What’s The Deal With Pickup Polarity?
If you’re reading this article, you probably were trying to order a single pickup. Trust us – it’s not too difficult to find your pickup polarity, and it’s well worth the effort.
For identifying your magnetic polarity, we recommend buying one of these: Schatten Magnet Polarity Tester
IMAGINE THIS SCENARIO:
You just purchased a Bridge pickup for your guitar. You’re excited to throw it in and rock out. You get it installed. You plug it in. It sounds great on its own, but when you combine the Bridge with the Middle pickup, it sounds like crap! It seems thin, hollow, and weak.
What happened? Your Bridge pickup is out of phase with the rest of your pickups. Now you have to take the pickup out, send it back to us, and pay for shipping again to get the pickup back in phase with your other pickups. Not cool.
WHAT IS PICKUP POLARITY?
Pickup polarity is the combination of Magnetic Direction and Coil Direction.
Your Pickup can have either North or South pointing towards the strings, and the coil could be Clockwise or Counter-clockwise (more on this later).
The ideal situation is to have your pickup In-Phase and Hum-Cancelling with other pickups. You’ve probably heard the term “Reverse Wound / Reverse Polarity” (RWRP) – well, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about an In-Phase and Hum-Cancelling set or pair of pickups.
There are four important considerations when making a pickup. Let’s break them down:
- Magnetic Orientation: The top of the magnets could be South (South to Strings, in our jargon), or North to Strings.
- Coil Direction: Once again, there are two options: Counter-Clockwise and Clockwise.
DETERMINING MAGNET POLARITY:
Your pickups either have North or South aimed at your strings. If you have a compass, it’s easy to do: hold the compass on top of your pickup, on its side. This will allow you to observe which way the compass pulls.
If North pulls towards the pickup, your pickups are “South To Strings,” or“South Up” (Opposites attract). If South pulls towards your pickup, your pickup is North To Strings.
It’s essential to know your magnetic polarity, as some pickups can have their coil direction reversed easily. For instance, Our Steel Pole 42s and Steel Pole 43s can be reversed easily. However, if you have a traditional Strat or Tele pickup, you’ll need to observe your coil direction as well:
Tricks to find Magnetic Direction:
- Use a compass! Opposites attract, so, if you hold a compass to the top of the pickup, it will pull the opposite towards it. You can get a cheap compass online or at a local hobby store.
- Use a Magnet marked North and South. Just like the compass, you’ll feel and see what orientation attracts your magnet.
Determining Coil Direction:
Illustrated above is where the coil starts and ends. As you can see, the coil starts on the left on Bottom To Winder, and on the right with a Top to Winder pickup.
The Start of the coil is always shown by our Black lead, and the last turn is denoted by our White lead. For a real-world example, see below:
Tricks to find Coil Direction:
- Observe!
The best thing to do here is to pull your pickup out and look at it.
- Send us a photo
Send us a picture of the pickup out of the guitar. If we can see the leads, we can denote the coil direction
- Check with the manufacturer or look online
Check with your manufacturer, or do a quick search on the internet for your exact model. This is not always the best case because there is not a lot of consistency throughout the industry.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
Let’s put all of the concepts of Pickup Polarity together with a common example: Stratocaster wiring. With Stratocaster pickups, positions 2 & 4 of the 5-way switch are both in-phase and hum-canceling. Here’s why:
When the Bridge and the Middle pickup combine, their coil directions and their magnetic orientations reverse. This cancels hum and keeps pickups in phase.
The same applies for virtually any instrument that uses Single Coil pickups: Telecasters, Jazz Basses, Mustangs, and Jazzmasters…the list goes on.
TRYING TO FIX IT YOURSELF:
If your pickups are out of phase, you might be able to fix it yourself. You can try to reverse the coil direction, for example. However, reversing only one “attribute” of a pickup can cause some unintended side-effects. Here are some potential problems, and how to diagnose them:
Problem #1:
Both Coils are in the same direction, but the magnet direction is opposite between pickups.
These pickups are out of phase, and when used together, will sound weak, hollow, and thin. A lot of midrange is canceled out.
Problem #2:
Coils in different directions, but the pickups are magnetized the same.
These pickups are out of phase, and when used together, will sound weak, hollow, and thin. A lot of midrange is
canceled out.
Problem #3:
Both Pickups are the same coil direction and magnetic orientation.
These pickups will be in phase, however, they will not be hum-canceling.
Part 2: Hum-Cancelling pickups
Hum-cancelling pickups are a little easier to identify, as one part of the puzzle is already given to us. A Humbucker (this can be our hum-canceling P-90’s, Hum-Cancelling Jazzmasters, Split Blades, etc.) has both magnetic directions already. So, you don’t need to worry about Magnetic Orientation. What you do need to know is Coil Direction. This is really easy – just order your pickup with Multiple Leads!
As you can see, Polarity can be a little confusing. We hope this helps break it down. If you have any questions, give us a call! We’ll do our best to help.
I have about a dozen electric guitars with a whole host of different pickups that produce a great variety of sounds, but I don’t have or have I ever had a guitar with a P-90 pickup, a PAF pickup, a lipstick pickup, or any of several other different “off the beaten track” types of pups. I would like to put together some sort of hybrid electric that has perhaps three such pickups, starting from a body style “TBD” (I have a lot of Strat and Tele types, and want something different, maybe from Warmoth, AllParts, or the like, but don’t know what I want yet). Tentatively, I’m thinking P-90 (my only *definite* choice), probably in the bridge position – but the jury’s still out on the other two choices and their positions – and, of course, I’ll want to optimize my tonal prospects with those push-pull pots and/or switches. SO… what do you suggest I use in order to optimize my tonal variety?! I don’t care at all about conventions, and do want some eclecticism but without thinness – your suggestions?
What is the proper high output noiseless or lower noise p90 dogear to replace the slug dogear in my gibson lp jr?
I want to put a P.A.F. in the bridge position of my road worn fender stratocaster. It has fender custom shop 69 p/u’s in it now and I plan on leaving those in the neck and middle positions. I play mostly blues and hard rock stuff like SRV and AC/DC no metal or anything. Just looking for a little extra “beef” for lead work with the blues and some extra punch for the rock n roll… I want a nickel cover and it appears to me that people use neck pick ups for this mod? Please help so I can order the correct pick up. I like to measure twice and cut once. Thanks!
Scott,
It sounds like you want a 8.2K Pure P.A.F. bridge with 3-Conductor Lead. Make sure you get that lead as you won’t have any polarity problems if you do.
Tyler
My name is matt boren. I have an old kramer with the angled bridge humbucker and two single coils. I’m going to gut all of that out and order just a bridge position pure paf @ 8.2k. I’m going to also order a split shaft 500 k pot. I’m only going to run the bridge pickup, and i need a 52 mm pole spacing. In a single humbucker application do i need 3 or 4 lead? Also i have no idea what direction north or south or does it matter in a single pickup? Also i want it w black bobbins and no cover. My phone # is 843-729-5723
Apologies. Now I need to retract my previous comment, because:
The north pole of a compass needle is a magnetic north pole. It is attracted to the geographic North Pole, which is a magnetic south pole (opposite magnetic poles attract).
No No No. Wrong.
A compass north always points to the North Pole. So the compass North will point to the north polarity of any magnet.
Basic physics. The compasses north pointy end (usually red) has been magnetised as a south polarity, otherwise it wouldn’t point north.
The earth’s north pole is actually a magnetic south pole. A compass’ north pole is, in fact, a north magnetic pole.
This info is worth everyone’s attention. How can I
find out more?
Excellent descriptions, Ty. And you used one of my favorite expressions, “pop the hood”! I just said it today!
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Hi, I’m considering adding a dummy coil for hum cancelling to my rig. The wiring for this is apparently quite simple. My question is, I have an old pickup from a Mexican Strat that I want to use for the dummy coil. I have pulled off the bar magnets, and measured the resistance at 6.85 ohms. This appears to be a bit more than most vintage style pickups. I have a Callaham prewired pickguard assembly, with the H/SRV special wind Lindy Fralin pickups. Will this work, or will I need a lower resistance dummy coil? I have read that the dummy coil needs to be 50% to 80% of the pickups. Thanks in advance.
Hi, I have a Gibson ES-175 with two humbuckers. I want to replace just the neck pickup with one of your humbucker-sized P90s. Is polarity going to be an issue? Since the bridge humbucker will remain a noise-canceling pickup will I gain any noise canceling from the P90 when the selector switch is in the middle? To match the output volumes would an underwound or overwound P90 be preferable? Any other considerations? Thanks in advance.
Hey Christopher,
If you’re purchasing the Single Coil P90s, then yes – but, all you need to order is 2-Conductor With Shield lead for reversing the coil direction.
You will notice a significant drop in single coil hum when in the middle position, but it won’t be 100% hum cancelling. I would probably go with the Stock output or a +5% Overwind just to be safe!