Wiring a pickup backwards

[SickEddy]

Hi everyone

I have done a search online but cannot find much on this. I bought a guitar a while ago and it has a faulty pickup. It isnt a cheap one but it is also stuck in the guitar (100% rounded off screw). The south hot wire on the humbucker is somehow shorted with the bare wire.

My question is can a humbucker be wired completely backwards? So earth both hot wires and use the grounds as a hot? I am happy to use the bridge as only a full humbucker and not with the neck at the same time. I am just wondering if it would sound normal or if I do need to drill out the screw, take the pickup apart and try to fix it inside.

Any help would be much appreciated

Thanks

 

[Chris Bowsman]

Shouldn’t matter.

 

[odibrom]

1st things 1st. I am assuming you're talking about 4 leads humbuckers. Generally, most schematics start with the North's HOT (Start) connected to the switch and with the South's GROUND (also start) linked to ground. Reversing these "norms" (called reversing the phase or out of phase) won't deliver a different tone "per se", only if combining with another pickup wired "correctly" (as "in phase"). Lets have this example of Seymour Duncan's color code:

North START (hot) - BLACK
North END (ground) - WHITE
South END (hot) - RED
South START (ground) - GREEN

Having white and red soldered and tapped together, you can either use the Black or GREEN as Hot (the remaining goes ground). IT WILL SOUND THE SAME as an isolated situation although it is wired in reversed phase (as opposed to the most common practices). However, if you mix a neck humbucker with the Black as HOT with a Bridge with the GREEN as hot, the mix will be out of phase and sound wonky (interesting tones, depending on each one's taste).

With these colors in mind, you could do 4 different wirings that would deliver the exact same series punchy full on beefy ballsy humbucker tone:

• BLACK as HOT, GREEN as GROUND, RED +WHITE - In Phase most common solution
• RED as HOT, WHITE as GROUND, BLACK + GREEN - In Phase alternative (useful for precision coil splitting in super switches)
• GREEN as HOT, BLACK as GROUND, RED+ WHITE - Phase reverse from the 1st solution.
• WHITE as HOT, RED as GROUND, BLACK + GREEN - Phase reverse alternative.

If out of phase tones are not desired, the logic followed to wire one humbucker must be used with other existing pickups in the guitar.

Now, please elaborate on that screw thing...

 

[SickEddy]

Perfect. Thanks guys, that is exactly what I wanted confirmed. There will be a neck pickup to go with this and I was planning to never use them together but if I wire that backwards too then I could use the middle position. Dont worry about the screw, I have a dremel that will hopefully fix that issue.

Thanks

 

[ElRay]

... it is also stuck in the guitar (100% rounded off screw) ...

This I don't understand. There are plenty of ways to remove a rounded-off screw: Drill-out the head, screw extractors, etc.