how pickups work Archives - Mr Glyn's Pickups

In this short video – Pickup Phase Explained – I look at what phase is, what it isn’t and why you need to know.

I use a Strat to demonstrate the ‘out of phase’ sound and how it would sound if it really was out of phase. There’s no maths, no diagrams. Just a simple explanation with a guitar to demonstrate.

Positions 2 and 4 on Strat switches are often referred to as ‘out of phase’ when they really aren’t. Those positions are the sound of 2 pickups in parallel (a humbucker is in series). Out of phase is quite different as you’ll hear in this video.

There is another video in this series explaining how to test phase – the easy way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lhnCf4JIyw&t=3s

How to test pickup phase — Test Pickup Phase

How Do Humbuckers Work? — Test Pickup Phase

For more blog posts https://mrglynspickups.com/blog/

Updated July 2023

As part of my series on How Pickups Work here is How To Test Pickup Phase – The Easy Way.

There is, of course, a hard way and that’s putting pickups into a guitar and having a listen later. That’s fine if you get it right first time but a pain if you have to re-wire the pickup again later.

In this video I demonstrate how to use a cheap test meter to identify which phase your pickup is in out of the guitar.

Traditionally, Gibson style and Fender style pickups are in the opposite phase to each other. This is just how it is.

So it’s really useful to know how to wire your pickups especially if they have an unfamiliar colour code. In my line of work I often repair pickups. I need to send them back to the customer in the correct phase. This is the simple test I use.

I realised after making this video that I needed to make another on what pickup phase actually is. So here’s a link to that one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eX2VLEDHLY&t=153s

In this second video I demonstrate the sound of pickups out of phase so you can hear the difference which is, of course, the whole point.

There is also a demonstration of the Strat ‘out of phase’ sound and how it isn’t out of phase at all – yeah really! The sound of positions 2 and 4 on a Strat are 2 pickups in parallel.

Here is more about Mr Glyn’s Pickups – https://mrglynspickups.com/mrglyns-pickups/

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How To Test Pickup Phase