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The Eric Johnsons of this world claim to be able to hear a fractional difference of tone.
That said, there is a difference between RWRP and normal Strat sets, which is effectively the same difference, although the pickups are closer together.
So I wouldn't dismisses it completely - but it's perfectly possible to get a good Peter Green sound by electrically reversing the pickup as well as by flipping the magnet.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
@icbm - this is what I was wondering - the magnetic fields could interact differently and potentially impact the string movement too?
It's a small ingredient in the grand scheme of things, but it all adds up, I guess
Edit - found it…
Skip to 6'30" if you're not a fan of Metallica.
OK, it is well-known that he owns this guitar, but I still think it has a very distinctive sound - and that's even with him using the bridge pickup!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I've only had the out-of-phase via a 4-conductor pickup and a push-push pot like Snowy White, did work just fine.Properly more important is that the pickups are well matched and put into a good piece of wood...
I don't like to talk about it much because this was in a semi (Sheraton) and the whole pickup fitting and soldering exercise gives me fucking Vietnam-style flashbacks...
I would agree also with @Emiel that once you have a well made set of pickups and a phase switch, the most important thing is to put those in a good sounding Les Paul with proper wiring. I don't really subscribe to the 'let's make a Peter Green set of pickups' school of pickup making ... any top notch set of low output PAF style pickups will get you there with the phase mod. But to make full use you have to learn to play like Peter Green!
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
While the oop sounded great I couldn't deal with the big volume drop so I flipped it back
The best one I've had so far is a wired out of phase paf by shed pickups
It's quite a while since I used the pickup but I don't remember the volume dropping as much
I'll be getting a bk mule bridge rewound so it's a low wind and try it again
I like oop for rhythm on a good les paul too
(formerly customkits)
Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
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Formerly TheGuitarWeasel ... Oil City Pickups ... Oil City Blog 7 String.org profile and message
There's obviously a load of 'lore' around these pickups, but it seems to boil down to one of two contradictory stories
1) The pickup was faulty and was rewired in reverse with the wrong wire (and this is evidenced by pictures of Peter playing the guitar with only one pickup and a guy who claims he re-wired it using a record turn table as a winding machine)
2) The guy who repaired the neck break when the guitar was in the custodianship of Gary Moore (apparently Charlie Chandler, if anyone has spoken to Charlie about this and can verify?) apparently claims he removed the pups for the repair and says they were factory fresh, with the magnet being reversed in Kalamazoo (there's at least one burst out there where this error has been verified as a factory issue)
If I recall correctly, this guitar also paid a visit to @FelineGuitars, so Jonathan might also have an insight on this one?
So, you pay you're money and you takes you're choice.. having tried the reverse electrical polarity already, I decided to give the magnet flip a try
At this point, big thanks go @TheGuitarWeasel, who was kind enough to flip the magnet on one of his excellent Beano Masterwound neck pups for me, which I've subsequently installed the wrong way up for maximum effect.
And the results are epic - this is not a case of a massive difference in tone between the magnet flip and the phase reverse but I have been able to dial in a tone I'm very, very happy with and crucially, I 'think' (this is totally subjective) that it's more dynamic.
Do I now sound identical to Herr Greenbaum? ..never will, but by using a combination of pick and fingers, I'm now really deep into that tone
It was done with a type of Formvar wire whose insulation layer was thicker than the plain enamel resulting in a physically bigger coil form with more of the wire of each coil being a slightly further distance from the magnetic core of each coil's slugs or screws
I was told that when they rewound the coils they rotated the bobbins the opposite way to feed the wire into them compared to the direction that Gibson winds its bobbins.
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
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The options are:
Reversed coil winding direction
Reversed coil connections
Reversed magnet
Without dismantling the pickup we will never know, since all have the same effect to a very close degree. The unique sound of that guitar is as much down to the whole guitar as the pickups anyway - there's a good bit of video of Kirk Hammett playing it where it's quite recognisable, and he's using the *bridge* pickup, which obviously wasn't affected by any of this.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The polarity of an electromagnet is (according to Google) determined by the direction of current flowing through it.
If the bridge pup only is engaged and the neck magnet is physically inverted but electrically grounded, the polarity of the neck magnet will be determined only by it's 'natural' magnetism.
Run a current through the neck pickup coil the 'correct' way and you have a mismatch that tries to invert the polarity of the electromagnet back to stock, no doubt producing a lot of very messy eddy currents and these would change depending on the voltage in the coil.
If any of the above is true, then I think I'm making a case for the engaged pickup being impacted by the earthed one?