Pickups out of phase?

[Jim Darr]

Can you elaborate on this? I understand that there is supposed to be a difference but have never been able to hear it.

Thanks!

Steve Ahola

Yes, sonically the difference is hard to hear. I was referring to troubleshooting the OP problem and wanted to distinguish that there is a difference between electric phasing and magnet phasing issues in guitar pickups. Either will create a softer thin nasally sound, but how they got there is very different.

There was a lengthy discussion here a while back in 2008.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t9905/

[Sock Puppet]

Hi Leo, I've just seen this.

I did the magnet flip on a burstbucker pro (2?) for a friend from my hometown. I posted the link on here somewhere but I'll post it again... around 3 minutes in the maestro's out of phase sound is beautiful.

[Sock Puppet]

You need a DMM that samples more than once a second or you will miss the signal. My 1985 Micronta is blind as a bat to the impulses.
Someday I will design and build a gizmo that can determine the polarity of two coils or 4 coils simultaneously.

I have half a gizmo breadboarded - old school simple.

I'll finish it at the weekend I hope.

[David Schwab]

If you used 2 conductor wire (the vintage Gibson kind), either reverse the leads at the coils, or flip the magnet around on one pickup.

And this is why I always use 3 or 4 conductor cable. You can easily reverse the polarity to match other pickups.

[TimmyP1955]

A friend had a Strat with two kinds of pickups. It sounded "phasy" in positions 2 and 4, so we reversed the magnets - it was still phasy. We turned the magnets 90 degrees and all was well.

[Jim Darr]

A friend had a Strat with two kinds of pickups. It sounded "phasy" in positions 2 and 4, so we reversed the magnets - it was still phasy. We turned the magnets 90 degrees and all was well.

I have to assume you are talking a Strat style pickup with iron rods being charged by two ceramic magnets underneath and not the traditional Fender single coil design with rod magnets. Right?

[Steve A.]

A friend had a Strat with two kinds of pickups. It sounded "phasy" in positions 2 and 4, so we reversed the magnets - it was still phasy. We turned the magnets 90 degrees and all was well.

I have to assume you are talking a Strat style pickup with iron rods being charged by two ceramic magnets underneath and not the traditional Fender single coil design with rod magnets. Right?

I would further assume that he meant 180 degrees and not 90 degrees...

Steve Ahola

[LowNote]

So, after dissecting and checking with a compass the magnet on the mini was backwards. Flipped it around and they both play well together.

Thanks for the help
LowNote

[Jim Darr]

Glad to hear you figured it out.

[kayakerca]

Can't even begin to envision the possibilities (or even if there are any) on sound and/or phasing with some future iteration of these magnets. Thought this looked a little too cool to let slide by.

https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=2m2s

[Jim Darr]

Can't even begin to envision the possibilities (or even if there are any) on sound and/or phasing with some future iteration of these magnets. Thought this looked a little too cool to let slide by.

https://youtu.be/IANBoybVApQ?t=2m2s

Jim,

This video is amazing. We all know that the magnetic field flux lines greatly effect the tonal characteristics of a pickup...this could be revolutionary. If we can shape the field pattern as illustrated, the implications could be enormous to those of us that design pickups.

Time to put the thinking cap on and experiment...my mind is spinning with possibilities. Time will tell.

Thanks so much for sharing this concept.

Jim

[bbsailor]

Jim,

This video is amazing. We all know that the magnetic field flux lines greatly effect the tonal characteristics of a pickup...this could be revolutionary. If we can shape the field pattern as illustrated, the implications could be enormous to those of us that design pickups.

Time to put the thinking cap on and experiment...my mind is spinning with possibilities. Time will tell.

Thanks so much for sharing this concept.

Jim

Jim and other pickup makers,

This magnet technology seems to also have a potential use when the moving string is being used like a ribbon in a ribbon microphone. http://music-electronics-forum.com/t14952-2/

Joseph J. Rogowski

[David King]

I have to say I'm a little dubious re the potential applications in pickups. You need those flux lines to go way out there to reach the strings without dragging the string down or setting off harmonics. Being able to compress the flux lines close to the surface while strengthening them wouldn't appear to be helpful unless we could somehow figure out how to focus a beam of flux up at the strings. Where would the beam be headed? It would need somewhere to go as in a horseshoe magnet design.

[bbsailor]

I agree with David. If we are using thin multi turn pickup wire how would we prevent the close magnetic poles from causing phase problems and voltage cancellation? However, if we try to integrate a low resistance conductor around a magnetic cluster and try to shape the magnets to detect more of the string energy in the horizontal string motion, close to the initial direction of the strum, we may be able to have some creative new ways to make use of this technology and offer our ears some new types of sound. Here is where the minds of many can offer some interesting alternative to the traditional pickup design that has been with us since it's very inception at the time when amplifiers were considered new technology.

Maybe integrating a transducer into the bridge so that the string goes through a multi-dimensional magnetic field with integrated sensing coils to pickup the full vertical and horizontal string motion could make use of this technology. This is just a quick thought about this new and novel magnet technology to stimulate some new pickup ideas and possible designs.

Joseph J. Rogowski

[Jim Darr]

I agree with the points that David and Joseph make about phasing, voltage cancellation, low flux lines, etc. Even with the concerns this new technology is, in my opinion, definitely worth looking into. Potentially the flux lines can be adapted to different patterns to tailor the sound. We won't know how to apply this technology to pickups until we experimentally try it. It also might not really work well.

I once took a full size HB magnet and charged it both north and south on one side (Half the length was North up, the other Half was South up). It didn't work. But if i didn't experiment I wouldn't know the results. Other wild things I've tried have worked out better.

My point is this new technology seems to warrant some experimentation in our field.

Jim