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Strange Middle Position Sound?


radrobgray

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i bought a hamer scarabII, it has 2 HBs and a 3 way switch. but it sounds not normal in the middle position. it doesnt sound like any other guitar i have ever played. it sounds like a wha is on, ala Michael Shenkers lead tone. are the pups out of phase or what? if so how can i wire my other gutiars to do this.

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Sounds outta phase to me. I dunno about "wah"-- but is the tone thinner and more "transparent"? If so, that's out of phasenessitudetacularness. As for wiring, I'm of no help, but surely the interwebs have lots of diagrams for wiring out of phase.

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Could be wired in series (or is that parallel)...see southpa's tele mod switch recently...Link...where he put in a switch to change between the two...even a couple of clips. He described it as a very similar kind of wah sound in the mid position.

interwebs...hmmm pie...is that a weebl and bob speak you are developing there Greg?... pete

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  • 4 weeks later...
Could be wired in series (or is that parallel)...see southpa's tele mod switch recently...Link...where he put in a switch to change between the two...even a couple of clips. He described it as a very similar kind of wah sound in the mid position.

interwebs...hmmm pie...is that a weebl and bob speak you are developing there Greg?... pete

Definitely out of phase. Had the same thing happen to me. It happens when the wires from one pickup are attached the wrong way to the pickup (or to the controls). It causes the humbuckers to "cancel" out, so instead of the noise canceling, and the signal remaining, the signal cancels, and you get the noise (and the difference between the two pickups). It causes a very thin sound.

You can test this as follows:

1. Attach guitar to amp, turn on, etc...

2. Put the switch on the middle position.

3. Turn both pickup's volume to 10.

4. It should now sound very thin.

5. Turn one pickup down to 7-8, and leave the other at 10.

6. It should now actually sound LOUDER and less reedy.

All you need to do to fix this is to swap the ground and signal wires from ONE pickup. Then its all fixed. For some reason, this is a very common factory error, even on very expensive Gibson guitars. I had the same problem, but when I fixed it, I missed the thin sound so much that I actually installed a push pull pot to switch back and forth between regular and thin "middle switch" configurations. I like the thin sound because its one of the easier ways to get a vintage-single-coil-esq sound out of humbuckers, it sounds great heavily distorted for 80's style pick harmonics, and clean as a texas blues kinda thing.

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