Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: dobrojoe on August 25, 2013, 04:00:20 PM
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I am building a Strat-type guitar but with ES-345 electronics including the Vari-Tone (plus coil-tap and phase switches). Which are the best humbuckers for vintage blues (T-Bone Walker, BB King, Freddie King)? I'm using a custom-built single-ended valve amp with all the tricks.
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Stormy Mondays are the best, but PG Blues might give you an interesting set of sounds with the varitone.
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Stormy Mondays are the best, but PG Blues might give you an interesting set of sounds with the varitone.
Wouldn't the phase reversal switch on the neck pick-up give the same effect?
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Missed that - was just thinking regular 345 wiring! PG Blues have a bit more drive than the Stormy Mondays though.
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I would consider Mules too.
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Stormy Mondays are the best, but PG Blues might give you an interesting set of sounds with the varitone.
Wouldn't the phase reversal switch on the neck pick-up give the same effect?
If I recall correctly it would actually not give the exact same effect. The PG blues are made to be out of phase with each other for the middle position in that way cause the specific sound can only be created that way and not by the usual phase switch wiring. Tim said so somewhere I believe.
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From what I understand, Peter Green put his neck pickup in back to front - the screws were towards the bridge instead of toward the neck - effectively putting the neck pickup out of phase with the bridge pickup. This can also be achieved by retaining the screw position but reversing the polarity of the magnet or by reversing the direction of the coil winding. A phase switch does the latter although it can affect the humbucking effect in single pole pickups. I have never had a problem with that as I screen my cavities.
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From what I understand, Peter Green put his neck pickup in back to front - the screws were towards the bridge instead of toward the neck - effectively putting the neck pickup out of phase with the bridge pickup. This can also be achieved by retaining the screw position but reversing the polarity of the magnet or by reversing the direction of the coil winding. A phase switch does the latter although it can affect the humbucking effect in single pole pickups. I have never had a problem with that as I screen my cavities.
no, this is not correct.
rotating the pickups 180 degrees like Peter Green did does not change the phase - think about it, the wire is still in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction, and the magnets are still pointing in the same direction towards the strings. Rotating the pickup will make the sound slightly brighter though since the screw pieces are higher than the slugs and they now nearer the bridge.
to change the phase you have to adjust the magnet, or the wind direction, or a phase reversal switch. all these three options will reverse the phase, but they do so in a different way.
edit: also, if you use a phase reversal switch on humbucker, make sure that you have multi conductor wiring on that pickup or you will have grounding issues.
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^
As gwEm said, physically turning the pickup around makes no difference to the phase relationship.
Here's an old quote from Tim about the PG Blues:
They're based on info I received from Charlie Chandler who worked on Gary Moores PG LP and actually had the covers off the humbuckers.I also got info from the guy who rewound the damaged neck pickup, Sam Lee,so the neck is wound in reverse like the original and with heavy formvar wire(not magnetically out of phase as often suggested).
Magnets-vintage cut 63.5mm rough cast Alnico II.