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1955 Les Paul Goldtop - Out of phase pickups

Aloha_Ark

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Apr 2, 2020
Messages
154
S/N is 5 8274.


The talented (and respectful) young guitarist Chris Buck demonstrates the middle position on the pickup selector, showing us what is probably more common than what we thought existed back in the 1950's, i.e., out of phase pickups. Now everyone will be checking their GTs to find out whether theirs has this property. This is probably a wiring error given the fact that it comes out of the backplate on one specific side. But, one never knows, do one?

Who's flying off to France to check out this theory?
 

MapleFlame

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Jul 3, 2005
Messages
14,044
S/N is 5 8274.


The talented (and respectful) young guitarist Chris Buck demonstrates the middle position on the pickup selector, showing us what is probably more common than what we thought existed back in the 1950's, i.e., out of phase pickups. Now everyone will be checking their GTs to find out whether theirs has this property. This is probably a wiring error given the fact that it comes out of the backplate on one specific side. But, one never knows, do one?

Who's flying off to France to check out this theory?


Its just magnets flipped giving a different polarity. Some had the out of phase sound and some didn't.
 

Strings Jr.

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Jan 17, 2016
Messages
670
S/N is 5 8274.


The talented (and respectful) young guitarist Chris Buck demonstrates the middle position on the pickup selector, showing us what is probably more common than what we thought existed back in the 1950's, i.e., out of phase pickups. Now everyone will be checking their GTs to find out whether theirs has this property. This is probably a wiring error given the fact that it comes out of the backplate on one specific side. But, one never knows, do one?

Who's flying off to France to check out this theory?
And if you want to see which pickup is the out-of-phase pickup, it can easily be checked through your jack cord with an analog ohmmeter.
 

Known4tone

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Joined
Apr 23, 2015
Messages
134
I might be mistaken but: If you play the neck pickup by itself and there is single coil hum; then switch to the bridge pickup and there is hum, when you switch to both pickups with volume equalized and it does not hum then your pickups have opposite polarities.
 

Señor Verde

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Jan 13, 2005
Messages
621
A friend of mine has a 55/56 conversion. His pickups were out of phase. Base on the general consensus on the web, his neck pickup had the magnet flipped from what it "should have been." It annoyed him when they were "out of phase" in the middle position, so I flipped the magnet for him. We both agree that everything in phase sounds better to us.
 

somebodyelseuk

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Joined
Jun 10, 2020
Messages
454
I might be mistaken but: If you play the neck pickup by itself and there is single coil hum; then switch to the bridge pickup and there is hum, when you switch to both pickups with volume equalized and it does not hum then your pickups have opposite polarities.
My bad
 
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