pickup configuration of middle pickup in three pickup Les Paul

[dude]

A friend bought one of those cheap Chinese Frampton Les Paul's for $300 including shipping from China, what a piece of Sh*t. Won't get into the details, ask in interested.


My question: I'm changing pickups for him, he bought two Stew-Mac Parsons, one neck (7 ohms), one bridge (8 ohms),  and a hot bridge (12.5 ohms). I'm concerned with the middle p/u's pole pieces facing the right way, it's a bridge so the poles are meant to face the bridge. Since I'm putting this pickup in the middle position, I would assume the poles should face the bridge too...? If I install it with the pickup flipped, poles facing the neck wouldn't the p/u be out of phase or would I get a little fuller sound from it, being in full humbucker mode.


See pic, for both ways:


al 

[jjasilli]

Lots of info here:  https://www.google.com/search?q=les+paul+3+pickup+wiring+diagram&oq=les+paul+3+pickup+&aqs=chrome.3.0j69i57j0l4.7790j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[dude]

Thanks, already Googled that link while ago, lots of info and I did pick a diagram I'm using.


I heard that Peter Green of the old Fleetwood Mac era, took his Les Paul's pickups out for some reason and made the mistake of flipping the the neck pickup, (poles facing the bridge instead of fretboard, the result was a different sound he was known for.


So my question was: doing this does what..?  I would assume something with that pickup's tone would be difference due to flipping the magnets?


al

[jjasilli]

My guess:  If the poles are closer to the middle of the string, they should pickup : i) more string string travel, so generate more voltage; and ii) a more mellow string sound.


If the poles are closer to the Bridge, they should pickup: i) less string string travel, so generate less voltage; and ii) a more tinny or brash string sound.

[dude]

Yeah, makes sense, so no other difference besides what you mentioned. Thanks

[Willabe]

There's different stories about what Peter Green did or had done to that Les Paul.

Some say he flipped the magnet, some say he wired it out of phase.   

[Ritchie200]

Why that looks like a perfectly good Les Paul!   It actually looks like Peter played it!!!!  It has gold colored hardware, frets, switches and knobs and stuff.  What could possibly be wrong with a NEW $300, including shipping, Chinese Les Paul....  Come on, give us the list!

Jim

[dude]

I never seen such a piece of S**t. Everything about this guitar is total junk. When a friend brought it to me, in five seconds I knew it was one of those $300 Chinese copies. After "trying to set it up" yeah that's right "trying", played it ten seconds and handed it back and said get this garbage out of here. The guy spend $300 on decent pickups but I had to chisel the cavity to get them to fit and the rings holes in the body were way off. I managed to get the pickups in, sounded a little better but still once a piece of s**t, always a piece of s**t.   


Stay away from these Chinese copies, quarter inch plywood top, plywood body, terrible finish and the hardware is the cheapest I ever seen.


al

[Ritchie200]

I was just talking to Jojo about a Les Paul copy I bought back in the 70’s that was Japanese or Korean. After dressing the frets and filing off the sharp edges and taking the bow out of the neck it played great!  However I ran out of saddle travel setting the intonation!  The bridge wasn’t located right!  Had to buy an SG bridge for the extra travel and it played like a dream!  However (there is always a However...) the pickups sounded a little thin. I wanted to put a dimarzio super distortion on the bridge so I pulled the pickups off. They were single coils glued to a HB cover!  I’m not talking about a soap bar single I’m talking about a Strat single coil!!  I could only laugh at that point. Put the super distortion on the bridge and kept the single at the neck and added a phase switch. It sounded really cool!  You just never know sometimes... 


Sounds like he will have as much into this to get it right that for a few more bucks he could have converted a real one!


Jim

[dude]

You never know, had plenty of Korean and Japanese guitars that sounded and  played well. Here's one of those guitars, a Tokai Les Paul copy made in Japan in the early 80's. Japan guitar factory got hold of a Gibson 1959 Les Paul, tore it apart and made these copies, got sued and change the logo from Les Paul to Love Rock. This is a 1979 copy, a sweet Paul, they nailed the 59 to the tee. Full neck tendon, half inch maple top, lacquer finish, great hardware, actually better than Gibson at the time. I think ZZ top, Slash and a few others played these. SRV was know to have played a Tokai strat copy on Texas flood.


al

[Jennings]

It's a bit of a lottery on cheap guitars.  I've had a fair bit of luck with some, but have often encountered the problems described with parts not being drop-in without some fettling.  I tend to do a bit of research and only buy ones with solid wood though.

Regarding pickup rotations...there's a little bit of sonic difference when you put slug side or pole side towards the bridge, but not so much you can't balance with pickup height and screw height.  I tend to put screws towards bridge to allow me to get slug and screw sides to be the same in relation to the gap between them and the strings.  That's harder to achieve the other way round unless you have angled pickup surrounds or an angled top on the guitar.  None of this alters pickup phase.  That's determined by wiring direction and/or magnet orientation.

Regarding phases, I like to do that one some guitars.  Most commonly I do this with humbuckers.  Some makes/models are naturally out of phase, no adjustment required.  For example I found Gibson buckers and Tokai Japan buckers are generally opposite polarity, so if naturally paired the middle pickup selector gives the classic put of phase tone.  On my LP and SGs (all with Gibson buckers) I flipped the neck pickup magnet so the side touching the slugs became the side touching the screws.  This then gave me the classic out of phase tone too.

PS: I had a cracking 2001 Tokai Japan 58 style LP...superbly made and great tone.  Wish I'd kept it!