Best explanation of polarity alternation I have seen - and I have been watching several to try and understand how things should be, not just how it works. THANK YOU! Question - how should polarity be for an HSS guitar and is phase (electrical phase) also alternate like magnetic phase?
While you did mention that identical phase between pickups is necessary for full tones when paired...You didn't really note why one of two pickups or paired coils (or the middle pickups out of 3) should have opposite polarities, as well as being be in phase...what makes a pair of pickups hum cancelling. Also, one cannot assume what the polarity or phase of other pickups are from a measurement of only polarity or phase of a single pickup shows. Almost all of the time, multiple pickups are the same phase...but that could be both positive or both negative. But, some guitars (like vintage Strats) have completely identical polarites & phases between all of the pickups...so they are NOT hum cancelling.
Very cool. I might need this. With the Japanese yen so weak, I am avoiding new guitars from overseas and scouring the used market. Lots of iffy pickups work out there.
Aren’t humbuckers both neg and pos? A single humbuckers has both polls and both count and counter clockwise wraps right? If so how can one humbucker be entirely positive or negative?