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

[tonedragon]

Just did the mod to my 93' standard. Nice. Have an epi boneyard n like it enough so I performed it on the stock zebra coil 490. Was not hard at all. I find it more versatile across the tonal spectrum.

 

[JeffBlue]

Jonesy, you have done well. Nice job. You are well informed.

 

[Zakmichael]

Swapped the magnet around in the neck of one of my Lp's today. It takes about 10 mins and the hardest part is unscrewing and screwing in the the screws. It's almost easy enough for a monkey to do. If you are after that tone I wouldn't hesitate to flip the magnet around, it's a piece of cake. Thanks Jonesy!

 

[Mark1406]

The pictures have disappeared again!

Maybe time to unsticky it as the pictures are worth a 1000 words.

 

[jonesy]

The pictures have disappeared again!

Maybe time to unsticky it as the pictures are worth a 1000 words.

 

[Jimi Mac]

I love out-of-phase/Peter Green tone and that unmistakable "quack!"

I will say this, I performed a magnetic out-of-phase mod to my Vintage V100GT's bridge position Wilkinson W90 (P90 style) soap-bar pickup. The out-of-phase tone came thru in spades... I was delighted... At first...

Then playing often to Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac songs on my iPod or MP3 backing tracks, I began to notice that the tone from the single-coil soap-bars seems more bright and seems to have more presence making the tone just a touch over-whelming from time to time.

I've come to the conclusion that it comes across with more classic subtlety from humbuckers than it does from soap-bars...

There's just more subtle tone nuances from out-of-phase humbuckers than there seems to be from out-of-phase soap-bars...

I love the stock P90 tone and have now purchased a Vintage V100PGM Lemon Drop Reissued series to get my Peter Green tone fix and allowing me to revert my V100GT GoldTop back to stock configuration...

I researched the mod on the soap-bars by watching a YouTube vid by Blues-Zep who has recently changed his user name to his own name of Fernando Bernardino. It worked flawlessly, but I have become unsatisfied with the tone in a soap-bar configuration paying close attention to how the humbuckers react to Peter Green's playing and have realized that the presence in the soap-bars is just a touch too much...

The mod is far easier on soap-bars than it is on humbuckers. There is no need of fighting with encased pickup assemblies with wax potting etc. There is also relatively little chance of disrupting key minute stray wires while cutting solder joints or unsoldering the outer cover from the assembly/base because you are blind to what's under the cover. The P90 style pickup is much easier to simply disassemble remove the pole screws, turn/reverse the magnets, and reassemble in reverse order without disrupting the pickup assembly integrity... Especially for a novice such as myself that had never removed an electric guitar pickup before, let alone disassembled and modified one. But, while I was satisfied with the obvious classic tone change, I found it a little too over-stated compared to humbuckers...

I'm a tone wonk and my creed of Occam's Razor (Less Is More) for subtle dynamics has me opt for the humbuckers out-of-phase instead...

But my resolution is en-route from California and I should see it either late this week or early next week...

I have a spare set of stock W90's I picked-up from eBay so I'll be swapping in for the out-of-phase set I modified before too long in the GoldTop... (I'll keep the modified out-of-phase set around for sh!ts & giggles...)

Great topic/great info!

 

[Jimi Mac]

Lazy mans' option, pretty damn good pups too.

There are several on the market now too...

Shed Supernaturals

CV Guitar's Manalishi's

And Larry Corsa of Corsa Guitars & CV Guitars (and Small Time Leroy fame) is quite a Peter Green mod expert and builds some sensational custom Peter Green style modified guitars that are simply spectacular...

Lots of boutique/custom pickup makers are getting in on the act these days... There are several more out there that I've seen too...

 

[wildschwein]

Go on then, try it

Half of the outer braids in your guitar wiring will now be hot instead of ground, including those to and from the switch, and one of your pickup covers will now be live too.

Accidental OOP wiring is perfectly plausible with modern 4-conductor pickups, but it actually takes a shitload of work on a vintage PAF.

Another myth I'm afraid.

I've tried wiring OOP with a 2 conductor and yes it doesn't work - you get a lot of noise. You can disassemble the PUPs and make them 4 conductor but yeah - a fair bit of work. As far as I know Peter Green's LP was not electronically wired OOP rather it had the magnet flipped.

 

[geraldhutherbonker]

Always been a fan of this mod...so versatile

 

[Mookakian]

Out of curiosity, you guys who run the OOP tone... Do you change the settings on your amp to accommodate the thiner sound and play tracks all out of phase or do you run the oop as unique thin sound using regular settings on the amp, switching to the out of phase tone from Bridge or Neck Bucker as you please...

Series out of phase I love, but out of phase is an oddball on its own and not a sound I particularly get along with using standard amp settings

 

[ajory72]

Out of curiosity, you guys who run the OOP tone... Do you change the settings on your amp to accommodate the thiner sound and play tracks all out of phase or do you run the oop as unique thin sound using regular settings on the amp, switching to the out of phase tone from Bridge or Neck Bucker as you please...

Series out of phase I love, but out of phase is an oddball on its own and not a sound I particularly get along with using standard amp settings

Thats a good question actually...

I have 2 guitars - both with the Peter Green mod (reversed magnet) and only on the one that has the most quack I turn down the tone knob a little to adjust for it (actually I turn the amp up, both volumes down to 8 and the tone on the treble pick up down to 4)...

My Les Paul with Parson Street pick ups from Stewmac gives me the best OOP sound, and I love them (unpotted pickups)

My other Les Paul with potted SD Pearly Gates and Gibson BB Pro pickups with OOP sound doesn't quite have the quack my other LP has.... I dont play the one with the pearly's that much anymore as my other one sounds so good and so close to Peters sound (the tone I'm, still working on...)

I have tried playing with the amp to turn down the bite a bit when using the OOP sound, but when using treble or rythm settings they suffer from the change..... also I am happy to learn to use the guitars volume and tone controls to "control" my sound a bit more....I love seeing Gary Moore always adjusting his sound when playing live....awesome!

[ps: my profile pic is the LP with the Stewmac Parson Street p/ups]

 

[wildschwein]

I find the volume drop with out-of-phase is most noticeable when playing with a clean sound. With the overdrive channel or with distortion etc the volume drop is far less noticeable -- you just tend to notice the bass roll off and a bit more brightness. You can also wire a 0.015uf capacitor into the out-of-phase scheme and pretty much eradicate the volume loss -- this comes from Bill Lawrence wiring guides and he called it 1/2 out-of-phase. I have it on a Tele and it rules.

 

[splatter]

I click on the vid and it tells me it is private

 

[Baylin]

I have some cheap PAF style pups kicking about that came with a self build kit I got last year. They didn't sound too bad, a bit muddy so I upgraded them anyway. After reading this thread I'm seriously tempted to do a project of stripping them right down to the bare components and try a re-wind on them. I'm also going to do the OOP mod.

 

[Bezore]

Huge PG fan here as you can tell from my sig file (2 years to figure out how to sing it half decently).

Have money method: WCR Moore/Green set. The WCR set has a 2 conductor neck, so you can always replace a pot with a push pull and have both configurations. It's a very versatile set.

Have DIY skills method: Get a compass. Find out which side is North on your pickups (gibson screw side usually north). Choose which pickup you want to replace and get a Seth Lover (or any other 4 conductor pickup). Seth Lovers are easy because they are not wax potted, so the magnet just comes right out when you loosen the screws.

Any pickup that is slug side north, you don't have to flip the magnet. (So you could take your compass with you to the store or friends or wherever). The OOP thing means the pickups are EXACTLY the same, but the current is reversed. So you use the Green for Hot instead of the Black (on Duncans).

The pickups need to have the same magnetic direction (screw side the same). It doesn't matter if the neck pickup is flipped or not. The secret is that they are mirror images of each other magnetically, but the current is reversed with one so the waveforms start to cancel each other out.

Because they are in different positions on the neck, they only cancel out some of the signal, varying the volume and tone settings makes them less alike, so 10 on one and 8 on the other is louder than 10/10.

I did every combination researching this on my guitars, so I thought I'd pass it on.

 

[herzog]

Just installed a set of BK PG Blues pickups on a '91 Classic - stunning sound. Volume drop in OOP position is noticeable (as mentioned above), but if playing live FOH should pick up on it and adjust.

I find taking a little volume of the bridge in the OOP position brings the volume back whilst retaining a slight OOP tone. Fantastic set overall, warm, but not muddy and great the Greeny's sound whilst not being a one-trick pony.

 

[tonedragon]

Hi guys I did the PG mod to a PAF style humbuggy its around the 8.5 range.
Neck p/u is a kent armstrong six shooter.
The bridge P/U is a med output dimarzio tone zone. I think that's in the 14-17 range.

The mod is barely noticeable. And dosnt come into effect until the neck vol is rolled down to about 4-5.
The previous time I've done the mod the results could be heard when the bridge vol it turned down to 8-9.
BothP/U are 4 wires and are wired correctly.

It it because the outputs are so different, the pots ??? A bad miss match??

Should I have just wired it OOP???

 

[tonedragon]

OK I think I flipped magnet instead of rotated it. Will try n redo once I get time.

 

[tonedragon]

Fixed it. All is right in the world of OOP.

Yup.....I accidentally flipped mag instead of turning 180°

 

[Glauco]

Fixed it. All is right in the world of OOP.

Yup.....I accidentally flipped mag instead of turning 180°

if i'm right..
it's not about putting the superior face down making it the new inferior face of the magnet.
it's about turning what for example we can call "A end" of the magnet to what was the "B end" of the magnet.so the superior and inferior faces of the magnet remains the same,change the verse.
right?