3 Ways To Check The Phase Of A Guitar Pickup

In this video, I will explain how to test the phase of a guitar pickup and why it is important to do this.
N-audio website: n-audio.net/guitar-pickup-pha...
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Humbucker Instructions: n-audio.net/wp-content/upload...
Single Coil Instructions: n-audio.net/wp-content/upload...

[@StealthParrot]

Fantastic video!

[@nelos7519]

Thank you so much. Very helpful

[@ninao-xyz]

I learned something new today. Thank you

[@meyeshots3426]

Absolutely excellent! Thanks for the great video!!!

[@Mr.-J-2024]

Super informative. Thank you.

[@UrquidiGuitars]

Another goldmine Chris, thank you buddy.😃

[@johnosborne3187]

That device is great! I just ordered it. Thanks!

[@jessemayra]

Excellent info…thanks !

[@dalgguitars]

Great video today!

[@bobmills8341]

Great stuff, thank you!!!

[@jesusgerada5720]

Similar way with the polimeter in DC voltage and a piece of metal. You can read positive voltage or negative voltage. Thanks for every new video, Chris.

[@ramonzeira]

this video DEFINITELY deserves a subscription

[@JeffreyDonovanOfficial]

Absolutely fascinating! Thanks so much for these magical bits of information and wisdom!

[@SScarnati]

This guy is incredible. I don't remember enjoying so much learning done so so well. Definitely subbed and will definitely donate to repay for the knowledge 🙏

[@foldeminae]

This was extremely useful.

[@HighlineGuitars]

Glad it was helpful!

[@MrSteveagosto]

Thank you I needed that tutorial.

[@HighlineGuitars]

Glad I could help

[@vanshankguitars]

Very useful video Chris. Thanks!

[@jeffreystroman2811]

If you can't solder up a breakout cable you have no business checking pickups that aren't installed, just my opinion

[@fredhystair5789]

Very useful as always. Thx a lot !

[@HighlineGuitars]

My pleasure!

[@lumberlikwidator8863]

I am a subscriber to your channel. I’m rewiring a guitar and I’ll probably be mixing two different brands of pickup. This popped up on my algorithm about twelve hours after I unsoldered the original mfrs units, and I’ve been scratching my head about getting the phasing correct the first time. This is fantastic and I stumbled across it at just the right time. You get a big fat thumbs up for this. Excellent presentation, great channel. Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge!

[@trinacria1956]

Very helpful, am dealing with some B&G humbuckers w no code chart. Have one meter w analog dial gives more time to see deflection. Thanks for introducing little tool.

[@shubakah]

Very nice thank you for the help 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@stephancarroll7260]

thx

[@PMC47]

Great video. Thanks. I suspected I installed my Cunife wrhp in my mij tele custom wrong, and this confirms it. Very helpful. Going to be flipping some wires. ;) Side note : this makes the new greeny humbucker set a bit of a suckers bet since if you want out of phase you can just reverse wiring... who knew?👍

[@JosePineda-jn8jk]

Super helpful! I bought a Wilkinson PAF style humbucker to replace a microphonic pickup in a Gretsch Jet Junior P90 Streamliner. I enjoyed the sounds now coming out of the guitar but, the neck pickup was just way too warm and thick sounding compared to the bridge so I also bought a Wilkinson P90 for the bridge but, I decided on a stacked noise cancelling pickup. Well I dropped the pickup into the guitar and everything seemed okay but, then I went to the middle position I could not figure out why it sounded so thin and really like a wah pedal was on at 75% the whole time. With this video I realized I needed to swap my lead wires on one pickup and after doing that I am back to a full middle position and pickups that match each other much better. Moral here is just because the pickups fit and are the same brand, does not mean the polarity is the same or that they are meant to be interchangeable without some tweaks.

[@jerbear1601]

Great info. I actually reversed the magnet in my Les Pauls neck pickup putting it magnetically out of phase with my bridge when in the middle position. It does that Peter Green, Jimmy Page thing. Apparently when you do it magnetically it sounds different than electronically. It is supposed to have a more pronounced effect higher up the neck.

[@user-bi4sr2rw7b]

Great sounding guitar!😍😏🦊

[@vw9659]

The multimeter method works on resistance, voltage, or current settings, with that metal 'screwdriver' test. Only the digital multimeter display makes them somewhat difficult to use. The simplest method is a +/- 50 uA, centre-zero, analog ammeter (again with the screwdriver test).

[@kylecomendador]

I Love You, Uncle!

[@marcosavila8215]

well done my friend

[@HighlineGuitars]

Thank you kindly!

[@ronmoes42]

This is a very well explained video, i have purchased a tv jones starwood strat pickup, but i discovered that they wire the pickup ccw....So if I understand correctly, it doesn't matter if a coil has dirrerent winding direction, reverse magnet polarity or both, if you measure the output on which wire is positiive (hot) the wire will always be used in the correct way???? thanks again Highline Guitars

[@gunslingersymphony5015]

I was right, and I'm very grateful for this rabbit hole. Thank you!

[@danielflintknapping]

Great video! If you flip polarities in a Humbucker, what do you do with the bare wire ground? Should it go to Lead just like the main Ground wire?

[@GabrielSkolderblad]

How is it supposed to be if you have two humbuckers with coil split? When you test if the pickup is negative or posetive it seems like both coils in a humbucker are either negative or posetive? If that's true then it won't matter which of the coils are active together when splitting because all coils are the same? I'm asking because I have two Dimarzio humbuckers on the way that are zebra colored and I want the outer coils being the white ones and avoid the phase problem.

[@tryhardairsoft416]

My bridge pickup is out of phase. I reversed its wiring but it resulted to its ground becoming the connected to the hot. it creates a noise whenever I touch its mounting screw to the holder/frame. So I put it back to out of phase wiring. I use either the bridge pickup only or the middle pickup only anyways so it's not a problem for my setup.

[@Asillyhobo]

It's possible the magnet for the pickup is/was flipped to be out of phase. It could explain why after you swapped the wiring of your bridge pickup, instead of an in-phase sound, it gave a noisy sound. I discovered that stereo configured Gibson/Epiphone ES style guitars have bridge pickup magnets configured out of phase from the factory and have been going down a rabbit hole.

[@BillyTheKidsGhost]

If... you want to make a proper Peter Green humbucker sound. All you have to do is under-wind one of the bobbins and '''(wire them out of phase maybe)...'' I have never heard a Peter Green production humbucker that sounded like Peter Green's. But I saw someone say under-wind a bobbin in the comment section, and it worked.

[@qddk9545]

It seems that nobody knows it, but you have to use 2 PU´s out of phase, and wind one of them down on the volume, to get a usable PG sound. So a guitar with only one volume knob will not work.

[@BillyTheKidsGhost]

@@qddk9545A pickup can only be out of phase if ther are two pickups... One pick up can't be out of phase with its self...😄

[@jlrespicio]

I suggest use an analog multimeter. You will clearly see the needle go from right to left or the other way around.

[@jlrespicio]

​@@HighlineGuitars I don't understand. Can you explain it? I just checked my single coils pickups. I have two neck pickups, I will be reversing the polarity of the ceramic magnets and switching the hot to the ground and the ground to the hot. My neck and bridge pickup are all in negative phase. The other neck pickup that was reversed polarity and switched has a negative phase, will I have problems if all of them are all in negative phase?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@jlrespicio sorry, my comment went to the wrong post. I was replying to a comment on another video. To answer your question, it depends on what you mean by problems. It will work, but you may not like the way it sounds. Rather than ask, just do it decide whether you like it or not.

[@wrm192]

What about the magnets on the pick ups? Does each pick up side-by-side have to have different magnet polarities? Or does it matter? Thank you. Great video!

[@HighlineGuitars]

No, they don't need to have opposite or matching polarities. It all depends on what outcome you're after.

[@wrm192]

@@HighlineGuitars Thanks 😊

[@todoguitar]

Question: can pickups change their polarity through the time without doing anything? I believe that’s what happened to my DiMarzio PAF Pro pickups on my 20 years old Ibanez

[@HighlineGuitars]

No. That is not possible.

[@dalerothgordt8329]

if that humbucker had a braided cable would you not have to flip the magnet?

[@HighlineGuitars]

I would still have to flip the magnet.

[@bobless5517]

Oh, thank you! Do you show how to check the start and end of the humbucker coil without a special "pickup phase checker"? And how to choose the right "hot wire" in humbucker: is it a "Southern start" or a "Northern start"?

[@HighlineGuitars]

No. This video is about checking the phase, not the start and finish of a humbucker coil.

[@bobless5517]

@@HighlineGuitars Oh, I see, but do you have video about checking coil start and finish?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@bobless5517 No.

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@bobless5517 I'm posting a video about this on Monday, May 1, 2023, at 12pm MST.

[@bobless5517]

@@HighlineGuitars Very much thanks! Will wait.

[@RobAndKim444]

I have a pickup problem, hoping someone can help... I had out of town music store work on my HSS Stratocaster (Select series), after I gotta it back, the middle and neck pickups sounded weak and thin while the bridge pickup sounds muddy, (all on their own), The work was done out of town and it's next to impossible to get back to this so-called music store, can anybody take a guess as to what is going on? I lifted the pickguard and all the wire connections look good, I'm going to change the pickup selector just because it's been used a lot, but then again if somebody has any information as to help me assess this problem I really would appreciate it 👍

[@HighlineGuitars]

Need more info. What work did the out-of-town music store do.

[@RobAndKim444]

​@@HighlineGuitars the pickups are HSS, strangely every now and again the bridge pickup would cut out and if I pushed down with just a little bit of pressure on the inside it would work uninterrupted for a week or so... I assume all he had to do was resolder, when I got it back the problem was fixed but I noticed immediately that my middle pickup was weak, eventually I noticed my neck pickup had no bottom end and my bridge pickup was muddy to the point it couldnt be used, I just ordered a new pickup selector, I can't think of anything else except for the soldiering he did, my soldering skills are very inexperienced but I'm going give it a try and inspect what I can, I hop you might have a suggestion based on this info 👍

[@artax9683]

Hi there, does the negative or positive reaction on the multimeter indicate whether the winding is clockwise or counter clockwise?

[@HighlineGuitars]

No. There's more to it try what this article describes: www.premierguitar.com/mod-garage-get-a-grip-on-pickup-phase

[@artax9683]

@@HighlineGuitars Is coil wind direction critical to know when replacing a pickup and mixing with existing pickups? Or is it only polarity and pos/neg phase that we need to know?

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@artax9683 The winding direction determines whether the pickup will be in a positive or negative phase. That being said, as long as you know the polarity of the magnets and can test whether the new pickup is in phase or out of phase with the existing one(s) you'll have a better understanding of what's going on tone-wise when you play the guitar.

[@artax9683]

@@HighlineGuitars Thank you!

[@xeff3280]

What kind of selector switch is that?

[@HighlineGuitars]

6-way four pole rotary switch: www.stewmac.com/electronics/components-and-parts/switches/rotary-switches

[@bobtakealook6420]

Inphase better sound but you lose the hum?

[@iridios6127]

Do both coils work out of phase in a humbucker? And antagonize singles? Something here looks wrong.

[@HighlineGuitars]

The coils in a humbucker are usually in phase.

[@iridios6127]

@@HighlineGuitars It's weird, but aunt Wiki says something different. Section "Function". 😉 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbucker I hope, this is not misinformation from the evil Russian hackers. 😁😁

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@iridios6127 It's not misinformation, it's just poorly written.

[@iridios6127]

@@HighlineGuitars I was hoping that a bunch of emoticons would help understand the joke, but it seems that they don’t. Well, at least this line is correct ? Quote:" *By connecting the coils together out of phase* , the interference is significantly reduced via phase cancellation: the string signals from both coils add up instead of canceling, because the magnets are placed in opposite polarity." And please explain to the respectable public what the highlighted part in the quote means. If it's not too hard. 😉

[@wadeguidry6675]

That tele has a Jimmy Page vibe to it. Cool.

[@HighlineGuitars]

That's a huge compliment in my book!

[@stevekirkby6570]

Chris, just use your ears... if it goes thin then it is out of phase. Easy. Swap the leads around.

[@HighlineGuitars]

I’m deaf.

[@stevekirkby6570]

@@HighlineGuitars LOL