Strat pickups lose gain in 2 & 4?

[Cheapstrat]

One of my brother's students just bout a used USA Strat. My brother called me and said that in the individual switch positions, all 3 pickups sound great...in either the 2 or 4 positions, there is a "loss of signal"...gain is substantially decreased. Any ideas?

Obviously it's not a pickup problem since they work perfectly in the individual settings.
Thanks in advance!

[Jim Collins]

A slight loss of volume in those positions is normal, but a drastic loss of volume is not. Is the loss in volume accompanied by a very thin, nasally tone? If so, the middle pickup is probably wired out of phase. The solution is to reverse the connections for that middle pickup. (This assumes traditional, Fender-style single coil pickups.)

[Cheapstrat]

A slight loss of volume in those positions is normal, but a drastic loss of volume is not. Is the loss in volume accompanied by a very thin, nasally tone? If so, the middle pickup is probably wired out of phase. The solution is to reverse the connections for that middle pickup. (This assumes traditional, Fender-style single coil pickups.)

Ah ha! I agree...that would be the best guess. The guitar was purchased used, so there's no telling who did what under the pickguard...and yes, they are stock single coil pickups. Thanks for the reply!

[Offshore Angler]

A slight loss of volume in those positions is normal, but a drastic loss of volume is not. Is the loss in volume accompanied by a very thin, nasally tone? If so, the middle pickup is probably wired out of phase. The solution is to reverse the connections for that middle pickup. (This assumes traditional, Fender-style single coil pickups.)

Uhmm, that would be the quack setting, which is what makes Strat a Strat.

I'm pretty confused. Gain is in the amp. Output is from the pups. How long has this guy been teaching guitar?

[Jim Collins]

Positions 2 and 4 are not out of phase. They are supposed to be parallel, and in phase. If they are out of phase, the sound is very thin and very nasally.

[Cheapstrat]

Uhmm, that would be the quack setting, which is what makes Strat a Strat.

I'm pretty confused. Gain is in the amp. Output is from the pups. How long has this guy been teaching guitar?

That would be MY poor choice of words...not my brother's...oops!
He's been teaching 20 years, playing 30...and one of the best players I've ever heard. Apologies -"output" would be correct.

[Cheapstrat]

Positions 2 and 4 are not out of phase. They are supposed to be parallel, and in phase. If they are out of phase, the sound is very thin and very nasally.

Right Jim...from the description, this seems to be the case. He's bringing the guitar over tomorrow and we'll have a look and test it out...my bet is we have an out of phase problem...which begs the question, did the previous owner upgrade the pickups and mis-wire them?...

[photoweborama]

some might consider positions 2 and 4 to be very low output. Until recently I did not use those positions because of the volume drop..

Now I use it all the time. I love that sound. and I found a knob on my amp, I can just turn it up and the volume problem is gone!

[Cheapstrat]

some might consider positions 2 and 4 to be very low output. Until recently I did not use those positions because of the volume drop..

Now I use it all the time. I love that sound. and I found a knob on my amp, I can just turn it up and the volume problem is gone!

Thanks photweb! I think what we have here is more than just a "weak" in between position sound...I know what you describe for sure...this is a huge output loss as compared to the slightly noticeable dip in perceived volume you can get in positions 2 and 4...I'm very fond of those positions myself...sometimes too fond of them;-)

[Offshore Angler]

You'll need to check the pole peices too. Just pulling the guard and looking at the wires won't verify it. If the pup is reverse wound it will need to have reversed poles on the magnets to work in the 2/4 settings.

[Constellation80]

raise the height of the bridge pick up, or wire a hotter one in..

[boobtube21]

Now I'm confused. Isn't a humbucker comprised of two coils wired out of phase, thus increasing the output and "bucking the hum"? Anybody clear on this theory?

[telecast]

Two coils in series, I believe.

[Offshore Angler]

Boobtube21, the humbucker has two coils. They are wound in opposite directions. So, any interference is cancelled ( the hum is bucked), but the genious of Seth Lover's design is that he flipped the magnets on one of the coils. So, the pickup is out of phase for extraneous signals, but the coils are in phase for the current induced as the string bends the magnetic feilds around the coils. That is what we engineers call an elegant solution!

If the magents were not reversed, the signals would be 180 degrees out of phase and cancel each other. Which, also explains why a Strat middle pickup is unique. When in the 2 or 4 position, it's reversed polarity makes it work like a humbucker with two widely spaced coils.

In the Strat in question, it ispossible that somebody replaced the middle pup with a neck or bridge model and the results would be that the output would drop dramatically in the 2&4 positions. Somewhere along the line, people started marketing middle/neck pups instead of making the middle reverse poled and that's when things got wonky.

[Kap'n]

If the magents were not reversed, the signals would be 180 degrees out of phase and cancel each other.

Reverse polarity. I thought you were a rocket scientist. ;)

[boobtube21]

You know, now that I think about it, I had a pickup from a Fender strat laying around and one day decided to throw it in the middle pos. on my Squier (previous owner lost one of the pickups on this guit.) and it sounded like crap! I threw it away, and it was probably a good neck or bridge p'up! :!

Thanks for the tech lesson, OA, good stuff. :yay

[jpap]

Obviously two pups in parallel (as in strat's 2 & 4) MUST show a little less signal than one pup alone, due to that the total resistance is being halved: Two - almost - equal Resistors in parallel. Also the inductivity is being halved. Humbucks is different, they are in series plus the flip of the magnetic field, so the output voltage of both coils adds to eachother (as Off-Ang says). The output voltage is of course higher.
Now, back to strats, in mixed pups setups (as I mostly use), you get very different results on 2 & 4, some sound nice and powerfull, some others suck, even if the pups by themselves are 1a class... Recently I tried an HS3 (Dimarzio, my mid position favorite), and my favorite on bridge, a Kinman 69b. Stand-alone they sound perfect, but the combination of both does not bring the expected knopfleresque quak... On the otherside, an HS-3 with a Kinman 56 provide excellent sound... Guaranteed quaks come on regular strat pups setups, where all three pups are mostly equal. In some cases with a hotter bridge one, combination sounds could be also way different...

[Don]

If the magents were not reversed, the signals would be 180 degrees out of phase and cancel each other. Which, also explains why a Strat middle pickup is unique. When in the 2 or 4 position, it's reversed polarity makes it work like a humbucker with two widely spaced coils.

In the Strat in question, it ispossible that somebody replaced the middle pup with a neck or bridge model and the results would be that the output would drop dramatically in the 2&4 positions. Somewhere along the line, people started marketing middle/neck pups instead of making the middle reverse poled and that's when things got wonky.

Stratocasters having a unique middle pickup is a fairly recent developement.

Originally, all 3 pickups were exactly the same as each other and wired the same as well. Reissue Strats still use the same exact pickup in all 3 possitions.

It was once a common belief that the middle pickup on a Strat was out of phase giving the guitar it's "quack" tone in positions 2 & 4. Some people would even connect the wires backward thinking it was the right thing to do.

Later some folks started using a hotter bridge pickup with a common output and design middle/neck pickup.

Eventually someone realized that if the wiring and magnets were reversed on the middle pickup it would become a spread out Humbucker and cancel hum.
The first guitars that I saw this on were G&Ls. I think they said that positions 2 & 4 were "quite as death"!

You can load your Strat with 3 middle pickups, or 3 bridge pickups, put the pickups in any position or whatever you like. It'll sound fine, it just won't be hum cancelling.

When you install a pickup that's out of phase with the rest, either due to it being a different model, brand a defect or connected incorrectly, you will notice a tremendous signal loss.

Otherwise positions 2 & 3 do suffer from some signal loss.
A way that seems to make this less noticeable is to wire the guitar like you see on Fralins "Blender Pot" wiring diagram.

[Plugger]

Positions 2&4 should _not_ reduce the volume drastically -- if they do, it a indication that the middle pup is out of phase with the other two for the guitar signal (bad), rather than for noise produced by extraneous EMFs (which is good = "humbucking" effect).

Scenario 1: If the coil is reverse wound, but the magnets haven't been flipped (i.e., they are in the same orientation as the other two pups), this would cause the volume problem. Solution: flip magnet orientation. Then you will have the modern "virtual humbucker" set-up. Two thumbs up. You get volume _and_ noise cancellation for positions 2&4.

Scenario 2: If the magnets have been flipped, but the coil is not reverse wound, you get the same volume problem. Solution: Once again, flip the magnet orientation. Volume problem fixed. (One thumb up.) In this case, however, you will not get any hum cancelling effect. (One thumb down.) Note however that the tonal characteristics (the quack) will be the same as for the "virtual humbucking" set-up described above. The quack _does not_ rely on the pickup signals being 180 degrees out of phase.

The other way to fix scenario 2 would be to flip the coil instead of flipping the magnets so that the direction of the windings are now reversed, if this is possible. This would give you the humbucking effect back as well.

Scenario 3: Someone at some stage has electrically reversed the phase of the middle pup by resoldering the leads believing this to be the correct thing to do, or to "improve" things. In this case, the fix is to reverse the incorrect rewiring.

Sorry, but I must admit I don't know how easy any of the magnet/coil flipping would be to do in practice, never having had the covers off a Strat pup before (now Gibson-style humbuckers... that's a different story. :) ) It might well be more sensible to just spring for a new middle pup. But you haven't got anything to lose (except for a bit of time) by experimenting a little along these lines to try to track down and solve the problem.

BTW, I know my MIM Standard has the modern "virtual humbucking" set-up because when I sit at my computer reading TFF while playing my Strat (I know, what a nerd...), the otherwise annoying EMF hum generated by my computer is cancelled out nicely in positions 2&4 (my favourite switch positions anyway). Note that there is _no_ significant volume reduction at all compared to positions 1,3 and 5... maybe the sound is a little thinner (quack!), but the change would be more naturally described in terms of tone, not volume.

-Mark