para, seri, in, out

Tweed

Senior Member
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452
What are the differences, sound and technical, between a parallel/series switching setup and a in-/out-of-phase setup?
 
Normally, within a humbucker, the coils are in series - higher output, a bit more beef.

They can be put in parallel, and you get slightly less output, slightly thinner response.

Two pickups are normally in parallel, but you can put them in series if you like - again, higher output, more beef.

Out of phase, can be either series for parallel, each has different tones.  Series out of phase is beefier and has less volume loss.

You can also go 1/3 (or 2/3) out of phase by running the pickups out of phase, but with one also thru a capacitor.  The cap must be large enough to pass "most of" the resopnse of the pickup.  This results in a near acoustic type sound, has good volume too.

Someplace here... in the wiring section, I describe more how to switch it.
 
Both series and parallel can be hum cancelling - all ya need are pairs of coils (2, 4 etc) that are reverse wound, and reverse polarity magnets.
 
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