The Magnet Flip - Peter Green Out Of Phase Tone. How to do it & how to use it - Alex Hamilton 

Thanks Dude - always great to find a concise and well presented video with just the info I was actually looking for

Great explanation for the magnet flip and some tasty licks as a bonus.

NICE! I always wanted a better explanation of the Peter Green out of phase setup. this has to be one of the bestdemoes of this! Thanks again Lewis. these recent videos have been absolute GOLD my man!

Awesome tones. I'm braking out the tools right now ... AWESOME!

I love your playing bro. Spot on for the green tone!

Killer tone and playin! The essential rocknroll sound in the bridge pup playing at start of video!! Beautuful!!

Maybe the best guitar demo vid on YT Thank you for this 👏👏

I think this is the first video I've seen that detailed the procedure so precise...thank you!

What an excellent video! Great playing too. Thanks for putting this together. I think I’ll get my local guitar tech to do that to mine. 👍

Thanks Alex, got the vintage tone I was looking for by flipping the magnet like you showed and easing back on the tome knobs. My SG sounds from the 60’s now. Amazing!

Wow, I learned more in this video about tone for les paul than most videos I watched in the past three months all together. Thanks a lot. Killer playing too. I wish I had a technique. Best regards.

that was amazing! thank you so much Alex.

My guitar has this mod as I requested it when I bought it as they gave me the option. I’ve never known too much about it but this is so cool and handy. Going to use this in my college research

Just did this to me Greenie copy! Video was so helpful. Got my Gibson Wildwood Select Greenie copy perfect now!

thanks for this have been wanting to do this mod for awhile your explanation and simple technique made it easy for me to do this and i am extremely happy with the result, have epiphone lp custom with Gibson 57 classic + gibson 57 classic plus in guitar with 50's wiring. Thank for showing the various tones this is also achievable great work, thanks

Very interesting, i recently began to wrap-around the strings on the bridge to get more honkyness, but this method seems quite an alternative. I'll check out more, thank you!

Thanks for this awesome demo, I'm really thinking to do this mod as well, getting that Snowy White's tone

Love it. I've done it on both my LP's. I had to use a hairdryer to get the magnet out of my 95. Sounds brilliant.

An absolutely SUPERB demonstration (!)

I've always loved Peter Green and his era of Fleetwood Mac. They are the only UK group that NAILS the sound and feel of Blues. I'm not interested in chasing Green's tone but this sounds wonderful. I swapped the magnet around and can't believe the assortment of tones that can be had! I feel this trick opens up a whole gambit of tones in the Les Paul. I'm keeping it.

Like you said ! You nailed it all. And ....... It's all about the volume controls

Great video. Thank you. Another big factor to get the Green tone, I believe, is using unpotted pickups. After years of listening to PG, especially live, I am convinced of this. You can hear not only the microphonics but also the touch sensitiveness of his tone. It's amazing stuff.

Awesome playing too.

Useful video. Thanks for clearing some things up. Subscribed.

For those that don't know: you can play this (or any YT-) video on half speed, without the sound changing pitch. Click the cog ('settings') in the video and choose 'playback speed' and pick the one you think suits you the most.

Best way to open the door to a new tone without using the soldering Iron cos if it's not your cup-a-tea it's easy to change back...but I love that tone and the fact that playing around with the volume controls gives you so many different variations of tone. I am going to leave it now that I have rotated the magnets and see if anyone notices the difference. By the way I noticed that there is not a world of difference between the humbucker and p90 when doing this modification.

Well done Alex, well explained, concise, showing off what it can do, I have done it to a few guitars! And 1 night was messing around on a guitar I had done it to, and 1 of the quirks of that mod is, when both vols are set the the same say 6 or 7, and you drop 1 just a little to 5 and a 1/2 , or 6 and a 1/2 respectively, the volume actually gets louder! Because they are no longer in sync and the more dominant pickup is taking over? That's my understanding of what's happening!

Love what you wrote on the pad to your left

I’ve never been big on 3 pickup Customs but I think the one exception might be doing this to the middle pickup and using a push/pull to turn the middle pickup on. You could get the neck and bridge in phase or either with the middle magnetically out of phase.

I dont know how i exsisted w/o flipping my magnets, very helpful ty great playing....

Just wired my pickups out of phase by accident, but thinking about keeping them now thanks to your video! Great playing.

Great job man!!! Thanks and you play a lot!

Very good vid. Also.......what a serious serious player.

Great vid ! In '06, i bought a new Epi LP Std + with the thought of doing this mod (PG fan since '72 and digging Shrine '69). Found out the pickups were potted and then considered a SD HR set but finally just use a CryBaby as a filter. Not the same but the rest didn't seem worth the trouble so....I still love the guitar, tho. It's on a stand now, just played it last night.

Well done: nice ! (and playing too...) 😉

Will be doing this to my Gibby really soon. Thanks for this video

I did it to my cheap sg. I love the tone.

If I'm not mistaken Peter's guitar (Greeny) wad actually a combination of the magnet being flipped and then the pickup being installed upside down. If you look a photos you can see the pole pieces are on the bottom the pickup instead of the top.

Dope playing btw!

What a good video, wow. Dude you are a siiiiiiick player too…freakin lit, and ablaze sir…

I flipped the neck PU around and then put in a push push knob as treble knob. Then phase shifted it on the knob. That way I can instantly get the normal setting back again. This also only sounds close to the greeny if you have old school paf alnico 2 pick up. They are darker and thus you still get the nasally sound but thicker than with alnico 5s

Very cool Thanks ✌🏻

Going to give it a try, If I don't like it I will put it back! I love the sounds other guitar greats get. I just don't want to try and be them or have their exact sound. Thank you for a great Video, B

Hi Alex! Great video, I'm actually going to be ordering your Signature Pickups from Sunbear very soon. Very excited. I plan on doing the out of phase mod with those pickups. I notice that one of the things you point out in this video is how playing with volume can achieve different tones, I see that you were altering the volume on both pickups, I was planning on going with 50s Wiring but my understanding is that with 50s wiring, you can only use the neck volume for both pickups in the middle position. Any thoughts? What wiring are you using on this R9? Thanks, keep up the great stuff!

Well played Dude

Not doing a before and after comparison was a missed opportunity I think but otherwise a good video that sounds lovely well done

Great video mate! Some seriously nice tone you're getting there... I'm gonna have a stab at re-wiring the neck pick up on my LP to be able to switch to 'out of phase' with a push pull tone pot... If it ends up sounding anything like yours, I'll be smiling

Really great

Nice vid. Very informative. Great playing. Thought at around 5:20 you were gonna kick into "Oh Well"??? Not to be so...'oh well'! ✌♥️

The biggest factor in this besides the great gear and cool out of phase setup is that you are a helluva player with great feel.

I did this by accident when I messed with a Gibby Classic 57 pup and flipped it and hot damn hit my HB tone nirvana!

I have a SSH configuration strat. I replaced the humbucker (bridge) and neck (single) pickups - both from the same brand. …and now I think the middle single coil is out of phase with both its neighbors. When I play each pickup individually (positions 1, 3, and 5), everything’s fine, but in the shared positions (2 & 4), the volume drops off pretty dramatically and the tone is quite thin. I clicked on the video to see if it was related and find it amusing that it’s being done on purpose. It’s not new to me, but I thought it was usually accomplished by a switch… but if you have to manually take out the magnet and reverse the poles… I’m not sure how a switch would do it.

Very nice

First thing to know for anyone attempting this: if your pickups are wax potted (like most non-Custom Shop Les Pauls), some of the wax will melt well before the nub of solder that holds the pickup cover in place, so be prepared for a bit of a mess. It took me about an hour and a half to do this, and like Alex mentions, the desoldering part is the most painful and frustrating. So if you've never soldered before or aren’t very good at it ( like myself), beware that this may frustrate you, and when that happens, you will likely burn/ scald your fingers, so be careful (ask me how I know 😞). Having said all that, the tonal difference is audible especially when you find the sweet spot as Alex explains, even on a stock 2021 Standard 50s Gold Top Les Paul. Thanks Alex!

Thanks !. After having watched your video I made the mod. Sounds beautiful 😉🖖🏻🎸

The main reason for my comment about the plywood cap is that the guitar sounds great, so much talk about what makes the "tone" of a guitar.

Always found my explorer sounded a bit boring and overly punchy. Just flipped the magnet in the neck pick-up per your instructions. Instantly seems better. Excited to dial some tones in. Interestingly if I’m using the mix pickup selection and I roll one volume to zero it mutes both. Not a huge issue but an interesting outcome.

Dude! Thank you for posting this. Curious, did you forget to rotate the pickup too? As I understand it, the mod requires you to mount the pickup upside down too.

This mod sounds great, sounds just like Peter Green's tone to me.

Thanks for this very informative video. Can this be done successfully on a H S Telecaster?

If you look at the Greeny guitar, the pick up is simply reversed when installed. Not true "out-of-phase". I'm not sure Peter Greene's guitar was actually "modded" except for installing the pup with poles facing the middle away from the neck.

if its done right, with both pickups on say 7 you get that sound, but that's the only time, when both volumes are the same! if you lower 1, by going from 7 to 6.5 or 6, the guitar actually gets louder, because they aren't truly out of phase volume wise!

Great video! Lovely tone. Can I just ask, what is the advantage of doing all the work to flip the magnet, rather than just reversing the wires to achieve the out of phase sound between the 2 humbuckers?

Thats totally correct but I always wondered how much the the backwards mounting was changing tone? Think that was more folklore and the bigger tonal change is the phase

nice tones! no wire swapping was done? just flip the magnet? works on either ceramic or alnico mag humbuckers?

I flipped just the neck pickup . Works Well ! Why your neck pickup is the same position ?

The neck pickup in the neck position will have the same sound as before? only the middle position sound changes?

Can you just turn the whole pick up 180, and put it back in? Probably not, or I’m sure you would’ve done that. Just wondering. After years, I just got one of those magnetic polarity tester. Turns out one of my humbuckers is out of phase, or was installed improperly. 🇺🇸🎸🤘🏻

Nice video, what pickups are in your guitar ?

I got the same effect by rotate 1 pup 180 degrees, without fiddling with a soldering iron and a magnet.

Is there a difference in sound between swapping the magnet or using a push/pull pot and wiring change? Thanks

Just came in on this one... Would the same effect take place if the magnet was turned over ("rolled over") 180°?

What kind of pickups are in your LP? Are they burstbuckers? Cheers Pal

Just a heads up for anyone doing this mod! I tried this mod and while I now love my middle position, I don't like how the neck only tone is so altered, as well as its respective tone control acting very differently. I read elsewhere that you need to flip the magnet so the up facing side becomes the down - instead of changing the polarity completely by rotating the magnet as you did. Changing the phase and reversing the polarity of the neck pickup, while being 2 different phenomena, both result in the same partial cancellation with the bridge when in the middle position. However, switching the polarity of the pickup will effect the sound of that pickup by itself, in addition to the middle, which I failed to realize. when the phase and polarity is the same between pickups, there isn't that cancellation. Instead of cancelling, the 2 sound waves from each pickup combine, hence why the middle position doesn't normally lose any beef. However, when the pickups are out of phase, each pickup by itself will sound the same, but when combined produce interference which leads to the final signal being partially cancelled (due to the 2 waves from each pickup not being in sync). This is why you get a thinner sound in the middle. Flipping the poles in the pickup causes the same interference in the middle position, but it seems like you also change the phasing between the 2 coils of the neck p/u itself, which results in a thinner neck tone as well as thinner middle.

When you had your pickup removed I could see that the body cap looks like plywood is that the case?

Thanks for showing this. I might just have to try this out. 1. Does it only affect the middle position? So it won't affect the neck pickup by itself? 2. And can I do the same with P90's?

You’re making this WAY HARDER than it needs to be Chief! LoL!!!!

You can do the same fliping just the magnet in the bridge nd not in the neck pickup?

You do this on both pickups or just the bridge? Will this work on burstbuckers or just on vintage pupus?

Question: Is this the same sound you might get by switching the leads on one of the pickups, instead of flipping the magnet?

I thought we could have Greeny sound in the middle position at every VOL and tone level ? It is true ?? Want to do the mod…thanks for your help 🙏😉.

Does this just change the tone when both pickups are on or also just the neck pickup?

So too kinda sum it up in order to achieve his out of phase tone just roll the bridge volume a bit higher then neck in middle position?

Thanks, this is the best explanation I’ve found so far, but it doesn’t seem complete. As I see it there are at least three things in play here and you only cover one. I get that the magnet is rotated 180 degrees. But on the Peter Green / Gary Moore guitar Greeny,, the neck pickup is also rotated 180 degrees, which will impact the sound as well. But you don’t do that here. Why not? If the magnet and pickup are both rotated 180 degrees, should the wiring connection to the pickup stay the same, or be reversed? Or is some other combination of the three things required?

In order not to lose low end by the phase cancelation, but retain quackiness you need to swap the ground and positive wire from the pickup. That's the part no one mentions with the mod. Like mid strat PU. It's RWRP. Reverse wound, reverse magnet polarity. You emulate reverse wound part by swapping the wires.

The bridge pickup has to be louder than the bass pickup so turn down the volume slightly on the bass pickup and you've got the sound

Tim at Bare Knuckle reverse engineered the Greenie pickups. The neck pickup had been rewound using the wire usually used in Strats and was wound in reverse.

GREAT! Thanks!!

Hello Alex, à question for you. If i flip the magnet on the neck pickups, is the standard tone of the humbucker Will stay the same as long as i am on the neck position? And the "out of phase" tone came only on Middle position ? Thank you!

I have a Dimarzio Super Distortion (13.64k) on the bridge of my LP and a Seymour Duncan 59 (7.4k) on the neck. Can i get this effect even with the differences between the gain of this two?

Didn't Peter Green have his pickup backwards? I'm assuming this method is done so you don't have to have the pickup backwards or did he have the magnet inside turned and the pickup turned? Wouldn't it just be easier to install the pickup backwards?

Pleases forgive my apparent ignorance, but why not just turn the entire humbucker 180 on the horizontal plane for the same effect? Just asking.

I’m thinking my LP Classic came stock with this. The tone pot for the neck pickup is push pull for out of phase

would just flipping the pickup upside down do the trick? curious cause i did that to mine but i didn't hear a serious change tone. Maybe i didnt change anything at all!

To truly put two pickups electrically out of phase with each other, you have to flip the wires, ground and hot, of one pickup, it doesn't matter which one. Physically flipping the neck pickup (or bridge), gets the active pole pieces of each pickup closer to each other accentuating the out of phase sound. Bear in mind, the pickup which has the reversed wiring, if it has a metal cover, will cut out if the string touches the cover, also, some more hum will be heard especially at higher gain.

Skills

Could you not achieve the same thing by just spinning the whole pick up around once it’s loosened and taken out . Awesome video as always dude , keep on rocking

Have you ever done a side by side comparison of the peter green mod verses the jimmy page mod? I'm not an expert, but I think one is magnetically out of phase while one is electrically out of phase

I've you want to see Peter Green's guitar and pickup arrangements and hear it watch on RU-vid Mick Fleetwood and Friends The Green Manalishi where the guitars present owner, Mark Hammet, is playing it.

Cool🙏🌻