Peter Green & Other Magnet Mods in Humbuckers with Covers, Pic Heavy

[Phostenix]

Originally Posted by snaredrum

by the way, what's the deal with PRS pickups?

It's all about coil splitting. When you start connecting individual coils in series or parallel (as the PRS 5-way does), if one of the coils is a north magnet & one is a south magnet, the combination will remain hum cancelling.

So, for example, if the coils of the 2 humbuckers are like this:

S-N N-S

When you connect the inside or outside coils together in series or parallel, you get 2 coils with the same magnetic polarity and you lose the hum cancelling.

Now, if the pickups are like this:

S-N S-N

When you connect insides or outsides, they remain hum cancelling.

Since using inside coils together & outside coils together gives the most difference in tones, PRS went with alternating magnets. Peavey does this in some of their guitars that have humbuckers & a 5-way, too.

With Gibson, Seymour Duncan, etc. humbuckers that are S-N N-S, you could still choose to combine coils that are opposite magnetic polarity, but the difference between the choices is less dramatic.

Where this matters for LP guitars is if you just want to have a switch that splits the coils on a LP, I would suggest splitting to the front (neck side) coil of the neck pup AND the front (neck side) coil of the bridge pup, as well. That way, you will have a south magnet & a north magnet in parallel in the middle position & it would still be hum cancelling. I prefer the sound of the forward coil of the bridge by itself anyway, so that's a double bonus.

[Phostenix]

Originally Posted by jonesy

This same mod can be done with a push pull pot and put's your pu's "Electronically" "Out of Phase" and sounds pretty much identical to rotating the magnet as done in th PG mod.
YouTube - ‪Jimmy Page Wiring Demo with SG & Sheptone PAF's‬‏

Do you find any difference in tone between swapping the magnet around & reversing the leads? It's certainly easier to swap the leads.

I thought the only time people flipped the magnets was to get the proper magnetic polarity for coil splits. Or to match pickups.

[jonesy]

Originally Posted by Phostenix

Do you find any difference in tone between swapping the magnet around & reversing the leads? It's certainly easier to swap the leads.

I thought the only time people flipped the magnets was to get the proper magnetic polarity for coil splits. Or to match pickups.

I can't hear any difference between the magnet change or swapping the + and - leads, the Out of Phase "Oop" Tone sounds the same to me either way.

[Phostenix]

Originally Posted by jonesy

I can't hear any difference between the magnet change or swapping the + and - leads, the Out of Phase "Oop" Tone sounds the same to me either way.

Why would someone go to the trouble (and risk to their pickup) of switching the magnet around if switching the wires produces the same effect?

[jonesy]

Originally Posted by Phostenix

Why would someone go to the trouble (and risk to their pickup) of switching the magnet around if switching the wires produces the same effect?

Changing magnets is really not that big of a deal or all that risky in most pu's, and besides the PG mod many players like to swap out A2's for A5's or maybe an A4 because it changes the Tonal characteristics of you pu. YMMV

Switching the magnet to change the polarity eliminates grounding issues and noise associated with pu covers that you might get when just flip flopping hot to ground. Rotating the magnet is a much quieter way to get the "Oop" Tone in some cases.

[b3john]

Originally Posted by Phostenix

Why would someone go to the trouble (and risk to their pickup) of switching the magnet around if switching the wires produces the same effect?

Once you know what you're doing, you'll realize it's not nearly as risky as it sounds. The guys over on the Seymour Duncan forum (including the Lieutenant) have raised this to an art form. There are some videos that walk you through the process, I'll see if I can dig up the links...

[Phostenix]

Originally Posted by jonesy

Changing magnets is really not that big of a deal or all that risky in most pu's, and besides the PG mod many players like to swap out A2's for A5's or maybe an A4 because it changes the Tonal characteristics of you pu. YMMV

Switching the magnet to change the polarity eliminates grounding issues and noise associated with pu covers that you might get when just flip flopping hot to ground. Rotating the magnet is a much quieter way to get the "Oop" Tone in some cases.

Ah, yes, the light bulb went on for me finally. I don't have any humbuckers with covers, so I don't tend to think about them. After looking at your pics again, it also looks like that's a 2-wire lead with the braid as the ground. If you wanted to reverse the leads, you'd not only have to run a new ground wire to the pup, you'd also have to separate that braid from the case & connect it internally, right? Or, are there 2 wires inside the braid (plus & minus leads) and the grounded braid is not connected to the minus lead?

Changing types of magnets makes perfect sense to me as a reason to tear open a pup.

[Phostenix]

Originally Posted by b3john

Once you know what you're doing, you'll realize it's not nearly as risky as it sounds.

Just in this thread, one guy sounds like he damaged his pup (Sånglöf) trying this mod.

When people ask me if something is easy to do, I usually say, "If you know how to do it, it's easy."

[skynyrd67]

If you wanna give your bridge pup a kick in the ass try a UnOriented A5 magnet, the dynamics will jump out of that pup, the growl and pinch harmonics will be much more lively, I swapped out the A2 in my Pearly gates bridge pup for the UOA5 and WOW, still has the same PG character just much more open and raw sounding, I wish pup makers would start useing the UOA5`s, they aren`t as mid scooped sounding as the A5 nor as Bassy, just great all around mag for the bridge.

[Robinv]

Hey, I just did the PG mod. Seems cool, very noticable. But for some reason when I have the switch in the middle position I seem to lose like half of my volume. Both humbuckers still have thier normal output, but when combined it's kinda like a coil tap going from humbucking to singlecoil (output wise)

[jonesy]

Yeah there will be a drop in volume with the switch in the middle and both pu's out of phase, compared to the in phase wiring.

Try rolling down either volume control just a little (switch in the middle) and you will hear your Tone Fatten up and your volume get just a bit louder.

[Robinv]

Cool thanks man

[jonesy]

Your welcome bro, anytime

[CC53]

Just curious if anybody recommends tightening the 4 brass screwws or the p/u screws first when reassembling.Seems to me that the 4 bras would be best to do first as I wouldn't want to strip em but want everything tight as I don't use any wax and I don't want any microphonics.
Any thoughts?

[jonesy]

Seems like I tighten up the pu screws first and then carefully tighten the brass screws so they do not strip or break off. YMMV

[CC53]

Thanks Jonesy....The reason I do the 4 screws first is to cinch the coils up with the maple spacer on the slug side.Maybe that's wrong to do if it causes stress on the 4 screws after tightening the p/u screws all the way down? Maybe I'm just thinking too much and don't need to worry about tightening them too much.I don't really play with much gain anyways.

[jonesy]

Not sure bro, I have never had any problems with that method YMMV

[Rock City]

Thanx making it looks so easy. I've always wanted to improve my sound just sitting at home doing almost nothing. And this is the way! Only I am afraid not to screw something in my style so I will ask some professional for a help.
Still it bugs me to take screwdriver, find compass somehow and start... uh!

[dkirwan]

Originally Posted by skynyrd67

I love magnet swapping, the guys on the seymour duncan site got me hooked. For $5 a mag you can give your guitar a whole new sound without buying a new pup and then being unhappy with the sound and out the $$$. I have a GFS V59 in the bridge of my epi LP, I didn`t really like the A5 as it was too mid scooped, so I swapped it out for a Unoriented A5 rough cast and it softened the highs and added more mids and was pretty sweet. Then I thought wonder what an A8 would sound like in it,,lol,, I have to say if you want a pure ballsy LP tone the A8 and a 59 wind are a sweet sweet match. When playing clean its a very warm and solid useable tone, when you pour on the gain it just growls and punches like Mike Tyson but you can roll back the vol from 10 to 8 and its sweet vintage tone all over again.

What is an A8? I've never heard of that???

[deepblue]

Originally Posted by Robinv

Hey, I just did the PG mod. Seems cool, very noticable. But for some reason when I have the switch in the middle position I seem to lose like half of my volume. Both humbuckers still have thier normal output, but when combined it's kinda like a coil tap going from humbucking to singlecoil (output wise)

The reason for the volume drop is that because your pickups are now out of phase with one another, some frequencies will cancel each other out.
This, results in a slight volume drop.

[MaliBoo]

First time i did this it took my more than half an hour figuring how to remove the solder points. I found the easiest way to be hitting a replacement blade with a small hammer. Now it takes me 10 seconds in total to cut both solder points.



Great guide, and the tone is magical too.

[Rollingrock]

Kickass! Finally someone posted a step-by-step for this mod. Thanks! Quick question, what's the difference in an A5 and A2 magnets?

[jonesy]

Glad you like the thread. From my experience an A5 magnet will bring out more Lows and Highs and and A2 has more emphasis on the Mids.

[Kaicho8888]

Great sticky! Thank you!

I have a 67 ES 345 stereo, and the middle position was Peter Greenish when I use one amp instead of two amps. So I did the opposite and made the two PUs in phase... now, there's no perceived drop in volume when toggle switch is in middle position.

[Grof]

any chance to reupload the pics, they are all gone

[jonesy]

Sorry they got deleted from the online folder they were in and are wiped off of on my hard drive.

One of these days if I get some time I may do the PG mod again and take a whole new set of pics and upload them to my photobucket account.

[Grof]

Originally Posted by jonesy

Sorry they got deleted from the online folder they were in and are wiped off of on my hard drive.

One of these days if I get some time I may do the PG mod again and take a whole new set of pics and upload them to my photobucket account.

That would be really great of course if you could spare the time to do it

[jonesy]

Originally Posted by Grof

That would be really great of course if you could spare the time to do it

Ok here you go. Tonight I re-did the entire Peter Green mod, took more pics and uploaded all of them to my Photobucket account. Made a collage with step by step DIY pics. Here is also the link to the entire album Peter Green Magnet Mod

[Grof]

Damn that was fast thnx for taking the time to do it

[b3john]

Originally Posted by jonesy

Ok here you go. Tonight I re-did the entire Peter Green mod, took more pics and uploaded all of them to my Photobucket account. Made a collage with step by step DIY pics.