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Peter Green Les Paul tone

Mats A

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Jan 15, 2008
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Peter Green had the neck pickup on his LP in Fleetwood Mac flipped with the screws facing the treble pickup. Did this have anything to do with his out of phase tone or must the magnet have been flipped?
 

c_wester

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May 9, 2002
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Only the magnets have to be turned so the fields interact when both pickups are engaged.
This means that the magnets fields are working against each other canceling frequencies, depending on how big fields you are allowing with the controls.
 

brandtkronholm

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Dec 3, 2006
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Peter Green had the neck pickup on his LP in Fleetwood Mac flipped with the screws facing the treble pickup. Did this have anything to do with his out of phase tone or must the magnet have been flipped?

No.

Only the magnets have to be turned so the fields interact when both pickups are engaged.
This means that the magnets fields are working against each other canceling frequencies, depending on how big fields you are allowing with the controls.

Indeed, the better description is that one magnet needs to be "flipped" - like a pancake. It does not matter which pickup's magnet you choose to flip.

Do it. :yah
 

au_rick

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Mar 18, 2010
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instead of taking your pickups apart, why not simply reverse the wiring ?
 

MeHereNow

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Aug 13, 2009
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instead of taking your pickups apart, why not simply reverse the wiring ?

You can do that with 4 conductor wired HB.
With a 2 conductor wired HB you need to take it apart and switch the ground wire soldered to the bottomplate and the wire soldered to the coils.
 

MeHereNow

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Aug 13, 2009
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As far for mimicing the phase sound, and i typed this in a lot of "out of phase sound" threads:

solder out the standard 22nf tonecap of the bridge pickup an put a 4.7nf cap i plce of it.
If you turn the tonepot down then you get all kinds of "phasy" like tones in the 5 to 0 settings of the pot.
 

brandtkronholm

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instead of taking your pickups apart, why not simply reverse the wiring ?

Apparently it's a different sound - magnetic OOP vs electronic OOP. I do not know the finer nor technical aspects of it.

With the flipped magnet, the OOP sound is maximal with the volume controls set to equal levels (i.e., both lead & rhythm are wide open on 10. It's harder to do with both volumes set to 7.5 say, but there you go.). The OOP sound is reduced as the volume of one pickup is changed relative to the other.

For example:
With both volumes on 10 you have achieved full-on OOP sound.
With one volume on 10 and the other on 9 the sound is truly funky and useful. Leads will really pop here!
With one volume on 10 and the other on 6 it pretty much sounds just like your regular non-OOP guitar.

Magnetic OOP is unaffected by the tone controls so they remain useful to the player.
 

Big Al

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Apr 24, 2002
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Apparently it's a different sound - magnetic OOP vs electronic OOP. I do not know the finer nor technical aspects of it.

With the flipped magnet, the OOP sound is maximal with the volume controls set to equal levels (i.e., both lead & rhythm are wide open on 10. It's harder to do with both volumes set to 7.5 say, but there you go.). The OOP sound is reduced as the volume of one pickup is changed relative to the other.

For example:
With both volumes on 10 you have achieved full-on OOP sound.
With one volume on 10 and the other on 9 the sound is truly funky and useful. Leads will really pop here!
With one volume on 10 and the other on 6 it pretty much sounds just like your regular non-OOP guitar.

Magnetic OOP is unaffected by the tone controls so they remain useful to the player.

Yup, wired OOF sounds overly thin. I cannot get the all the cool variations of quack with a phase switch. The minute you change any one pickups vol, the effect goes away.

Flipping the magnet sounds louder. You get maximum effect with both pickups volume equal, wether both on 10 or both on 4. You can blend more or less of one to the other to shape the quack and even wide shifts, Bridge pup 9- Neck pup 3 still has a slight, noticeable effect.

You can also use both tone controls to shade the tone of the quack.
 

Doc Sausage

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Nov 21, 2006
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Peter Green can’t remember flipping the PuP’s or his lid. The magic is with Kirk Hammett now. Unlikely that that tone will ever be reproduced quite the same again. IMO. I think most would agree that even in Gary Moore’s hands, it was ‘different.’
 
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F-Hole

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I've played Greeny loud, a lot, and FWIW I think a lot of the tone is just in the guitar. It's a freak, and even on the bridge PU sounds like no other LP I've played.
 

brandtkronholm

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Greeny's pickup could have happened in the factory or during a repair. There are legends...

Joe B. has/had a factory original 1959 'Burst that had the same pickup anomaly as Greeny. It may have happened in other Gibsons (335s, 175s, etc.) at the advent of the humbucker era. After all, the 345, 355 and LP Custom intentionally had humbuckers with a flipped magnet and these instruments represent a significant portion of humbucker equipped guitars from 1958-1961.

In any event, magnetic OOP is pretty cool! It opens a big box of possibilities!
 

Doc Sausage

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I've played Greeny loud, a lot, and FWIW I think a lot of the tone is just in the guitar. It's a freak, and even on the bridge PU sounds like no other LP I've played.

You mean the countless hours I struggled to make my Custom sound like the ‘Albatross’ recording could have been easier if I’d only had Greeny? Who knew? :biggrin:
 

iknowpeanuts

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Feb 6, 2018
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I've played Greeny loud, a lot, and FWIW I think a lot of the tone is just in the guitar. It's a freak, and even on the bridge PU sounds like no other LP I've played.

Do you feel that its naturally a lot brighter sounding than most? everytime i listen to PG or GM playing it i just cant help but think, blimey, that thing just screams compared to their other guitars. that top end is just unlike anything else. its like the jeff beck of bursts
 

au_rick

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Yup, wired OOF sounds overly thin. I cannot get the all the cool variations of quack with a phase switch. The minute you change any one pickups vol, the effect goes away.

Flipping the magnet sounds louder. You get maximum effect with both pickups volume equal, wether both on 10 or both on 4. You can blend more or less of one to the other to shape the quack and even wide shifts, Bridge pup 9- Neck pup 3 still has a slight, noticeable effect.

You can also use both tone controls to shade the tone of the quack.

Thanks for the explanation.

FWIW, I have a phase switch and a series / parallel switch and it does not sound than at all (agreed that OOF does sound thin if left in parallel tho).

No sure if Peter Green used one, but I think a lot of the quack I hear in Jimmy Page's tone is down to the Dallas Rangemaster ?
 

mistersnappy

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Jan 20, 2006
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Thanks for the explanation.

FWIW, I have a phase switch and a series / parallel switch and it does not sound than at all (agreed that OOF does sound thin if left in parallel tho).

No sure if Peter Green used one, but I think a lot of the quack I hear in Jimmy Page's tone is down to the Dallas Rangemaster ?

If you haven;t seen this, its great to hear JImmy reference Peter here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNaVDocH1CU
 

rialcnis

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Jul 5, 2019
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I saw both Clapton and then Peter Green with the Bluesbreakers. Must have been Whisky a go go a couple times. I think I saw Peter Green and the Fleetwood Mac also. I saw him in Ventura, CA in the 80's or 90's, I think at Ventura Theater. His sound was great and his blues playing was a favorite of mine.

I don't recall the reverse pickup legend.
 
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Tom Wittrock

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The stories surrounding that pickup have been written here several times. Perhaps an in depth search will find some of them. :)
 

Doc Sausage

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Perhaps only in more esoteric circles like this forum, but I’d have to consider Green’s tone and that pickup arrangement an inseparable combination of circumstances forever joined at the ‘hip.’ :jim
 

agogetr

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Jan 22, 2019
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Yup, wired OOF sounds overly thin. I cannot get the all the cool variations of quack with a phase switch. The minute you change any one pickups vol, the effect goes away.

Flipping the magnet sounds louder. You get maximum effect with both pickups volume equal, wether both on 10 or both on 4. You can blend more or less of one to the other to shape the quack and even wide shifts, Bridge pup 9- Neck pup 3 still has a slight, noticeable effect.

You can also use both tone controls to shade the tone of the quack.
al ive been following your posts and you seem to know what the hell is going on. and your on the cover of the rolling stone (stones?)so thats pretty groovy, regaurding les paul tones i know the peter green burst has it all in spades . what always comes to mind for me is those old montrose albums. listern to ronnies lead tones, my favorite of all time. ironically if you listen to some of the guns n roses stuff slash nailed those lead tones... when i was young i called it ' live lead tone'. because its so freakin live concert screamin tone but it was captured on albums. i think gary moores son has stripe. i hope it surfaces so some hot players can have a go with it.
 
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