Peter Green Neck Pickup

[JGundry]

This was recently posted on the LPF. Other than the heavy Formvar it seems to be just another way to skin the same cat instead of flipping the magnet. Also the Peter Green LP was checked at a recent guitar show and apparently the magnet is flipped which seems to contradict the reverse winding premise. But still interesting.

FROM THE LPF:

Here is some more info on the Bare Knuckle PG Blues set straight from Tim Mills:

"It's a common misconception that the Peter Green neck p/up is reverse polarity.Having spoken with the man who repaired it I can confirm it was rewound in reverse with heavy formvar and not simply a flipped magnet.We don't wire our neck out of phase we actually reverse wind the coils and that's where the tone lies. Either flipping the magnet OR reverse winding will not effect the neck tone on it's own however it does effect the middle position which becomes out of phase with the bridge. This is the way Peter Greens LP was configured-by accident due to the neck p/up repair- and so we make our set the same way.Many 'gurus' claim to know the secret of the Peter Green tone but none of them have actually found out. Having gone into considerable depth with not only Sam Lee who did the repair but also Charlie Chandler who repaired the LP after a car accident that Peter had I'm confident I've gotten to the bottom of it.The final proof is the people that play them, not only Gary Moore ! who's owned the original LP longest and plays the PG Blues set now but also guys like Bernie Marsden, Geoff Whitehorn etc all who know the tone inside out say we've nailed it. kind regards Tim"

I spoke via email with my main pickup builder, Peter Florance who is going to wind a set like this with the reverse wound neck coils, heavy formvar wire for the neck and 42 plain wire for the bridge. I told him I wanna try them too.


END OF LPF POST

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by JGundry

FROM THE LPF:

We don't wire our neck out of phase we actually reverse wind the coils and that's where the tone lies.

END OF LPF POST

Who's got the can of bull shit repellant? Possum? I know you keep a can or two handy...

[Possum]

Spence really knows about this subject, I think he mentioned once that the current pickup in guitar has been messed with and isn't the same pickup incarnation that Green played.....Spence?

[Spence]

It's no bullshit. I'm only a bit suprised that Tim Mills has effectively told everyone what's happened to that pickup. He's blown the lid right off it.
Only thing is, don't try to get hold of Sam Lee because he's not actually Sam; that's a nickname and he was never Chinese either....

There you go, more mythology exploded.

But the main thing is this, now that Bare Knuckles has told the world, just try it for yourselves and then realise that all the magnet flippers out there were just plain wrong all along.

[JGundry]

Spence,

Do you know when Peter Green's neck pickup was rewound?

I will certainly give it a try but the magnet flip sure sounds like Peter Green to me.

Myths are hard to let go of. I can think of one concerning PAF's being hand wound that people have a hard time letting go of. Sorry Spence if you give me a straight line like that I just can't help myself.

[mick]

It works really well without flipping the magnet....,

[Spence]

I'm doubled up here. No offence to anyone else here, but Peter green's guitar spent all it's life untill recently in England. Why is it people on this forum think that anyone outside America can't possibly know jack shit about American guitars.


In response to Jon; I'm not intersted in mythology and I'm well known for exploding the myths so please don't keep going on about PAF's as if you're a world authority. You're not because you haven't seen enough of them. we can only go on what we have seen, taken apart and heared. I do value other's opinion's and experience and I'm always happy to hear the odd opinion.

When that pickup was rewound has no bearing on it's tone. What do want; an exact date? Anyway, do as you say and try it out.

Also, if anyone on here can tell me what songs of Peter Green's are classic examples of this tone I'm all ears.

Interestingly, before you all start compiling a list, Peter Green always claimed to have recorded with an ES 345 in the studio.

[NightWinder]

Hum...Fleetwoods The Vintage Yrs Live is always a good one. This whole thread is startling....some research and different configurations can yield results in tones and get that P.G. tone. Theres only a number of configurations for that tone. I suppose ground breaking in information via the web...."spilling the beans" for what it is exactly instead of totally relying on the ears...But the Ears would be a good starting point.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by JGundry

Spence,

Do you know when Peter Green's neck pickup was rewound?

I will certainly give it a try but the magnet flip sure sounds like Peter Green to me.

Myths are hard to let go of. I can think of one concerning PAF's being hand wound that people have a hard time letting go of. Sorry Spence if you give me a straight line like that I just can't help myself.

Wind direction does not effect the tone of the pickup. Since we are talking about two pickups out of phase, it's only out of phase in relation to the other pickup. So obviously, rewiring the pickup is the same thing as winding it backwards.

The only thing that might be different, and this is stretching it, it that the difference between flipping the magnet and rewiring (or rewinding) the pickup in reverse is which coil, slug or screw, has the opposite magnetic polarity to the bridge pickup's slug or screw coil, since the two coils sound different.

THAT's the secret my friends. Not the wind direction. Most people cannot hear phase changes of a single pickup. While it might be true that changing the phase of the pickup would effect things like feedback, since the pickup is now in phase with the strings/body, it wont change the tone.

So flipping the magnet might not be the way to go, if you need to maintain the magnetic polarity from one pickup to another, but rewiring the pickup at the coax will do the trick... no need to wind in reverse.

I wasn't saying it's bull shit that his pickup was rewound... I was saying that winding in reverse would sound different. It wont.

That's my 2 cents.

Oh and didn't Gary Moore own that Les Paul for a long time? Did he ever give it back?

[JGundry]

Spence,

The Peter Green tone is the middle out of phase sound and I agree with David that the reverse wind is just a symantic and not tonal difference with one pickup but I am open to trying it. For Peter Green out of phase sound with accompanying volume drop listen to Jumping At Shadows and If You Let Me Love You on the Boston Tea Party Live LP. With a cranked amp the volume drop is much less apparent but when the amp is not being pushed very hard the middle out of phase sound has a more apparent volume drop. 500K pots, 50's wiring and and a flipped magnet and balancing the neck and bridge volume pots will will get you the middle position sound in this song. If you want an earlier studio recording listen to Long Grey Mare.

I do think it will be an interesting experiment to reverse wind a neck pickup though.

Here is a further update post from the LPF:

Here is some additional info and corrections from Tim at BKP:

Hi again Todd, further to my reply yesterday re: Peter Greens pickups I mistakenly said Charlie Chandler repaired the guitar after it was in a car accident with Peter Green. The guitar was damaged in a car accident involving Gary Moore not Peter and Charlie Chandler then handled quite extensive repairs-cracks through the body and neck joint along with two breaks in the neck. Charlie obviously had to remove the pickups during the repair and had the covers off to check them over noting that the neck had clearly been rewound with heavy formvar and had grey coax hook up which we later found out was carried out by Sam Lee. It should also be noted that the guitar has been heavily modded during it's lifetime with virtually all the electrics and wiring being replaced at some time or other.Charlie even said it'd had push pull pots at one point.I appreciate that everyone has their own take on this guitar and the story behind the pickups but I've based our PG Blues humbucker set on the best factual knowledge I've been able to obtain and this is from the period the guitar was in the ownership of Gary Moore.Most importantly I've used my ears and those of players with experience of the original LP such as Gary Moore, Bernie Marsden and Geoff Whitehorn to make sure I've voiced the PG Blues humbuckers accurately. kind regards Tim

I did send a reply back to this asking about the magnet flip and the confirmation of this based upon inspection of the guitar since it has been in the U.S. with Phil at Maverick. Hope to get a reply later today.

End of LPF post:

There is already a bit of question about the veracity of Tim's facts here as he is doing a bit of revisionist history. The neck repair happened in Moore's possesion. The guitar in it's current state has what appears to be a grey 4 conductor wire coming out of the neck pickup but no push pull pot. So perhaps it was simply modified for a push pull pot by Gary Moore and later abandoned. Two pots have been replaced on the guitar and the guitar now has two reflector knobs. The reflector knobs only appeared when the guitar was in Moore's possession. But other than that if there is no time line as to repairs I don't see how anyone can confidently say that the Peter Green out of phase tone is anything but a flipped magnet. Green's guitar came from the United States and would not have been the first to have magnetically out of phase pickups. It happened with p-90's as well. It may indeed have all of the stated repair and even a reverse rewind but with no time line it is speculation.

Spence as far as the PAF facts go my understanding is based upon complete unwinds of PAF, early patent sticker and later patent sticker pickups. Since I now actually own a Leesona 102 I know exactly what might make one think that a PAF was hand wound if they did a partial unwind. Tolerances and quirks of the machine explain all of the variations in PAF winding patterns. Seymour Duncan who has more experience unwinding and rewinding PAF's than probably anyone on the planet also knows that all PAF's were machine wound. According to Seymour, Gibson had two Leesona 102's in the late 40's. I find it impossible that Gibson would not have used them for PAF's but would have instead hand wound PAF's. In his interview with Seth Lover, Seth clearly states that PAF's were all machine wound except for his first prototype pickup. There are no facts that support a hand wound PAF argument. Mistaken judgment cannot be chalked up as fact.

[David Schwab]

If the neck pickup now has four conductor wiring, then it's easy to wire it out of phase. Obviously with a stock gibson pickup, the 1/C coax is grounded to the base plate, as is the common end of the pickup, so you can't just switch the output wires. This is why people flip the magnets. But as I pointed out earlier, this might affect the combined tone of both pickups in a subtle way. But by having the 4/C wiring, there's no need to flip the magnet or reverse wind the coils.

I've wound humbuckers with both coils the same direction, and also in opposite directions, and I don't hear a difference. So I doubt winding them both opposite would matter either.

An easy way to test this is to take a humbucker and flip both bobbins over and leave the magnet the same.

Record it both ways and see if you hear a difference.

[Spence]

Originally Posted by David Schwab

If the neck pickup now has four conductor wiring, then it's easy to wire it out of phase. Obviously with a stock gibson pickup, the 1/C coax is grounded to the base plate, as is the common end of the pickup, so you can't just switch the output wires. This is why people flip the magnets. But as I pointed out earlier, this might affect the combined tone of both pickups in a subtle way. But by having the 4/C wiring, there's no need to flip the magnet or reverse wind the coils.

I've wound humbuckers with both coils the same direction, and also in opposite directions, and I don't hear a difference. So I doubt winding them both opposite would matter either.

An easy way to test this is to take a humbucker and flip both bobbins over and leave the magnet the same.

Record it both ways and see if you hear a difference.

Of course winding the coils in the wrong direction will make no difference but when the two are on together you will, even you David, will hear a difference.

Jon, I shall agree to disagree with you and nothing more. Your opinion is just an opinion just like mine is. I think you are disregarding other people's findings mostly because you believe in your own convictions but also because you now have a Leesona 102 as a marketing tool.
I could easily have bought that Leesona myself but I have no place for yet another museum piece.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Spence

Of course winding the coils in the wrong direction will make no difference but when the two are on together you will, even you David, will hear a difference.

Then we have to determine why this is. I think it has to do with which coil is north or south compared to the to the pickup. That's why flipping the magnet will give a different result. You are combining the difference of the four coils, since you are canceling out what's common to the two of them.

But I don't buy that it's because it's wound in reverse. That's just a misunderstanding of what's going on. It makes no sense.

There's so many other things going on with that pickup... different magnet wire, and even the 4 conductor cable will give a different tone. I had a DiMarzio SDHB in a guitar where I ran each coil out on it's own 2 conductor shielded wire. The idea was it's supposed to lower the capacitance. I read about trying it somewhere, and I think it made it a bit brighter... but I never did an A/B test.

As I said, just take a pickup and flip the coils over, and see if it sounds different.

[mick]

Nah , he sold it to Maverick music , who sold it on after supposedly claiming it was for himself?? there was a big write about it in guitar and bass magazine..
But WTF knows...no point asking PG , he would likely just smile and stare into space..
I would think if Tim Mills has the likes of Geoff Whitehorn , Gary Moore etc vouching for the tone I would think he's pretty close to the mark..it doesn't matter if the reverse wind affects the tone different to flipping the leads really , if you are doing the pickup maybe it would be prudent to at least make an effort to get it right..which Tim seems to do judging by his user list...hey is he still hand winding or does he use a knitting machine??? jon can I ask why you bought the Leesona???

Mick

[NightWinder]

Winding direction, not a flipped magnet...

[NightWinder]

Originally Posted by NightWinder

Winding direction, not a flipped magnet...

Flipping the magnets won't have a volume drop like that

[Possum]

You know I've been hanging out on the new LP forum a bit and it really amazes me what I would call "forum psychology" that goes on regarding pickups and what they all buy.

It kinda ties in with the Peter Green thing. What is special about those pickups? NOTHING. They are PAFs, one of the sets that didn't sound like mud. What is special about them? They had Peter Green playing them, Gary Moore playing them, thats whats special about them. That guitar sounded completely different with each guy playing on it. I think its more that it was a great piece of wood and there again not ALL 59 bursts sounded great either, you read these articles by famous rich musicians who try out some bursts and they say well some of them were real boring sounding but I found a good one (and paid an ungodly amount of money for it). The PG guitar has alot of repairs and most of the parts aren't original :-)

Back to the forum psychology thing. These guys are clique children, they all buy the same things because its the cool thing to do and they want to fit into the clique and be accepted. On a broader spectrum the same thing applies to pickups and guitars out in the general public, Jimmy Page played it so its gotta be good. The Danelectro thing, no one gave a shit about them til he played one. No one gave a shit about Harmony Stratotones til Rick Holmstrom and Junior Watson played them. Without this kind of mass guitar hysteria thing 59 bursts would just be old guitars you could buy in a pawn shop for $200, seriously.

The way this relates to selling pickups is useful if you know it and use it. I see these guys post video clips of pickups they bought because everyone else in their clique is buying them and I listen and some of them sound pretty good, some of them don't sound like anything but some StewMac parts thrown together, nothing special. So what is special is WHO is doing the demo and WHAT they are playing. I had a guy on that forum insult my "hat" and suggest I hire a professional guitar player to demo my pickups. Translation is I don't understand your hat, WE don't wear such hats, I dont understand your playing WE don't play II-V progressions and think jump blues is rockabilly, YOU don't fit in here. I'm not a pro guitar player but I do get compliments on my playing now and then :-)

Anyway, its kinda disgusting but players will buy something if you put the Peter Green label on it, its a hot button that works. But its just a damn nice old guitar with a better sounding PAF set in it. Without all this hysteria you'd have a hard time selling that guitar to anyone, it has multiple repaired fractures on it, a headstock break, the finish is messed up, rusty parts, crazy.....
Anyway, I've got video coming with a pro player doing the hard rock, fusion, metal stuff, lesson learned....

[JGundry]

Spence,

I know I'm belaboring the point here but there are many things concerning pickup making that are open to interpretation but this is not one of them. The fact is PAF's were machine wound. No real room for opinion concerning this. Did they vary, yes. But they were all machine wound.

I bought the Leesona 102 because it is the the best tool for making a PAF clone. Mine also has the original tensioners which Seymour either does not have or does not choose to use. He uses a whisker disk instead. The original Leesona tensioners are only meant to do 40AWG and are a pain in the ass to set up but they are the best tool to duplicate a PAF wind and the extra tension they add is certainly part of the PAF recipe. Of course having a Leesona 102 is a marketing tool because it is the best tool for the job when making a PAF clone. Just as hand winding is a marketing tool for early Fender pickup clones. It is the appropriate method for the job. The Leesona 102 I have certainly could be a museum piece. But big old machines like the Leesona 102 were built to last and there is a certain satisfaction in knowing I will put it to good use doing what it does best.

Nightwinder,

I have done the magnet flip on all my guitars and there is a volume drop on the middle position. It is just less pronounced with a pushed amp.

Possum,

The LPF is a great resource for both the guitar player and maker. I'm sure quite a few members lurk here just because they are interested in pickups. Any focused forum that revolves around a very defined topic becomes a clique. It happens here. It is just the nature of the online forum world. Peter Green is still a relatively obscure guitar god as guitar gods go. I can't get enough of his playing myself. It is only natural that fans try to emulate the tone, and the gear of their favorite players whether famous or obscure.

[Possum]

I wasn't talking about the LPF I was mentioning the NEW forum. Anyway they all tend to turn into cliques. Yeah is a clique here but the reason I like the pickup forum is there isn't mindless acceptance of anything here really, its just we all know eachother and disagree alot and rationally investigate myths and knowledge.

Personally I find the mindless follow the pack mentality annoying, the reason is they set aside rational thinking and give their power away to the wolf pack. How many times have I heard this one - "I bought these pickups because everybody says they are great, but I can't play them they are dull and boring." Well, if you abandon your own rational investigative faculties and just buy something because "everybody" says they're good, too bad :-) Heck I got into pickup making because I spent about $500 on some boutique pickups based on a "name" and they were awful. Sent me on a quest to find out why they sucked.

But thankfully probably 99% of my sales come from Google searches or customer recommendations.

[JGundry]

Oh the new LP forum. Nevermind.

[kevinT]

Originally Posted by Possum

You know I've been hanging out on the new LP forum a bit and it really amazes me what I would call "forum psychology" that goes on regarding pickups and what they all buy.

I've been lurking there for quite a while too. That is so true. I'm glad that you brought this up. It seems as if the "forum psychology" thing is especially intense and prevalent on that forum. I like the forum and i think it has great potential...i just wish there were more pickup makers and pickup connissourers (spelling) that participated. The forum needs more of a variety of folks and opinions to make it interesting than the same old folks with their sound clips and opinions about a certain maker, etc...

I plan on doing some major marketing on that forum next year when my new website and line of pickups is ready.

Originally Posted by Possum

Back to the forum psychology thing. These guys are clique children, they all buy the same things because its the cool thing to do and they want to fit into the clique and be accepted. .

I agree. There is nothing wrong with jumping on the bandwagon in trying some hot new products because of all the buzz about them.... but having a closed mind to everything else (other pickup maker's products) is what is sad. Those folks are missing out on some great tone...and maybe even better tone from other makers.

Originally Posted by Possum

Anyway, its kinda disgusting but players will buy something if you put the Peter Green label on it, its a hot button that works.

It seems like that lately....everybody is on the Peter Green kick . Maybe I'll start some Randy Rhoads hype.

[Spence]

It's true that people on forums get into a particular maker's stuff and then jump ship to someone else's en masse. It's also quite irritating if you get too involved.

It's been Lollar, Fralin, Tim White, Peter Florance, Wolfe, WB, Don Mare, WCR and all sorts of other's. That's just the way it goes. Next week it could be Stephens Design, and why not.

Forums like the MLPF and the LPF etc, have a negative attitude towards anything that's not made in the USA. It's a typically insular attitude and I am qualified to say that as I have lived in America. Based on the attitude towards UK pickup makers on those forums you could conclude that the American market is closed to us except that it isn't the case. Plenty of my stuff is floating around the States.
So in essence I'm saying I wouldn't get hung up on the forum communities blinkered behaviour because they are a very small part of the bigger picture.

[NightWinder]

Try the reverse coils....you'll see what I mean- Even more drop....The magnet flip is very small compared.

[Possum]

yeah its weird that you don't see those guys ever getting all worked up over BareKnuckles or Spence's stuff, I don't quite get that. It may be that you guys aren't marketing over here probably. WCR, Fralin, Lollar, those guys advertising extensively over here in the magazines and work the press to get reviews etc. You just don't see the UK winders in the mags here.

On the other hand if you want to buy a really authentic Les Paul thats great buy a Japanese one because the Gibson stuff sure is questionable at the prices they get. there IS a kind of America mystique thing in some places in Europe, the French, Italians, Danes, some Australians all seem to think pickups made by Americans are the stuff. I'd say I sell half my stuff overseas actually.

I think that print advertising is very important, so you need a good ad and need to target who you want to sell to. I quit running my ads in VG last year because I got overloaded with album design work and couldn't keep up with the pickup stuff and my pickup orders just about DIED. I had no idea those ads were so effective. I know Wolfe made a killing working the forums, or at least that Dr. Vintage guy did, but really the forums aren't a big market in the long run.

[JGundry]

Here is another update to the post on the LPF from the Bare Knuckle guy.

LPF Post:

Here is the latest reply from Tim Mills about the magnet flip:

Hi Todd, like I said, I've based my research on the time the guitar was in the ownership of Gary Moore and can't vouch for what has happened to the guitar or pickups since it left his ownership.If the wind is reversed AND the magnet flipped then the pickup would come back in phase in the mid position and not give you the Peter Green tone. I've experimented with flipping magnet and also reverse winding the coils and personally belive that the later has the most accurate tone. kind regards Tim

End of LPF post.

What I don't get is why would Tim be experimenting with both the magnet flip and reverse winding if he has such iron clad information concerning Peter Green's guitar? I find the entire premise less convincing now than at the start. Maybe it is just possible that Gary Moore ef'ed up one of the best LP tones on the planet by having it rewound by a hack that put in a push pull pot and reverse wound the coils by accident with the wrong wire so he could undue the legendary tone at will. Kind of like having Bob Villa work on Paganini's Guarneri until the fiddle player on Hee Haw is happy with it. Maybe this is the real story. With no time line this info is almost meaningless.

I will give it a try though. I'm just not holding my breath that it will be a tonal revelation.

[NightWinder]

Hum...: ) Theres only so many possibilitys. The reverse winding is very strong in volume drop, much more so than the flipped mag. No biggie, everyone has their "version".

[Spence]

Originally Posted by JGundry

Here is another update to the post on the LPF from the Bare Knuckle guy.

LPF Post:

Here is the latest reply from Tim Mills about the magnet flip:

Hi Todd, like I said, I've based my research on the time the guitar was in the ownership of Gary Moore and can't vouch for what has happened to the guitar or pickups since it left his ownership.If the wind is reversed AND the magnet flipped then the pickup would come back in phase in the mid position and not give you the Peter Green tone. I've experimented with flipping magnet and also reverse winding the coils and personally belive that the later has the most accurate tone. kind regards Tim

End of LPF post.

What I don't get is why would Tim be experimenting with both the magnet flip and reverse winding if he has such iron clad information concerning Peter Green's guitar? I find the entire premise less convincing now than at the start. Maybe it is just possible that Gary Moore ef'ed up one of the best LP tones on the planet by having it rewound by a hack that put in a push pull pot and reverse wound the coils by accident with the wrong wire so he could undue the legendary tone at will. Kind of like having Bob Villa work on Paganini's Guarneri until the fiddle player on Hee Haw is happy with it. Maybe this is the real story. With no time line this info is almost meaningless.

I will give it a try though. I'm just not holding my breath that it will be a tonal revelation.

So many people have argued about the magnet flip, called him out and said he was wrong that he tried it and found it to be wrong. What Tim published about that neck pickup actually blew things wide open but guess what; you don't believe it, can't believe it. But if Seth Lover turned up claiming to have rewound that pickup at the Gibson factory over lunch when Peter Green was dropped off their by aliens, you'd believe that.
Gary Moore didn't have the pickup rewound either. It was done when Peter owned it. They guy that rewound it had never done a Gibson pickup before.
No big deal. People make mistakes.

Gary Moore did have push-pull pots in the guitar but the original pickups were taken out at that time.

There are no mysteries here unless you want there to be.

[Steve A.]

A few questions and observations:

#1. Reverse winding coils- can you just switch the two wires on humbuicker bobbins or does it make a difference which wire is inside the coil and which wire is outside the coil? What if you flip the bobbins around (so that the bottom is the top)?

#2. Delmark recording artist Steve Freund is a big fan of Peter Green and in his opinion you get a better out-of-phase sound by flipping the magnet. However, he usually just switches them out-of-phase now electrically, if they have the extra wire because it is less of a hassle and easily reversible if he decides to sell the guitar.

#3. Does it make a difference to string sustain, etc., if the inside coils are the same magnetic polarity or not?

#4. So has it been decided that the two pickups on Peter Green's guitar were out of phase when it was in his possession? I just always assumed that they were...

Steve Ahola

P.S. My own theory was that when Peter got the guitar the pickups were out of phase, and that he had a buddy who was a real electronics whiz who told him that it could be fixed by flipping the pickup around...

I have absolutely no evidence to support that theory, but I was a stoner back then and that was how we'd think.

And after the pickup was flipped around and it was *still* out of phase, Peter decided that he liked it because it had that B.B. King sound.

P.P.S. The Fleetwood Mac blues recordings in Chicago and NY in 1969 (the Chess blues jam and the Otis Spann "Colossus" LP) had that B.B. King out-of-phase sound featured very prominently. I suspect that he used his LP for those recordings, although he might have used a different guitar for his recordings in the UK.

[Spence]

For those who may be confused here again is what happened:

The pickup broke down.
A man called 'Sam' Lee was asked to rewind it. Yes that's right, 'Sam' isn't his real name.
Well Sam had never rewound a Gibson humbucker before. The next part I'm guessing actually...
he cut both coils off the humbucker and either failed to notice the wind direction or mounted the bobbins the wrong way on his winder.
This part is for sure :
He only had Formvar coated wire and rewound them with that. To what DCR I hear you ask? Well, he probably just wound them until the bobbins were full and hoped for the best. I don't know what the DCR is but I suspect it's around 7.3 K Ohms.
Next, he put the pickup back in the guitar and noticed the phase issue in the middle position. Remember, he wasn't a pickup expert and he just thought turning the pickup around would correct the problem. Only wait! The hookup wasn't going to be long enough to do that. that's why he used some standard plastic - coated twin conductor wire. It had a grey outer sheath with a braided earth wrapped around a white plastic - coated inner.
It didn't fix the problem but Peter Green most likely thought it was useable anyway where a magnet flip would have meant big volume drop issues.

Note here that I have said both coils were rewound in that humbucker.
Note also I have said there was no magnet flip.

For those of you reading this and shouting at your screens, just try it.
Frankly I think you have all been given too much information as I and Tim Mills could have kept this quiet. Nobody had to tell you any of this.

[JGundry]

I am not a complete and total skeptic so I will try it for sure. From making effects I know that there are many changes that can be made to a circuit that can have a huge tonal impact that technically should have none.

But again I would think if this is such authentic information that you guys should at the very least have the impedance reading of the neck pickup. Which by the way is 8.2K as measured from the pots. This was posted by a LPF member that inspected the guitar.

[Spence]

Originally Posted by JGundry

I am not a complete and total skeptic so I will try it for sure. From making effects I know that there are many changes that can be made to a circuit that can have a huge tonal impact that technically should have none.

But again I would think if this is such authentic information that you guys should at the very least have the impedance reading of the neck pickup. Which by the way is 8.2K as measured from the pots. This was posted by a LPF member that inspected the guitar.

Jon, this is my final post on the topic. No one who knew anything about pickups would measure impedance or resistance with the pickup still soldered in the guitar.
Lastly, you'll find as you grow older that you can't force other people to believe you just by writing forceful posts on a forum and that some other people have more experience than you have. To dismiss other's work out of hand will turn round and bite you on the ass one day. That's good advice and you should take it gracefully.

[David Schwab]

Originally Posted by Spence

a magnet flip would have meant big volume drop issues.

So, why is that? You keep saying that but give no reason for it.

I can say painting a pickup red will make it louder, but unless I explain why that is, it's just anecdotal.

I've been installing phase switches on guitars and basses since about 1970, starting with my Sekova Les Paul copy, after discovering the effect by accident. I've also done just about every combination of flipping coils over (which reverses the wind direction) and reversing magnets.

Two pickups have to be the exact same output to get the most cancelation, and this will give you a volume drop due to the lack of low end. As soon as you vary the balance of the pickups, that changes.

So if that neck pickup was rewound, and it seems it's hotter than the bridge pickup, plus it's in the guitar backwards (which doesn't affect phase, but it does sound different, which is why Steve Howe has been turning his pickups around for years), then you will get less phase cancelation.

Here's an audio example. Here's my Tele. The bridge pickup is a stacked pickup I made. In humcancling mode it's very bright. When I take it out of hum canceling mode, by changing the phase of the bottom coil, it increases the output, and also put's it out of phase with the other two pickups, which are vintage Bill Lawrence L-250's.

Since the bridge pickup is now louder than the neck, you get the phase cancelation, but some lows come back in due to the mismatch. If I were able to mix the pickups I could get a super thin low output tone.

So in the clip, first you hear the neck pickup, then the bridge in humbucking mode, then the bridge in non-humbucking mode (much louder), then both pickups in phase, then out, in, out, etc.

http://www.sgd-lutherie.com/media/tele_test.mp3

Because the output levels of the pickups are nowhere near the same when out of phase, there's little volume drop, but the tone does get that hollow thin sound.

Pickups have both electrical phase relationships, and magnetic phase relationships. The entire humbucking effect uses both... electrically out of phase, and then magnetically out of phase, then you are back in phase.

I believe the only reason any of these things on that guitar would matter is from having four different coils at various places on the strings, so you are getting various combinations of which coil (screw or slug, neck or bridge) sampling different parts of the strings.

Make two humbuckers would exactly the same with the same wire, and with double slug coils, and then see if you get any difference with either revering the winding direction, or turning the magnet around. I say you wont.

I'm not arguing with you, I'm just trying to understand why you are saying that flipping the magnet makes a volume drop. It might just make the pickups more out of phase by favoring one coil combination over the other.

There's only two ways to get two pickups out of phase, reversing the magnet or the wires. (I'm not counting wind direction because it's the same as the wires reversed).

[Spence]

Where did you get the idea the neck pickup's hotter than the bridge. I've already told you it isn't. I also said I'm not posting on this topic anymore because it's degenerated into tit for tat who can shout the loudest nonsense, but out of respect I have answered this. The big issue which I have consistently answered is what happened with that neck pickup. If you can't accept that a myth has been exploded that then there's nothing else I can do. Just go away and make a set just like I've detailed and that's what Peter Green's guitar sounded like. I have also said that Peter himself has always maintained that he used a Gibson 345 for recording which has magnetically opposed pickups as standard with an out of phase switching option through the varitone. If that's the sound you associate with Peter Green then people should stop insisting that it's his Les Paul that you associate with this sound.

[NightWinder]

Originally Posted by Spence

So many people have argued about the magnet flip, called him out and said he was wrong that he tried it and found it to be wrong. What Tim published about that neck pickup actually blew things wide open but guess what; you don't believe it, can't believe it. But if Seth Lover turned up claiming to have rewound that pickup at the Gibson factory over lunch when Peter Green was dropped off their by aliens, you'd believe that.
Gary Moore didn't have the pickup rewound either. It was done when Peter owned it. They guy that rewound it had never done a Gibson pickup before.
No big deal. People make mistakes.

Gary Moore did have push-pull pots in the guitar but the original pickups were taken out at that time.

There are no mysteries here unless you want there to be.

Hey man. Its groovy!! There is only so many possiblitys...You have to do it every way to totally get the vibe I think and appreciate what every change does. But there is only one real way to get that tone. Hats of to mills for posting Factual findings and not just poopoo. Always nice to have facts.
Funny, this little bit of info is public knowledge now, but you still can't find a turn count or Rpm speed for a PAf.....Thats funny (Yes, I have disected!)

[kevinT]

Originally Posted by NightWinder

Funny, this little bit of info is public knowledge now, but you still can't find a turn count or Rpm speed for a PAf.....Thats funny (Yes, I have disected!)

To my recollection, it was 4500 to 6000 turns according to the Seth Lover Interview (if i goofed the number forgive me, i haven't read the interview in a while).

About 64 or 65 turns per layer.

I agree, the rpms as well as the tension are going to be the toughies to figure out.