Phase push/pull

[Bluesyzep]

I came across a Jimmy Page interview where he's discussing #1. I don't have much technical knowledge about what phase is or does but know that it is the only push/pull on #1. What intrigued me is that Jimmy said it reverses phase and gives him a B.B. King type of sound. Can anyone second that? A push/pull would be a lot easier than chasing down a Lab 5 and an archtop but doubt it's that simple. Thoughts?

 

[FF_Pedals]

It is simple enough to do. Whether you like it depends entirely on you. What kind of amp are you playing? If you're happy with your amp, adding wiring mods to your guitar would be my next suggestion. The phase wiring is a little more complex than the coil tap wiring but it is well documented online. All it does is switch the hot and ground wires from one of the pickups.

As for how it works. I'll try to do this in simple terms...Your pickups are sending signals to your amp. When both pickups are on, the signals they send are rising and falling together. When you wire them out of phase, they are not rising and falling together. Sometimes they are adding, sometimes canceling. This gives an interesting sound effect. In general you will hear that the output is lower due to the cancellation that happens sometimes when one signal is rising and the other falling. It sounds kind of thin and treble-y but you can easily adjust your tone pots to keep it sounding smooth.

 

[Bluesyzep]

I'm using a Marshall DSL 401. I'm looking for some sound bites to determine if it's worth the mod. After the coil-split fiasco I went through I'm leaning against any further mods.

 

[FF_Pedals]

What was the coil tap fiasco? If you can't coil tap, don't try the phase mod, it is slightly more difficult, although both should be easy for anyone who has a bit of soldering experience. It shouldn't be expensive to have someone do it for you if you round up the parts. I think Jonesy carries the push pull pots. I don't want to speak for him but maybe he could get the wiring started on the switch for you and you'd just have to finish up the connections in the guitar.

 

[Tonedef5959]

I have on my Les Paul.

I would describe it more as Peter Greene....eerie, hollow and ghostly

Switching between in and out of phase is a bit strange due to the loss of volume. If you kept it out of phase for a couple of songs and adjusted your amp volume accordingly, its not a big deal, but the difference is noticeable

I am not sure if you are having two pickups out phase with each other, in this case only the middle position of teh pickup selector is engaged. The other was to do it is to put the pickup out of phase with itself. In any case, if you use two pickups out of phase with each other, any change in volume would basically kill the phasey sound since the wiring is predicated on each pickup complementing or canceling out frequencies.

 

[FF_Pedals]

I have on my Les Paul.

I would describe it more as Peter Greene....eerie, hollow and ghostly

Switching between in and out of phase is a bit strange due to the loss of volume. If you kept it out of phase for a couple of songs and adjusted your amp volume accordingly, its not a big deal, but the difference is noticeable

I am not sure if you are having two pickups out phase with each other, in this case only the middle position of teh pickup selector is engaged. The other was to do it is to put the pickup out of phase with itself. In any case, if you use two pickups out of phase with each other, any change in volume would basically kill the phasey sound since the wiring is predicated on each pickup complementing or canceling out frequencies.

You have to have the humbucker's constituent coils wired in parallel for it to be out of phase with itself. This would be an extremely thin sound I imagine because you are running the humbucker as two single coils side by side and then forcing them to 'cancel' each other out. Usually a humbucker has it's inner coils wired in series or with a center tap. The switches on the JP#2 guitar pickguard perform the inner humbucker parallel series switch. I believe that's the purpose of the new SD rings with the switches built in.