How to Avoid 'Out of Phase' with Single Coil Pickups - Tone Geek Series #1

In this video, the first of our Tone Geek Series, Paul Best takes you through understanding polarity issues with Single Coil pickups, what a single coil is and how to avoid the dreaded 'Out of Phase' issues when mixing single coils from different manufacturers. A real in depth one, this! Enjoy!
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[@pwalshj]

Very clear, very concise. Thank you for taking the time to make this video.

[@MotorcycleParody]

Man... I understand zero about this stuff, and with all this walk through mega hyper detailed info, I feel I can do it all myself... I would like and subscribe tons of times, thank you very very much

[@Furtheronmusic]

In all the years I've been around guitars that's the clearest best description I've ever seen ta

[@RadioshopPickups]

Thank you so much buddy!

[@andye300]

Great explanation, thank you, very interesting!!

[@GUITARSGIZMOS]

Thanks for sharing Paul, this was really interesting and I've actually learned something today 😀. All the best, Thor

[@RadioshopPickups]

Glad you enjoyed! Thank you Thor!

[@almadera]

Very clear and useful, thanks!

[@stringtheoryx]

I was getting nervous, waiting for you to poke the winding with the pen. :-) I've often had trouble with flipping black/white leads due to shorts or coupling to the alnico rods (which hum when touched). But of course, it would be nice to have black on the outside if everything is insulated well (helps with shielding). Surprising that Duncan is out of phase with Fender/Fralin/Lollar. So they can't be simply combined with any of them.

[@alastairmacdonald6794]

Great video , very educational and well explained.. Qu...wIth single coils, say a Telecaster three way in the middle position, don't I need RWRP for noise cancelling ? I see pickup manufacturers doing this ? Tks

[@user-jo3oy2ih4t]

Excellent and simple explanation! Thanks😊 Vincenzo , Rome (Italy)

[@vantonilin]

Hi great vid! This clarifies things for me. Do you have a similar vid for humbuckers?

[@Chinedu104]

Thank you very very much. I learned a lot from your video and am now after YEARS (!) enabled to understand the game with not fitting hight end single coils from different companies. I think the companies should minimum giving information from which site they wire and if they use south or north magnets. The case, that they do not so is a kind of playing with the customers and the money, they invest! 👎 But thank you very much for your video 👍👍👍🎶🎸

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

What would cause hum noise when hum-cancel is built-in to the electroncs setup? My Strat features hum cancel on positions 2 and 4. But it has loud line hum on #4, neck and middle, that sounds like an open patch chord!

[@petebrown6204]

Surely the north pointing end of the compass needle is actually charged South - that's why it points to the North pole. Therefore the top of your pickup at 2'58" in the video is acyually attracting south and is therefore north up...?!?

[@fraenkiboii]

Really helpful video! I've got two questions: 1.) You're mentioning this in the video, but: Say I have two PUs out of phase and the only thing I technically would have to change to make them in phase is the winding direction, is it a luthier's no-no to just flip hot and ground on the wiring at the pot/switch? I've done this before and I kinda felt bad ... 2.) Is it correct that you can also find out the winding direction by measuring the DC resistance of a PU and then if you touch the magnetic pole pieces with a piece of metal the resistance goes either up or down depending on the direction? If this is actually true, it means you could find out the winding direction without actually having to look at the pickups while they're buried underneath the pickguard.

[@RadioshopPickups]

Hi Fraenk! Absolutely spot on on both counts. Damn, I was so close to putting the multimeter trick in the video! I wouldn’t frown upon the switch question you had 👍

[@pwalshj]

@fraenkiboii Holy crap. I just learned this from your comment. Saved me from taking apart a build. I was overthinking the combined volume drop. Turns out I had it correct all along. @RadioshopPickups The multimeter trick would put this video over the top. Consider adding it. I was doubting myself due to articles and videos that lacked your clarity. Thanks to you both.

[@ArtemyRudensky]

cool man!

[@swissanthony]

Help…. I thought the magnets had to to be south - North - south on a Strat ? I’m confused 😕👍

[@peterjohnson4932]

Paul you've made a mistake A rw/rp pair of coils wired in parallel IS a humbucker.

[@cjt6314]

Diddorol iawn. Diolch am rannu

[@RadioshopPickups]

Croeso cynnes iti!

[@VanjaSpirin]

Oh my god. You could just say: switch the black an white string.

[@DanHughes87]

But doing that wouldn’t explain why you would want to do that. I think this video clearly describes WHY you are performing the action rather than just blindly doing it without knowledge. Too many people want a quick fix without knowing why they’re doing what they’re doing. It wouldn’t sound very good if someone asked me why I would do that to their pickup I was working on and I just said “I don’t know” the difference between doing something and knowing why you’re doing something. Also switching black and white cables doesn’t always solve the issue.