bored. Or not.)

But since no-one ever installs pickups above the strings because it's obviously extremely impractical and pointless, this exception is purely academic. On the same side of the string, the physical positioning of the pickups have ZERO effect on phasing and polarity.

As for whether there will be a tone difference when turning the pu 180 degrees, there will. How much depends on a bunch of things, like whether the coils have more or less the same number of turns, or are wound deliberately with one coil significantly hotter than the other. Or if the slugs and screws are the same alloy or different alloys, etc.

Obviously how high the screws are adjusted will make a difference too. But assuming the screws and slugs are set equal in height and the coils with the same number of turns, the slug coil would be just a bit louder in the same position than the screw coil. (Not a radical difference but some, though likely unnoticeable with anything beyond light gain.) This is because the screws drag some of the magnetic field below the baseplate and thus further away from the strings than the slugs do. The slugs also are thicker top to bottom than the screws, so they'll see more midrange and bass.

Finally, there's no reason to yell at anyone or try to chase them out of a thread for being wrong. Just gently correct them and move on.