Question about pickup polarity & caps, in a guitar with three humbuckers .... HELP !!!!

[AJ6stringsting]

 

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Would I have to reverse the pickup wire of the middle pickup on my guitar with three humbuckers ?

Or would it be alright to wire them in like usual ?

The final question, is having three 22mf caps on each concentric ( stacked/dual) knob going to muddy up my signal ?

[WRGKMC]

You can keep them all the same or reverse it. Its not going to affect any hum issues because each pickup is already hum bucking. It can make for some tonal differences however. I have this setup in one of my 2 HB guitars and like its effect. It can do some weird things to the volume knobs however. Its fine as long as one pickups turned down a little lower but it can make for a thin tone when you crank both to max.

 

If you look at the magnet polarities of three similar humbuckers starting from the neck to tail you'd have N>S> N>S> N>S (or S>N>S>N>S>N) All in phase together. If you reverse the centers polarity it will be out of phase with the other two pickups and give some mild phase cancellation between either of the other two. I say mild because the pickups do consist of a Clockwise and a counter clockwise would coil . Reversing the electrical polarity simply swaps which coil is going to generate the positive going sine wave. This can make for some interesting tones you may like.

 

What some do is reverse the magnet on the center. This gives you a N>S> S>N> N>S This generates a different field between the pickups with two like poles repelling each other. (you could just turn the pickup around 180 degrees and get the same effect)

[AJ6stringsting]

Thanks.

I'm using a fender 5 way switch with concentric pots.

[WRGKMC]

I'm guessing you're using dual concentric pots, one for volume and one for tone. 500K?

 

Having three tone controls shouldn't be an issue. You use two in most dual humbucker guitars without an issue. Adding a third isn't going to load it much more.

 

There is something much cooler you might want to try. A pot is essentially a resistive switch. At one extreme its closed and the other its virtually open to the circuit. Instead of using tone caps, why not connect one of the coils of the humbuckers over the pot. When you turn the pot down it essentially coil taps one of the coils and turns it off leaving the other side of the HB running.

 

This makes for a much bigger tonal change and likely more useful control panning from a full HB to a single.

 

You may also want to try using a master volume and tone on the first, then use the remaining 2 pots (X2 concentric's) for two coil taps for the center and bridge, or maybe 3 coil taps to turn it completely into a strat type guitar and set the last pot up for a band pass cap that blocks bass when you turn it down (like Dan-o and Rics use) Or you can have it bring up a 3rd pickup the 5 way cant select.

 

Band pass caps are just as much fun as band cuts. you use a 1uf cap in series with a pickup and it only passes the highs and blocks the lows. Its a very handy item to have for thinning out HB's and getting a single coil sound. HB's are often fat and even a single tone cap can make them muddy. Using a band pass and a band block cap can let you dial up mids only which can be a very cool tone.

 

You can even combine both and get what's called the woman's tone Clapton is noted for. Turn the pot one way, it cuts tone, turn it the other and you get bass cut, in between you have a little of both. I like using two pots instead of one because I want to be able to turn both off for full tone so I set one pot for tone cut and the other for bass cut. if I have limited pots then I just add the bleeder cap to the volume and have it do both the volume cut and bass cut.

 

In a 3 pup setup you'll usually want the bridge to be the loudest so when you switch to it the leads cut through. Its really doesn't need its own volume and having three volumes can be quite un-wielding playing line. I used to do all those kinds of wirings thinking the flexibility would make for cool sounds. Many did but there's the other ergonomic practically factor when playing there too. Attempting to turn down three volumes and screwing up all those fine tone tweaks playing live can be like a one legged paper hanger at work. A quick volume cut winds up being really fiddly and getting your tone back setting three pots can be a show stopper. Its one reason Strats normally have a master volume and two tones. The tones are set for different switch positions for a balance then you just have to worry about the master volume.

 

Its is good you try all this out for yourself of course. I've done them all over the years and find the manufacturers options usually include the most practical configs from a performers perspective. When you're playing live thinking of which pot and which tone you have to jack with, and making that change during a song has to be fast, often times within a split second so you don't miss a beat. You can flip a switch or tweak a volume but when you have 6 there, it can be too distracting.

 

If your goal is to get a bunch of different tones for recording then go for it. There's a tone of stuff you can do with passive controls. You usually have time to tinker with your settings, multitrack then then cut and paste quick changes. Live keep the practical options open and try them out before you set those options in stone. I usually wait till I have the setup operational then make decisions based on what I'm hearing. If something's muddy or thin, I'll add the control to fix that one issue instead of just dong a symmetrical setup where I may never use half of what I wired up on a daily basis.

 

 

[AJ6stringsting]

Wow, thank for the info on options !!!!

I'm running my three humbuckers into the three concentric pot , then to the 5 way ( Fender Style) switch and finally to the output jack.