[darkbluemurder]

Do you use any of these?

Just to clarify what I mean by these terms:

- out of phase (OOP): two pickups of any kind wired in parallel, where the phase of one pickup is (electronically or magnetically) reversed.

- half out of phase (HOOP): the same two pickups but the one wired reverse phase has a capacitor in series. Bill Lawrence used a 0.01uf in his schematic. The Jerry Donahue wiring is a variation of this with additional resistors in series. The schematics I have seen show two 6.2k resistors but since 6.2k is not a standard value this may be an error, and the correct value is 8.2k (maybe it is just me but reading big excel files I often mistake 6s for 8s and vice versa).

- power out of phase (POOP): two pickups of any kind in series instead of parallel, and one being reverse phased. First seen in Gibson's L6 and popularized by PRS in their first Customs. It is also part of the Brian May Red Special wiring.

Thanks and cheers
Stephan

EDIT: Acronyms added (OOP, HOOP, POOP)

[darkbluemurder]

What I recently did to a two humbucker guitar (a Tele Deluxe partscaster equipped with a Bareknuckle set of True Grit bridge, Abraxas neck) with a normal 3-way toggle and two push-pulls is the following:

-Push-pull no. 1 selects whether the bridge coils are in series or in parallel.
-Push-pull no. 2 puts the neck pickup in phase or half out-of-phase with the bridge pickup (half-out-of phase meaning that in that setting there is a 0.015uf cap in series with the neck pickup. I tried 0.01uf first but that was too boomy).

So I get the following sounds out of the guitar:

- Toggle #1: a) bridge series (the "rock tone") or b) bridge parallel (the "country tone")
- Toggle #2: a) both in parallel in phase, bridge series, b) as before, bridge parallel, c) both in parallel out of phase, bridge series, d) as before, bridge parallel. All work well clean, with little or much gain.
- Toggle #3: a) neck normal, b) neck out of phase = neck with a bit less low end (since the cap is in series with it).

This should work well with any two DiMarzio humbuckers as well.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

Upon further experimentation I found that with two single coil pickups I liked the half OOP most. Parallel OOP  is too thin and series OOP to nasal to my ears. HOOP provides a tone which on chords and lower string lead playing can take the place of the bridge+middle strat combo tone. On the higher strings it sounds different even with an added resistor - there it still has that nasal OOP tone but overall I find this a useful addition.

Cheers Stephan

[buddroyce]

Thanks for sharing your findings!

[darkbluemurder]

A few days ago I equipped my LP Standard, which has a Custom 5 and a DiMarzio Vintage Minibucker neck (DP 240) with a push-pull for out-of-phase. I also added another push-pull to split the neck humbucker.

When I first tried the OOP the reaction was that this exercise was a waste of time as it sounded as tinny and nasal as always. Then I started thinking about all the Peter Green tone talk and listened to a few of his tracks. That sounded different but why? The solution was rather simple - just dial the neck volume back a tiny bit. The sound becomes stronger but still has that hollow honky out-of-phase tone but it is no longer tinny or nasal. This was the ticket. Joe Perry uses that on a few Aerosmith songs as well. I love this tone. It is so different and refreshing.

Therefore I will never install an OOP option on a two humbucker guitar that has only one volume control again (guitar with two single coils see my earlier post - here I would choose HOOP). I definitely will install this in other guitars that have individual volume controls for bridge and neck.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

Further experimentation shows that it is best for the PG tone to not have any treble bypass circuits on the volume control.

[gregr]

I think as guitarists we tend to gravitate toward the tones which were recorded from yesteryear. If it weren’t for Peter Green I would never appreciate the sound of out of phase humbuckers. I read that it happened by accident.

The 3-pickup Les Paul Customs were originally wired with the middle pickup out of phase combined with the bridge pickup in the middle position. This wasn’t my bag so I put mine in phase and lowered it. The middle pickup is the stock T-Top with a Duncan Custom in the bridge. It makes for a nice clean tone without much quack as it’s mostly loading down the Duncan. This was a bit of a departure as the original bridge pickup was also a T-Top. As an aside I’ll also mention that with the stock wiring you don’t have the ability to blend controls as the middle position uses the same volume and tone as the bridge position and the neck position gets the other pair of controls. This never bothered me so I didn’t change it.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that 6.2 is a standard value in the 10% series along with 1,1, 1.3, 1.6, 2.0, 2.4, 3.0, 3.6, 4.3, 5.1, 7.5 and 9.1, in addition to the values in the 20% series. The values used in the Kinman treble bypass are 1nF and 130k IIRC. A 10% change in components is audio circuits is normally noticeable so I recommend getting them.

[darkbluemurder]

I think as guitarists we tend to gravitate toward the tones which were recorded from yesteryear. If it weren’t for Peter Green I would never appreciate the sound of out of phase humbuckers. I read that it happened by accident.

This is true but there is conflicting information as to what exactly happened.

Story no. 1: The magnet was put in the "wrong way" from the factory.
Story no. 2: The neck pickup was broken and rewound with Formvar wire but in the "wrong direction". In a futile attempt to put it in phase with the bridge pickup, the pickup was flipped so that the screw coil faced the bridge.

Based on an interview with Jol Dantzig, story no. 1 appears to be more likely as he allegedly tested the magnetic orientation with a compass which confirmed the reversed magnetic polarity. He also said that the solder joints were untouched and the cover did not seem to have ever been removed from the neck pickup. And that was at a time when Gary Moore owned the guitar, i.e. if story no. 2 were true, the reversed magnet and reversed winding direction should have put the pickup in phase with the bridge pickup. 

The 3-pickup Les Paul Customs were originally wired with the middle pickup out of phase combined with the bridge pickup in the middle position. This wasn’t my bag so I put mine in phase and lowered it. The middle pickup is the stock T-Top with a Duncan Custom in the bridge. It makes for a nice clean tone without much quack as it’s mostly loading down the Duncan. This was a bit of a departure as the original bridge pickup was also a T-Top. As an aside I’ll also mention that with the stock wiring you don’t have the ability to blend controls as the middle position uses the same volume and tone as the bridge position and the neck position gets the other pair of controls. This never bothered me so I didn’t change it.

Indeed that stock wiring was unique as unlike the two pickup models there was no setting where all controls were engaged. I never played such a beast but I like what you did - more power in the bridge, better overall balance and a nice clean tone in the middle toggle position.

Cheers Stephan