bridge p/u wired out of phase with middle

[famous beagle]

Hey Y'all,

I put a new pickup in the bridge position of my strat, and I'm getting a weak thin signal in the #2 position (bridge/middle). I found this troubleshooting table, and it said the cause of this problem is that my bridge pickup is wired out of phase with my middle pickup, but it didn't say what to do to fix it.

I'm guessing, but I'm not sure. Do I just need to reverse the leads on my bridge pickup? (All 4 other positions sound fine)

Thanks

 

[ggunn]

Hey Y'all,

I put a new pickup in the bridge position of my strat, and I'm getting a weak thin signal in the #2 position (bridge/middle). I found this troubleshooting table, and it said the cause of this problem is that my bridge pickup is wired out of phase with my middle pickup, but it didn't say what to do to fix it.

I'm guessing, but I'm not sure. Do I just need to reverse the leads on my bridge pickup? (All 4 other positions sound fine)

Thanks

Yes, that will do it. It may be that you have bought a RWRP pickup; if so, you'll have the benefit of less EM interference noise in the bridge/middle position once you have the polarity correct. If that is the case and the pickups are equivalent, swapping the bridge and middle pickups will give you humbucking in the middle/neck position as well.

 

[famous beagle]

Yes, that will do it. It may be that you have bought a RWRP pickup; if so, you'll have the benefit of less EM interference noise in the bridge/middle position once you have the polarity correct. If that is the case and the pickups are equivalent, swapping the bridge and middle pickups will give you humbucking in the middle/neck position as well.

Thanks for the reply! What does "RWRP" stand for? Wait ... is it "reverse wound reverse polarity?"

It's a gold Lace Sensor. I didn't buy it, actually. I had a stacked humbucker in the bridge and wanted a single coil again, and the Lace Sensor was the best one I had lying around. I just couldn't remember which lead was hot. I guess I could've looked it up and probably found out, but I was on the last leg of my strat-shielding project and was anxious to hear the results. And holy crap; it's night and day. The single-coil hum is virtually gone. It's quieter than my friend's LP with almost identical output.

 

[ggunn]

Thanks for the reply! What does "RWRP" stand for? Wait ... is it "reverse wound reverse polarity?"

Yes, that's what it means. When you have a standard wound coil and a RWRP coil on at the same time, you get humbucking. It's what makes humbuckers, um, buck hum. If you wind a pickup "backwards", it produces an out of phase signal from the strings and from any EM interference. If you flip the polarity of the magnets, it flips the signal from the strings back to in phase but any EM interference is still inverted. Mix them together and you get string signal but EM interference cancels.

A lot of Strat players put a RWRP pickup in the center so that positions 2 and 4 are humbucking.

 

[famous beagle]

Yes, that's what it means. When you have a standard wound coil and a RWRP coil on at the same time, you get humbucking. It's what makes humbuckers, um, buck hum. If you wind a pickup "backwards", it produces an out of phase signal from the strings and from any EM interference. If you flip the polarity of the magnets, it flips the signal from the strings back to in phase but any EM interference is still inverted. Mix them together and you get string signal but EM interference cancels.

A lot of Strat players put a RWRP pickup in the center so that positions 2 and 4 are humbucking.

Ah ha ... gotcha. Thanks for the info!

 

[Light]

Yes, that will do it. It may be that you have bought a RWRP pickup;

More likely, he bought a Duncan or Dimarzio (or some such) and is using it with a couple of Fender pickups. Fender wires their pickups backwards from the rest of the world. I couldn't tell you why, just that it is something you have to be aware of when you are wiring.

Even knowing about it, I mess it up about a third of the time.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[famous beagle]

More likely, he bought a Duncan or Dimarzio (or some such) and is using it with a couple of Fender pickups. Fender wires their pickups backwards from the rest of the world. I couldn't tell you why, just that it is something you have to be aware of when you are wiring.

Even knowing about it, I mess it up about a third of the time.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

Here's what I've got:

Neck: Dimarzio Area 58
Middle: Dimarzio Area 58
Bridge: Lace Sensor (gold)

I had the Lace Sensor wired the way I thought it was supposed to go, but I was getting the wimpy bridge/middle combination. So I flipped the leads on the Lace.

Now the bridge position seems to be ok, but the bridge/middle (#2 position) sounds like a humbucker. It doesn't have the typical strat in between sound (that I want).

Also, I recently shielded my strat, and originally (when I had the lace wired so I was getting the wimpy, out-of-phase #2 sound) all 5 positions were dead quiet. Now that I've flipped the Lace, positions 5, 4, and 3 are still dead quiet, but there is a slight bit more hum in positions 1 and 2. This is only really noticeable when I turn my Deluxe up to 8 or so, but still ... it was dead quiet on all the positions before (and besides, I don't want the humbucker sound I'm getting now).

So ... what kind of single coil pickup do I need to put in the bridge in order to end up with the typical strat configuration?

Thanks

 

[ggunn]

Here's what I've got:

Neck: Dimarzio Area 58
Middle: Dimarzio Area 58
Bridge: Lace Sensor (gold)

I had the Lace Sensor wired the way I thought it was supposed to go, but I was getting the wimpy bridge/middle combination. So I flipped the leads on the Lace.

Now the bridge position seems to be ok, but the bridge/middle (#2 position) sounds like a humbucker. It doesn't have the typical strat in between sound (that I want).

Also, I recently shielded my strat, and originally (when I had the lace wired so I was getting the wimpy, out-of-phase #2 sound) all 5 positions were dead quiet. Now that I've flipped the Lace, positions 5, 4, and 3 are still dead quiet, but there is a slight bit more hum in positions 1 and 2. This is only really noticeable when I turn my Deluxe up to 8 or so, but still ... it was dead quiet on all the positions before (and besides, I don't want the humbucker sound I'm getting now).

So ... what kind of single coil pickup do I need to put in the bridge in order to end up with the typical strat configuration?

Thanks

There's no reason I can think of why one of your pickups being RWRP would make your guitar sound more "humbucker" than if they were both wired and magnetized the same way. Other than being less noisy, I mean. My (replacement) bridge pickup is RWRP, and the #2 position is just as chimy and quacky as it was before I had to replace the p'up. I didn't even realize it was RWRP until I noticed the drop in EM noise in position 2.