FEATURE
PHASING OUT:
How to get out-of-phase sounds from a
Stratocaster
BY DIRK WHACKER
Welcome back to the world of hot-rodded
Stratocasters. I hope you had some fun with
the seven-sound mod from last month. A
friend of mine reminded me to share an
example of that sound with you, for those
that didn’t whip out the soldering iron. If
you have access to the album, Presumed
Having a Good Time, from the Notting
Hillbillies, featuring legendary Strat guru,
Mark Knopfler, listen to
their version of “Blues
Stay Away From
Me”—that’s a Pensa-Suhr Strat, played
with the bridge and
neck pickup combined
for the rhythm part.
Another major misunderstanding about
the out-of-phase sound involves its basic
structure. With the out-of-phase sound,
you don’t have to use two phase switches;
reversing the leads of both pickups would
simply put them back to in-phase again,
which will give you a stock sound. Also,
putting a single pickup out-of-phase will
have no effect; for example, playing a
this type of sound.
So, for the uninitiated, what does it sound
like? Basically, it’s a thin, inside-out,
squawky kind of sound, and the two pickups that normally sound full and rich turn
into a thin and shrill sounding couple. Why
would you want that kind of sound? It’s
great for reggae or funk, where you need
This month, we will
continue down the
hot-rod path and talk
about another very
popular modification:
the famous out-of-phase sound. The best
part about this mod is
that it isn’t limited to
the Strat—you can try
it out on any pickup
you’d like.
Figure 1
But before we dive in too far, let’s clear up
a few common misconceptions. When we
talk about out-of-phase sounds on a Strat,
we are not talking about position two and
four on the 5-way pickup selector switch.
While they are often (and incorrectly)
referred to as “out-of-phase positions,” in
positions two and four both pickups are
still in-phase.
Another myth you might read when
researching out-of-phase sounds is that
they are what’s commonly known as the
“Jimi Hendrix” sound. The idea is that
Jimi’s flipping of a right-handed guitar to
accommodate his left-handed playing contributed to his signature tone. Physically
rotating a pickup 180 degrees will definitely not put a pickup out of phase, but it will
give you a different tone, especially when
using a pickup with staggered polepieces.
Wiring diagram courtesy Seymour Duncan
Pickups and used by permission. Seymour
Duncan and the stylized S are registered
trademarks of Seymour Duncan Pickups,
with which Premier Guitar magazine is
not affiliated.
Strat’s bridge pickup out-of-phase will
sound exactly the same as it does in-phase.
The only time you can get an out-of-phase
sound when you use two pickups together
is to have just one of them out-of-phase.
When two pickups are in-phase, they work
together and reinforce each other. When
they are out-of-phase, the two pickups
work against one another; the resulting
sound is simply the “leftovers” from the
pickups’ cancellations. The closer the two
pickups are, the greater the cancellations,
meaning thinner sound and lesser volume.
Thus, having the neck and bridge pickups
wired out-of-phase is the best choice for
a thin sound. Also, this sound is extremely
helpful for cutting through a lot of effects or
distortion, things that would normally cause
your tone to muddy and lose definition.
If you’re not keen on messing with your
guitar’s pickups, an excellent and easy way
to get this sound is through Brian May’s
Red Special guitar, available in reissue versions from a variety of builders (just Google
“Red Special”) which include out-of-phase
switches for each pickup. It’s a sound heard
in a great number of Queen’s recordings,
and has become part of his trademark
sound.
Another famous musician who discovered
the out-of-phase sound did so by accident
while playing on his late-fifties Telecaster
with Ricky Nelson. James Burton found
that he could move the 3-way pickup
selector switch between the bridge and
neck position to get this thin, out-of-phase
