How To Reverse Guitar Pickup Phase or Polarity

All about pickup phase relationships. Learn how to reverse the polarity of a humbucker or P-90 pickup.
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[@Guitar5986]

Great video James!

[@ReWind-Electric]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@sdr50]

James, This video is a golden reference. Your explanations are clear, well-ordered and interesting - as well as pleasant listening. Thank you. Sam

[@ReWind-Electric]

That's extremely kind of you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thank you so much!

[@guidomauriziodoria]

Super usefull to know ! Thank you for this video

[@ReWind-Electric]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you appreciated it. Good luck in your tone quest!

[@jamesniece8449]

James, by doing this are you affecting the tone when the pickup is individually selected? I’d like to have my bridge and neck remain the same and when switching to the middle pickup experience the out of phase sound. Also I’ve seen others that rotate the magnet 180 degree (treble and rhythm) rather than like an axle in your video. Thanks for the feedback.

[@ReWind-Electric]

Hey James - Thanks. I cover both of those topics in the video, check it out again.

[@estebannieves8830]

Thanks for the great video! I have a bridge pickup for my Strat that has three wires. It's Clockwise Coil Direction and South To Strings. The pickup I'm pairing it with is also clockwise and south. How would I get it to still be in phase, but cancel 60hz hum when both are selected?

[@ReWind-Electric]

You can't. Not without reversing the magnetic polarity of either pickup, first. To be in phase AND hum canceling, you need BOTH reverse electrical polarity AND ALSO reverse magnetic polarity, between the two pickups. If you find a shop with a large enough electric magnet charger, you can bring either pickup to them to make the change.

[@estebannieves8830]

@@ReWind-Electric aaah got it. That was my suspicion, but wanted to be sure. Unfortunate! Thank you!

[@frantisca]

Very good: thanks. And how do you do it for single coils ? Just invert the leads that go to the selector and ground ?

[@ReWind-Electric]

Depends on the pickup. On a Strat or Jazzmaster, you can do what you describe. On a Tele, it can’t be done without mods because of the grounded metal neck cover or metal bridge baseplate.

[@frantisca]

@@ReWind-Electric Thanks a lot. So, the thread soldered to the ground has to be cut for instance on the neck pickup ?

[@ReWind-Electric]

@@frantisca on vintage Tele pickups, with two cloth leads, you can do that but you might also have other problems if you don’t reconnect the cover ground to the other eyelet.

[@frantisca]

@@ReWind-Electric Thanks a lot !

[@ShizeHu]

If I want coils split like two inner coils hum-canceling but in-phase. Other than flipping the magnet, I also have to reverse the wiring right?

[@ReWind-Electric]

Depends on the pickups but probably. ...or you could just use one one screw coil and one slug coil from each pickup, if that's easier for your setup.

[@ShizeHu]

@@ReWind-Electric Thanks!

[@solo.paradise]

Hello, I have 3 magnets on my bridge humbucker, I have one in the middle and two more, on the sides, what should I do and how to not break anything? Should I flip the middle one or make changes to the side magnets too? Or maybe not touch anything for the good

[@ReWind-Electric]

Easiest way is probably to just make the change on the neck pickup instead of the bridge. If you can’t, for some reason, rotate all three magnets in the bridge to reverse polarity.

[@solo.paradise]

@@ReWind-Electric okay, thank you so much!

[@kenzachow]

Hi, I have an old 80's Fender Strat MIJ. Originally came with a 3 position selector but I changed to a 5 position selector. As they are single coils the make the hum, but normally on position 2 and 4 should not. But with my guitar does hum on all positions. So I flipped electrically the middle pickup. The hum on position 2 and 4 is gone, but the guitar on those position sounds thin and terrible... Why it does that? Maybe I should had flipped magnetically? But you mention it should work by doing it electrically right?

[@ReWind-Electric]

VIntage Strats have all 3 pickups the same polarity and same phase. They will hum in the 2 and 4, if you add a 3 way switch, so your guitar was correct. You can change the phase relationship by reversing either electrically or magnetically. You reversed electrically. Now your pickups are out of phase and sound weak and thin in the 2 and 4. You don't want out of phase, you want RWRP (reverse wind / reverse polarity) so you need to ALSO change the magnetic polarity now, which will put your pickups back in phase, but retain the hum canceling.

[@dimitrisxanthos7473]

@@ReWind-Electric so RW and RP is NOT the same thing !!!!!!!!!!!! YOU have to do both ?????? WhyYou dont you tell in the video ??????

[@ReWind-Electric]

@@dimitrisxanthos7473 You need to watch the video again. I explain all of that in great detail. Electrical polarity and magnetic polarity are different, yes.

[@ReWind-Electric]

@@dimitrisxanthos7473It's the very fist point I make, 0.46 seconds.

[@joeltunnah]

So the "Peter Green" mod, ie flipping the magnet in the humbucker, will sound identical to swapping the leads?

[@ReWind-Electric]

Yes, but neither will actually sound like the Greeny Burst with normal pickups. Greeny's neck pickup was rewound, hand wound, and wound with the wrong wire. All of those make a significant difference.

[@joeltunnah]

@@ReWind-Electric understood, thank you.

[@VanjaSpirin]

And all of this without a sound example? Oh, man.

[@ReWind-Electric]

There's thousands of examples of that already in recorded music and videos here. Every guitar / pickup set will respond different, as well. What matters is you have all the information now to try it yourself, in your own guitar. If you really just want to hear someone else's guitar as an example, there's studio demo recordings of out of phase sound on my retail website for my Greeny Burst humbucker set.

[@VanjaSpirin]

@@ReWind-Electric Well, you chanell is very useful. And I bet that you can't play guitar :)