EMG phase switch
- Thread starter Pelagaard
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line6man
Epic Member
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- 6,443
LOL! So they've built a little opamp-based phase shift circuit to give people useless sounds with their active pickups. Perhaps it would be interesting if the degree of shift was variable on a pot, but all this is is a basic phase-inversion switch. 180 degree phase shifting is generally done by swapping the leads around on one pickup. The reason for this circuit is that you cannot do that with active pickups, since the internal buffers share the same ground as the output.
Just search for a soundclip of any guitar with a regular phase switch, and you'll hear what they do. Some people find them useful, but many find them unusable.
Just search for a soundclip of any guitar with a regular phase switch, and you'll hear what they do. Some people find them useful, but many find them unusable.
Cagey
Mythical Status
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Maybe the reason you can't find examples on YouTube is because they don't seem to exist. Even EMG's site search function can't find them, and they're the supplier. I do find references to them on some other forums, but can't find the units in real life anywhere.
Line6man is right, though. It's a much less useful trick than you might imagine, even with pickups where the trick works. You'll see kids do it to their guitars, but they typically want 195 switches and knobs on their guitars to put things in/out of phase, serial, inside-out, parallel, on top, coil split, doggy style, etc. Then, they find out they only use two or three of the options, which were the ones everybody's been using since day one.
Line6man is right, though. It's a much less useful trick than you might imagine, even with pickups where the trick works. You'll see kids do it to their guitars, but they typically want 195 switches and knobs on their guitars to put things in/out of phase, serial, inside-out, parallel, on top, coil split, doggy style, etc. Then, they find out they only use two or three of the options, which were the ones everybody's been using since day one.
S
swarfrat
Guest
I think this is one of those experiments from the 70's when phase shifters were cool and expensive. And someone figured out you could still get some of the notching by reversing a pickup.
They were into all sorts of tasteless stuff in the 70's. Much coolness did come out of the 70's in defining the heavy guitar sound of the 80's, and a lot of grooviness that still doesn't seem to get much respect - I love listening to Abe Laboriel's session work - the man can put groove into what would normally be an obvious straight 8 bass line. But there were also a lot of things which, much like the Jurassic Park quote says, "We were so busy asking if we could, that we didn't stop to ask if we should!" Phase reversal switches are one of these things.
It's a poor man's comb filter that doesn't move. Thanks to Behringer, you can get one that does move for the price of a steak, and you can stomp it to death without injuring your innocent guitar in the process when you get angry with it.
They were into all sorts of tasteless stuff in the 70's. Much coolness did come out of the 70's in defining the heavy guitar sound of the 80's, and a lot of grooviness that still doesn't seem to get much respect - I love listening to Abe Laboriel's session work - the man can put groove into what would normally be an obvious straight 8 bass line. But there were also a lot of things which, much like the Jurassic Park quote says, "We were so busy asking if we could, that we didn't stop to ask if we should!" Phase reversal switches are one of these things.
It's a poor man's comb filter that doesn't move. Thanks to Behringer, you can get one that does move for the price of a steak, and you can stomp it to death without injuring your innocent guitar in the process when you get angry with it.
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