DGT - out of phase quack sounds? Possible?

[henryjurstin13]

I started this thread over at TGP: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=1407233

I've been waiting to snag a deal on a DGT soon, and I know next to nothing about wiring a guitar/pickups.

Would it be possible to add a 2nd push/pull pot in order to get that quacky out-of-phase tones like on a strat in #2 & #4 positions? For example, when tone pot is UP in single coil mode... is it possible to have a 2nd push/pull to activate these in between tones? Would it be worth the hassle? If it was, then this guitar would do humbucker, single coils, and single coil out of phase..... seems like a cool idea to me, if it's doable & will sound right.

 

[Bluesboy998]

Iam sure it could be done. Sounds interesting .I would call prs for info .Also you go to Seymour Duncan web site they have tons of wiring schematics.

 

[gush]

I have a CE24 that has push/pulls on tone and vol pots with a 3 way toggle. The previous owner removed rotary and had this done. I like it but it doesn't quite get the quack you're after it only spilts pickups separately. I'm sure it could be done though. I was visiting pickup manufacturers websites yesterday to figure out wiring issues and most did offer some complex wire diagrams. Good luck.

 

[kingsleyd]

A large part of that sound comes from where the pickups are located under the strings, which you can't replicate with a DGT unless you add a single-coil pickup in the middle. Ever hear a Strat with the bridge and neck pickups on together? Not nearly as much "quack" as the 2 & 4 positions, and overall closer to what you'd hear from a Tele or DGT.

 

[jfine]

The DGT has a 22-fret neck, which puts the pickups a little further apart than they would be on a 24-fret guitar. If you have your coil splits wired up to select the inside coils (back coil of neck pickup, front coil of bridge pickup), and use both pickups together, that'll be as close as you'll get to a Strat sound with a DGT without adding a pickup. It'll actually be closer to the middle position on a Tele. The reason a Custom 24 can get a little closer to a Strat sound is that the pickups are closer together, and the inside coils are about the same distance apart as the pickups on a Strat. They're not in the same place under the strings as Strat pickups are, so it's a little different, but the closer spacing is where the "quack" comes from. That being said, I think a middle single-coil would be a great addition to a DGT.

 

[Felix]

I like 22-fret HH guitars, but the screw poles of the neck 'buckers do tend to be under the node where otherwise a 24th fret would be, a sonic "dead spot" of sorts; this can be good or bad, it is all in your ears. 22-fret guitars also emphasize the 9th harmonic more than 24-fret guitars do. Again, not necessarily a good or bad thing, just a difference.

My PRS guitars are both 22-fret, HH models, and both, with careful attention to pickup heights, can achieve an out-of-phase sound. the CE can achieve a somewhat Strat-like tone (in fact "Strat guys" tend to love my CE) in the middle rotary positions, which are various combos of the split pups, with the middle position -being a serial connection- sounding more humbucker-like, but my Hollowbody II can sound remarkably like an out-of-phase Les Paul, again if I pay careful attention to the pup heights so that unequal signals are blending. The HBII has a 3-position toggle, the middle position of which selects both HBs full on simultaneously, so that is along the lines of what you should expect from that type of setup. Ditto the tones of the CE, which is the more DGT-like in its wiring scheme, from what I gather. Two volumes would make adjusting the degree of signal blending -and therefore degrees of phase-matching and -cancellation- much, much easier, like a Les Paul - much more like an LP in its wiring than it would be like a Strat.


...Or are you talking about putting the pups OOP rather than the sound of phase-reinforcement and -cancellation? That is quite a different matter, and is most often encountered in LP users trying for "that 'Green' sound", though I have the mod on an HSS guitar. Strats are not OOP as far as their pups are concerned in any position (unless modded or wired wrong). Referring to a Strat's 2 & 4 positions as "out-of-phase" is a misnomer, much like using the word "tremolo" to refer to a vibrato unit. In exactly the same way, "Gibson guys" often call the blended HBs on their LPs "out-of-phase", but again it is incorrect terminology unless one of the pups is electrically or magnetically opposite in reference to the other (flipping the magnet is safer electrically if harder on the pup).

 

[Boogie]

A large part of that sound comes from where the pickups are located under the strings...

Big +1

A typical dual humbucker guitar is the wrong place to look for quack.

 

[daa2202]

A large part of that sound comes from where the pickups are located under the strings, which you can't replicate with a DGT unless you add a single-coil pickup in the middle. Ever hear a Strat with the bridge and neck pickups on together? Not nearly as much "quack" as the 2 & 4 positions, and overall closer to what you'd hear from a Tele or DGT.

This is 95% of it, in my experience. I have a couple of guitars with three relatively narrow humbuckers (a Modern Eagle III and a Thorn G/T with three T.V. Jones Filtertron-style pickups) and they are both very quacky in the 2 and 4 positions, especially the neck and middle combo. I also have a Strat-style guitar with three DiMarzio dual-rail humbuckers and it quacks relentlessly. Having single coil pickups involved is not a requirement, at all.

 

[justmund]

A large part of that sound comes from where the pickups are located under the strings, which you can't replicate with a DGT unless you add a single-coil pickup in the middle. Ever hear a Strat with the bridge and neck pickups on together? Not nearly as much "quack" as the 2 & 4 positions, and overall closer to what you'd hear from a Tele or DGT.

Yep +1. This may (or may not!) help a little bit, I did some quick tone samples with my CU22 Soapy. I know we're talking P90s vs a split bucker here but the pickup combos should be able to help illustrate this point:

https://soundcloud.com/justmund/cu22-soapy-clean

Sample 2 is neck/middle, sample 3 is neck/bridge, sample 4 is middle/bridge. To my ears the neck/bridge is more spank than quack, with the middle/bridge the quackiest of them all (is that even a word?).

Hope that helps!

 

[Felix]

I think that the OP, henryjurstin13, is under the impression that the pups on a Strat are electrically or magnetically out of phase. This is not true; the "quack" is (as others in this thread have pointed out repeatedly) from the position of the pups and the way they cancel and reinforce one another, not from being out-of-phase.

If the question is "if I wire my guitar with a switch to (electrically) reverse one pup's phase, will it get that Strat-like "quack" tone?" then the answer is no. The sound of being out of phase is thin but can be used to good effect, as Brian May proved repeatedly (with humbucking pups, mind, which are naturally "thicker" sounding than singles). Being out of phase does not cause a set of pups to have that Strat-like "quack", it is an entirely different sound with a different origin.

I am told that reversing a pup magnetically is safer (to the user, not the pickup) than reversing it electrically, but commercial guitars are available (such as repros of Brian May's own "red special" guitar) with phase-reversing switching, and they seem to be safe enough.