It's ground because the last layer of winding acts like a shielding when you connect finish to ground, other wise it will work but it will be very noisy
It is a neutral, and the source is the pickup. AC power transmission uses three separate live conductors phased 120 degrees apart and a common neutral to minimize power loss by adding positive and negative currents.
@@georgoroth The last layer of winding does not act as a shield. Pickups are noisy, which is why humbuckers were invented. They use two coils with magnets in opposite orientation, as you can see in the illustration, so their signals are opposite in polarity but the the noise produced by interference is the same in both. By connecting them so that the signals add together the noise is cancelled.
@@nightjaronthegate I'm an electronics technician, i build pickups and guitars for a living since 20 years ago, i known exactly how this works and why humbuckers where invented, single coils are always noisy but they get a little bit less noisy when the last layer acts a little bit like a shield, that's why they always connect the last layer to ground
I mean you could flip the hot and ground and it would still work. And the number of conductors or wires that is usually used to describe a pickup is simply how many were soldered on after winding. Hot and ground only exists in the context of the circuit but start and finish is describing the ends specifically.
It’s made so you follow the polarity for the position the pickup should be mounted as, it would’t really matter which one you choose as “the signal cable” but it’s to have polarity consistency with the other pickups on your guitar
It can matter for phasing and if an end is referenced to something else in the circuit including say a conductive part of the pickup. As a pickup winding by itself there is no hot neutral or ground. It does have a polarity or phase response.
The only thing that matters is that all pickups on the guitar is soldered the same way. If not you get phase problems like signal loss when two are «on» at the same time. If so, you have to swap the leads on one of them.🤘🤘
Just the other day, I opened up my 1st pickup, because it was not working I was told and a little loop of wire was peeking out between the metal cover edge and backplate. I discovered that loop connected the primary coil (with screws on top) and the dummy or (hum-cancelling) coil with 'slugs' , AND also realized I could go back and 'Tap' that loop to Split it into a single coil later, if I want. Fun 😊.
I just call everything plus or minus, + or -, it makes everything a lot simpler, It works the same way whether you're wiring a guitar or a house, even works in plumbing for central heating systems,
This is AC so there is no fixed plus or minus, only live and neutral. The purpose of a pickup is to produce an alternating voltage. Batteries have + and - because they are DC but houses use AC. Don't try to do any work on your home wiring.
But wire colors on houses and auto are different. So u would have to know the colors just to use plus or minus so really using colors to make ur nonsense system
So I saw a custom shop Seymour Duncan invader single coil a few weeks back. That is really cool and I had no idea they did that. It was a strat style. I wonder if they have ever made a tele set? Imagine how hot that tele would be. Turn both on and it would sound amazing.
It’s not polar. You can wire it either way and it works. This is because you have no earth ground just hot and common which are paths in and out of the power source. This makes polarity irrelevant.
Both of your questions have been covered on CZcams and the internet. Good luck hunting it down. But I believe the two options is what leads to either in- phase or out-of-phase pickups depending on which way you solder.
Let me try that again: more simply put, it IS polar, but not like your car battery. Or any battery. The difference is in the sound output, and I've been assuming a 2-pickup guitar. If you were to reverse the wires on either one, they end up out of phase with each other.
Yes because in theory the circuit needs to be closed. Meaning it needs to look back to a ground. A ground wire is never counted because it's for grounding. It's not that hard to look at wiring diagrams and figure it out. Even as someone that's colorblind I can still see them. It's because people doing this don't understand how electricity works.
they do when you pay for a pickup you are also paying for all the bad ones to get to that good one. The better the person and more consistent the wire is the more that is profit versus loss, but you have to keep that in your calculation otherwise you would lose money.
Here’s a good rule of thumb. Pickup manufacturers are great at marketing and will sell you “nuances” in each pickup. First find out if your pickups are microphonic or squeal with high gain. If microphonic replace cuz they’re not functioning properly, if it squeals when you have a lot more gain it’s just too hot, I’d switch for a lower output. The most important factors in your tone are the amps speaker, then the amp head, how many pedals (if you got like 10 pedals on your board a pickup isn’t gonna help) and THEN pickups. If you’re playing a super clean rig like country and like the amp head then experiment with pickups and speakers.
@@snow-so3qnthank you for the reply. And i apologize for the delayed response. So im asking the question from the basic setup of a guitar and combo amp standpoint. I play hss and sss strats. So, starting at the guitar how do i know if its the PU i need to upgrade OR if its a different amp i need to look at? (Contemporary Christian genre)
So, in this particular pickup, if the white wire is truly grounded, the wraps of the pickup wire gradually morph into also functioning as a grounded shield.
The coil is producing X amount of noise, it isn't able to shield itself from ambient electrical phasing (fluorescent light is a common source), notice the Faraday cage built of the non magnetic cover and base plate ? As long as the reverse humbucker coil is present or you are grounded in a single coil or even add a further foil shield also grounded, you can reduce buzz to nothing. Your bridge acts as an antennae so a ground wire goes to it in addition. One of the differences between cheap and expensive guitars.
From what i understand, only when two pickups or both coils of a humbucker are working simultaneously. They need to be reverse wound and reverse polarity so they don't phase each other out. Not an electrician. Im sure someone has a more precise answer
Neither of those wires are ground, its a hot and a neutral, both carry current and the neutral is just the grounded current carrying conductor, it is NOT the same thing as a ground. Typically the neutral in a low voltage system is referred to as common though since it has no voltage
Unless it is a coil tapped humbucker that can switch to a single coil. Worth it to expand gtr voicings. Fave setting, single neck and duel bridge with separate volume controls. A single tone is fine. Coil tapped humbuckers live between les Paul and sort of fender strat or tele tones. Versatile.
Its 2 coils, so, on a 2 wire conductor humbucker both coils are ran in parallel so you have a ground wire and a variable AC(+-) wire that transmits signal; on a 3 conductor wire humbucker its basically the same except you have a coil tap wire(this can go 2 ways to activate it as a single coil or to cut both the coils in half lowering the output). Then you have 4 conductor wires, each coil will have a ground and has its own AC transmission wire. To buck the hum you reverse wind the opposite coil.
@@nocturnal101ravenous6 I didn’t mean it literally. More like, are they pretty much the same thing. A P90 is supposed to be a giant fat single coil. Isn’t a humbucker in parallel essentially just a fat single coil?
a P-90 is just a form of a single coil, a soapbar or dog ear is similar to a jazzmaster pickup or even a normal single coil, the main differences are the way they are mounted, of course differently, and you have different widths of the winds and different depths of the winds this changes the magnetic field and thus changes the tonal differences. parallel versus serial is an entirely different beast altogether.
However if you took 2 P-90s and ran them in parallel and reverse wound 1 of them, then you would have a really wide range humbucker sound, if that makes sense.
@PhillipMcKnight Is that pickup you just made for sale? Let me know, id like to buy it! (I Never bought a pickup before...will you be my 1st @PhillipMcknight? 😅)
Legit, I thought you were gonna start winding by hand lmao
It’s not a ground at all…it’s a common. It routes the power back to the source, not an earth ground.
It's ground because the last layer of winding acts like a shielding when you connect finish to ground, other wise it will work but it will be very noisy
It is a neutral, and the source is the pickup.
AC power transmission uses three separate live conductors phased 120 degrees apart and a common neutral to minimize power loss by adding positive and negative currents.
@@georgoroth The last layer of winding does not act as a shield.
Pickups are noisy, which is why humbuckers were invented. They use two coils with magnets in opposite orientation, as you can see in the illustration, so their signals are opposite in polarity but the the noise produced by interference is the same in both. By connecting them so that the signals add together the noise is cancelled.
@@nightjaronthegate I'm an electronics technician, i build pickups and guitars for a living since 20 years ago, i known exactly how this works and why humbuckers where invented, single coils are always noisy but they get a little bit less noisy when the last layer acts a little bit like a shield, that's why they always connect the last layer to ground
A wire is a wire no matter the color its a complete loop or circuit.
@Phillip McKnight Thanks man!
I mean you could flip the hot and ground and it would still work. And the number of conductors or wires that is usually used to describe a pickup is simply how many were soldered on after winding.
Hot and ground only exists in the context of the circuit but start and finish is describing the ends specifically.
Exactly
Someone needs some basic electrical knowledge!!!
Well, it actually helps a little bit with hum if you put the ground in the end of the bobbin, as it kinda acts as a shielding.
@@joseislanio8910exactly
@@joseislanio8910 No, it does not. The only difference is the polarity of the signal.
It’s made so you follow the polarity for the position the pickup should be mounted as, it would’t really matter which one you choose as “the signal cable” but it’s to have polarity consistency with the other pickups on your guitar
Tnx for the info
Please do a humbucker
It will be the same just extra coil.
@@keithking1985and...
Show how cool splitting works.
Get an English person and then an American to read:
“A glue won’t work but a solder might”
Loving these videos feel dot dot dot can you do one where you show us how you wax pot the pickup?
The truth is there's only one wire, just like there's only one road.
Thank you for sharing
Being it's only one wire , does it matter what wire is what ?
It can matter for phasing and if an end is referenced to something else in the circuit including say a conductive part of the pickup. As a pickup winding by itself there is no hot neutral or ground. It does have a polarity or phase response.
The only thing that matters is that all pickups on the guitar is soldered the same way. If not you get phase problems like signal loss when two are «on» at the same time. If so, you have to swap the leads on one of them.🤘🤘
Just the other day, I opened up my 1st pickup, because it was not working I was told and a little loop of wire was peeking out between the metal cover edge and backplate. I discovered that loop connected the primary coil (with screws on top) and the dummy or (hum-cancelling) coil with 'slugs' , AND also realized I could go back and 'Tap' that loop to Split it into a single coil later, if I want. Fun 😊.
I just call everything plus or minus, + or -, it makes everything a lot simpler, It works the same way whether you're wiring a guitar or a house, even works in plumbing for central heating systems,
This is AC so there is no fixed plus or minus, only live and neutral. The purpose of a pickup is to produce an alternating voltage.
Batteries have + and - because they are DC but houses use AC. Don't try to do any work on your home wiring.
But wire colors on houses and auto are different. So u would have to know the colors just to use plus or minus so really using colors to make ur nonsense system
So I saw a custom shop Seymour Duncan invader single coil a few weeks back. That is really cool and I had no idea they did that. It was a strat style. I wonder if they have ever made a tele set? Imagine how hot that tele would be. Turn both on and it would sound amazing.
So the start of a coil is the hot and the end is the ground?
“i’m going to wire this pickup real quick”
*25mins later*
Do a second wrap in reverse polarity. Add a knob to tune it in and out of the mix. Call it a Whammy coil.
What about determining pick up polarity and where do you find the tool
It’s not polar. You can wire it either way and it works. This is because you have no earth ground just hot and common which are paths in and out of the power source. This makes polarity irrelevant.
Both of your questions have been covered on CZcams and the internet. Good luck hunting it down. But I believe the two options is what leads to either in- phase or out-of-phase pickups depending on which way you solder.
Let me try that again: more simply put, it IS polar, but not like your car battery. Or any battery. The difference is in the sound output, and I've been assuming a 2-pickup guitar. If you were to reverse the wires on either one, they end up out of phase with each other.
Now time to dip it in hot wax 😅
To water proof it..
@@keithking1985no, it's to give a nice shine, gives it a glassy tone.
Please don't add wrong info. The world of confusion is already full, thanks.😊
@@garyjones7044no, it's to use it as a candle during next power outage
It’s to to sent your pickup in your favorite sent making it sound better according to scented wax used. Sweeter the smell … sweeter the tone… 😝
Yes because in theory the circuit needs to be closed. Meaning it needs to look back to a ground. A ground wire is never counted because it's for grounding. It's not that hard to look at wiring diagrams and figure it out. Even as someone that's colorblind I can still see them. It's because people doing this don't understand how electricity works.
And since there's no directional pieces, you can wire it either way and it'll work.
how do the pickup wires not break!? lol, that's just crazy to me.
they do when you pay for a pickup you are also paying for all the bad ones to get to that good one. The better the person and more consistent the wire is the more that is profit versus loss, but you have to keep that in your calculation otherwise you would lose money.
Phill may i ask a question?
When sculpting your guitar sound how do you know whether the pickups are what need to be changed or the amp tone?
Here’s a good rule of thumb. Pickup manufacturers are great at marketing and will sell you “nuances” in each pickup. First find out if your pickups are microphonic or squeal with high gain. If microphonic replace cuz they’re not functioning properly, if it squeals when you have a lot more gain it’s just too hot, I’d switch for a lower output. The most important factors in your tone are the amps speaker, then the amp head, how many pedals (if you got like 10 pedals on your board a pickup isn’t gonna help) and THEN pickups. If you’re playing a super clean rig like country and like the amp head then experiment with pickups and speakers.
@@snow-so3qnthank you for the reply. And i apologize for the delayed response. So im asking the question from the basic setup of a guitar and combo amp standpoint. I play hss and sss strats. So, starting at the guitar how do i know if its the PU i need to upgrade OR if its a different amp i need to look at? (Contemporary Christian genre)
What would it do if you did make it like two wires wrap one wire around it at the end off on it and then wrap it again and set the other end
Start is Ground and Finish is end 😊
So, in this particular pickup, if the white wire is truly grounded, the wraps of the pickup wire gradually morph into also functioning as a grounded shield.
hmmm. I never before looked at it in that perspective.
The coil is producing X amount of noise, it isn't able to shield itself from ambient electrical phasing (fluorescent light is a common source), notice the Faraday cage built of the non magnetic cover and base plate ? As long as the reverse humbucker coil is present or you are grounded in a single coil or even add a further foil shield also grounded, you can reduce buzz to nothing. Your bridge acts as an antennae so a ground wire goes to it in addition. One of the differences between cheap and expensive guitars.
No.
It would probably work the same of you wired it backwards
It would yes .
Not sure why you would use the hot as a ground & use the black wire as the hot ,which is opposite of the norm .
Why is the wire used to wind the pickup so small? What would happen if larger gauge wire was used?
So how does yours sound? And i want a humbucker with just the 2 wires like that
? Phil, why are the pole pieces at different heights?
So does the "polarity" have an impact ?
From what i understand, only when two pickups or both coils of a humbucker are working simultaneously. They need to be reverse wound and reverse polarity so they don't phase each other out. Not an electrician. Im sure someone has a more precise answer
Isn't anyone going to say phasing between pickups?
Neither of those wires are ground, its a hot and a neutral, both carry current and the neutral is just the grounded current carrying conductor, it is NOT the same thing as a ground. Typically the neutral in a low voltage system is referred to as common though since it has no voltage
If the maker wants you to buy the pickup, why would they want to "confuse" you ?
Buzzwords that uneducated people fall for. Marketing tactic used by everyone for decades
Its the same wire. Its called a coil for a reason
Unless it is a coil tapped humbucker that can switch to a single coil. Worth it to expand gtr voicings. Fave setting, single neck and duel bridge with separate volume controls. A single tone is fine. Coil tapped humbuckers live between les Paul and sort of fender strat or tele tones. Versatile.
Im more interested in that huge machine you use for winding. What is that?
It's, erm, a coil winding machine... 😮
Using the black as ground and white as lead ???
Dont lie, yall use ceramic pickups
$tore bought winder$. I built my own for about $30.
What the f*** kind of wine is that
Looped
How do you do the humbucker, just reverse the wire on one?
Its 2 coils, so, on a 2 wire conductor humbucker both coils are ran in parallel so you have a ground wire and a variable AC(+-) wire that transmits signal; on a 3 conductor wire humbucker its basically the same except you have a coil tap wire(this can go 2 ways to activate it as a single coil or to cut both the coils in half lowering the output). Then you have 4 conductor wires, each coil will have a ground and has its own AC transmission wire.
To buck the hum you reverse wind the opposite coil.
@@nocturnal101ravenous6yes you answered that perfectly 👍👍🇮🇪
because its not a wire . a coil is a componant ...not a wire
Thank you... 2 wires, one coil.
3
is a humbucker wired in parallel the same thing as a p90?
no
@@nocturnal101ravenous6 I didn’t mean it literally. More like, are they pretty much the same thing. A P90 is supposed to be a giant fat single coil. Isn’t a humbucker in parallel essentially just a fat single coil?
a P-90 is just a form of a single coil, a soapbar or dog ear is similar to a jazzmaster pickup or even a normal single coil, the main differences are the way they are mounted, of course differently, and you have different widths of the winds and different depths of the winds this changes the magnetic field and thus changes the tonal differences.
parallel versus serial is an entirely different beast altogether.
However if you took 2 P-90s and ran them in parallel and reverse wound 1 of them, then you would have a really wide range humbucker sound, if that makes sense.
Why is white hot and black is ground. Talk about confusing an electrician
@PhillipMcKnight
Is that pickup you just made for sale? Let me know, id like to buy it!
(I Never bought a pickup before...will you be my 1st @PhillipMcknight? 😅)
Like, THAT specific one 😅