Photo 1 shows the 4PDT switching matrix design for the "up" position, which will put the pickups half out-of-phase.
Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. After exploring the half out-of-phase pickup option several times in the past, there was a lot of interest, and I received a lot of emails from readers about it. A lot of you asked for a multi-phase switch to have all possible options at the ready and today we'll bring it all together. You asked for it, and the Mod Garage delivers!
Let's start with what we'll need to get out-of-phase or half out-of-phase sounds:
- You will need to engage at least two pickups to get such sounds. A single pickup played by itself will always sound the same, no matter if you play it in phase or out of phase (more about this later). The magic starts when you engage two (or more) pickups with one in phase and the other one out of phase or half out of phase.
- In general, you'll need one switch for each pickup you want to put out of phase. This can be only one switch, like on the middle pickup of a Stratocaster, to cover both in-between switching positions (bridge+middle and neck+middle), or three phasing switches, like on Brian May´s "Red Special," with one switch for each of the three pickups.
My design of a multi-phase switch that we'll cover today can be used to expand already existing out-of-phase switches in a guitar or to design a new wiring of your choice, integrating such a switch. With this switch, you'll be able to cover all three possible phasing options: in phase, out of phase, and half out of phase.
The magic starts when you engage two (or more) pickups with one in phase and the other one out of phase or half out of phase.
All you need for this mod is the switch, plus a capacitor and a resistor for the half out-of-phase option. So, let's start with the switch itself. For this mod you need a 4PDT on-on-on switch, which means a switch with three switching positions (up-middle-down) and a total of 12 lugs, arranged in four independent sections. Such switches are on the border of being exotic, but they're still available. Since every manufacturer uses a slightly different switching matrix for such switches, you'll need to get one with the same switching matrix I used, which is more or less the quasi-standard for it. It's possible to use 4PDT switches with a different switching matrix, but you'd have to adopt the wiring to it. I've provided three photos of the switching matrix and the switch design for each position. Photo 1 shows the "up" position, which will put the pickups half out-of-phase. Photo 2 shows the "middle" position, which will give you the full out-of-phase option. And Photo 3 shows the "down" position, which is just the normal in-phase operation.
Placing such physically large-sized switches on a pickguard or control plate can be a challenge, so you'll have to be creative. There is no way around such a switch when you want this mod because there are no existing push-pull or push-push pots with on-on-on switches. If you can find a 4P3T rotary switch, you can use it to substitute the switch by replacing one of the pots with it. There are also 4PDT slider switches available, but they're physically about the same size, and therefore, not a real alternative.
Photo 2 shows the 4PDT switching matrix design for the "middle" position, which will give you the full out-of-phase option.
Image courtesy of singlecoil.com
Here we go with the wiring of the switch, shown in Fig. 1. With the lever down you have the normal in-phase operation, with the lever up the pickup is half-out-of-phase, and in the middle position you have the full out-of-phase option.
Anyway, there you have it, all in one switch as shown in Fig. 1. On the left side of the switch, you see a capacitor in series with a resistor for the half out-of-phase option. A good average value is using a 0.01 uF capacitor with a 6.2k-ohm resistor in series as an additional serial attenuation of the system, preventing an impedance peak.
When looking at the switch, you'll notice that one switching stage is not populated at all. You might ask: Why don't we use a 3PDT switch for this if we only need three switching stages? This is because of the asymmetrical switching matrix of the 4PDT switches in the middle position (Photo 2) and there's no way around it. If the on-on-on switch had a completely symmetrical switching matrix, then three switching stages would be enough, but such switches aren't available today.
Photo 3 shows the 4PDT switching matrix design "down" position, which is just a normal in-phase option.
Image courtesy of singlecoil.com
In general, you add a controlled degree of reversed phase of the pickup when using the half out-of-phase option, which is great to mimic Stratocaster in-between "quack tones" on a Telecaster, like on the Jerry Donahue Tele models or with the Bill Lawrence Telecaster wiring.
Phase differences are measured in degrees. Totally in-phase sounds have either 0 or 360 degrees of difference, meaning none. Totally out-of-phase sounds have a 180-degree difference. So, half out of phase is either 90 or 270 degrees of difference. That's the reason why you can only achieve a fully out-of-phase effect when using two pickups together with one wired out-of-phase. (When both pickups are wired out of phase, they sound the same as both pickups in phase, because there are still 0 degrees of phase difference between them.) When a signal passes through a capacitor, the voltage leads the current by 90 degrees, so when a pickup's signal gets routed through a capacitor, it shifts the phase by 90 degrees—exactly half of 180 degrees—and therefore half out-of-phase ... in simple terms.
The cap connected to the switch is the phase-shifting cap mentioned above. A 0.01 uF cap is a great starting point, but you may try caps between 0.005 uF (5000 pF) and 0.022 uF. The smaller the cap, the sweeter the sound will be, but this really depends on your particular pickups. I recommend experimentation and fine-tuning to get as close as possible to a Strat's in-between tones.
As for the attenuation resistor, a 6.2k-ohm resistor works pretty well with the 0.01 uF cap and standard single-coil pickups. As a simple guideline, you can follow this rule by choosing and experimenting with this resistor: The higher the value, the more attenuation in the system, the smaller the impedance peak. A good starting point is the DCR of the pickup that's connected to the switch. For example, if your pickup measures a DCR of 6.8k ohms, you should start with a 6.8k-ohm resistor on the switch for a balanced sound and experiment from there. A good option is to use a small trim pot first so you can experiment until you find the value you like best. You can measure the trim pot and solder a fixed resistor with the measured value on the switch, or simply leave the trim pot where it is. A 10k or 15k trim pot is perfect for this.
That's it for this round. In honor of Fender's 75th Anniversary, next month we'll take a deeper look into Fender's history, busting some myths, misunderstandings, and urban legends, while celebrating the man behind the company that started it all: Mr. Clarence Leonidas Fender, or Leo Fender, as the world calls him.
Until then ... keep on modding!
- Mod Garage: “Jimmy Page” Les Paul Wiring - Premier Guitar ›
- Mod Garage: Adding an Out-of-Phase Switch to a Telecaster ... ›
- Phasing Out: How to get out-of-phase sounds from a Stratocaster ... ›
Andy Powers has been working with electric guitars his whole life, and he’s been slowly collecting all the ideas that could go into his own “solo project,” waiting for the right time to strike.
As CEO, president, and chief guitar designer of Taylor Guitars, Andy Powers has an unimaginable amount of experience sifting through his ideas and, with a large production mechanism at hand, efficiently and effectively realizing them. He knows that there are great ideas that need more time, and rethinking electric guitar design—from the neck to the pickups to how its hollow body is constructed—doesn’t come quickly. His A-Type—which has appeared in Premier Guitarin the hands of guitarists Andy Summers and Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard—is the innovative flagship model of his new brand, Powers Electric. And it’s the culmination of a lifetime of thought, experience, and influences.
“Southern California is a birthplace of a lot of different things. I think of it as the epicenter of electric guitar.”
“I’ve got a lot of musician friends who write songs and have notebooks of ideas,” explains Powers. “They go, ‘I’ve got these three great verses and a bridge, but no chorus. I’ll just put it on the shelf; I’ll come back to it.’ Or ‘I’ve got this cool hook,’ or ‘I’ve got this cool set of chord changes,’ or whatever it might be—they’re half-finished ideas. And once in a while, you take them off the shelf, blow the dust off, and go, ‘That’s a really nice chorus. Maybe I should write a couple of verses for it someday. But not today.’ And they put it back.”
That’s how his electric guitar design spent decades collecting in Powers’ head. There were influences that he wanted to play with that fell far afield from his acoustic work at Taylor, and he saw room to look at some technical aspects of the instrument a little differently, with his own flair.
The Powers Electric A-Type draws from Powers’ lifelong influences of cars, surfing, and skateboarding.
Over the course of Powers’ “long personal history” with the instrument, he’s built, played, restored, and repaired electric guitars. And, having grown up in Southern California, surrounded by custom-car culture, skateboarding, and surfing—all things he loves—he sees the instrument as part of his design DNA.
“Southern California is a birthplace of a lot of different things,” Powers explains. “I think of it as the epicenter of electric guitar. Post-World War II, you had Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby and Les Paul—all these guys living within just a couple of miles of each other. And I grew up in those same sorts of surroundings.”
Those influences and the ideas about what to do with them kept collecting without a plan to take action. “At some point,” he says, “you need the catalyst to go, ‘Hey, you know what? I actually have the entire guitar’s worth of ideas sitting right in front of me, and they all go together. I would want to play that guitar if it existed. Now is a good time to build that guitar.’”
“I started thinking, ‘If I had been alive then, what would I have made?’ It’s kind of an open-ended question, because at that point, well, there’s no parts catalogs to buy stuff from. A lot of these things hadn’t been invented yet. How would you interpret this?”
The pandemic ultimately served as the catalyst Powers’ electric guitars needed, and that local history proved to be a jumping-off point necessary for focusing his long-marinating ideas. “I started thinking, ‘If I had been alive then, what would I have made?’ It’s kind of an open-ended question, because at that point, well, there’s no parts catalogs to buy stuff from. A lot of these things hadn’t been invented yet. How would you interpret this? As a designer, I think that’s really interesting. Overlay that with understanding what happens to electric guitars and how people want to use them, as well as some acoustic engineering. Well, that’s pretty fascinating. That’s an interesting mix.”
Tucked away in his home workshop, Powers set about designing a guitar, building “literally every little bit other than a couple screws” including handmade and hand-polished knobs. Soon, the prototype for the Powers Electric A-Type was born. “I played this guitar and went, ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to play this guitar.’ A friend played it and went, ‘I want one, too.’ Okay, I’ll make another one. Made two more. Made three more….”
The A-Type—seen here with both vibrato and hardtail—is a fully hollow guitar that is built in what Powers calls a “hot-rod shop” on the Taylor Guitars campus.
From there, Powers recalls that he started bringing his ideas back to his shop on Taylor’s campus, where he set up “essentially a small hot-rod shop” to build these new guitars. “It’s a real small-scale operation,” he explains. “It exists here at Taylor Guitars, but in its own lane.”
The A-Type—currently the only planned Powers Electric model—has the retro appeal of classic SoCal electrics. Its single-cut body style is unique but points to the curvature of midcentury car designs, and the wide range of vibrant color options help drive that home. Conceptually, the idea of reinventing each piece of the guitar’s hardware points toward the instrument’s creators. That might get a vintage guitar enthusiast’s motor running, but it’s in the slick precision of those parts—from the bridge and saddle to the pickup components—where the A-Type’s modernism shines.
“It’s a real small-scale operation. It exists here at Taylor Guitars, but in its own lane.”
Grabbing hold of the guitar, it’s clearly an instrument living on the contemporary cutting edge. The A-Type’s neck gives the clearest indication that it’s a high-performance machine; it’s remarkably easy to fret, with low action but just enough bite across the board. Powers put a lot of thought into the fretboard dynamics that make that so, and he decided to create a hybrid radius. “You have about a 9 1/2" radius, which is really what your hand feels, but then under the plain strings, it’s a bit flatter at 14, 15-ish—it’s so subtle, it’s really tough to measure.” Without reading the specs and talking to Powers, I don’t know that I would detect the difference—and I certainly didn’t upon first try. It just felt easy to play precisely without losing character or veering into “shredder guitar” territory.
The A-Type looks like a solidbody, but you’ll know it’s hollow by its light, balanced weight. That makes it comfortable to hold, whether standing or sitting. But its hollow-ness is no inhibitor to style: I’ve yet to provoke any unintended feedback from any of my amps. Powers explains that’s part of the design, which uses V-class bracing, similar to what you’ll find on a modern Taylor acoustic.
Powers says the A-Type that is now being produced is no different than the prototype he built in his home workshop: “I have the blueprint, still, that I hand drew. I can hold the guitar that we’re making up against that drawing, and it would be like I traced over it.”
“Coupling the back and the top of the guitar matter a lot,” he asserts. “When you do that, you can make them move in parallel so that they are not prone to feeding back on stage. You don’t actually have that same Helmholtz resonance going on that makes a hollowbody guitar feedback. It’s still moving.”
On a traditional hollowbody, he points out, the top and back move independently, compressing the air inside the body. “It’ll make one start to run away by re-amplifying its own sound,” he explains. “But if I can make them touch each other, then they move together as a unit. When they do that, you’re not compressing the air inside the body. But it’s still moving. So, you get this dynamic resonance that you want out of a hollowbody guitar; it’s just not prone to feedback.”
What I hear from the A-Type is a rich, dynamic tone, full of resonance, sustain, and volume. I found it to be surprisingly loud and vibrant when unplugged. Powers tells me that’s in part due to the “stressed spherical top” and explains, “I take this piece of wood and I stress it into a sphere, which unnaturally raises its resonant frequency well above what the piece of wood normally could. It’s kind of sprung, ready to set in motion as soon as you strike the string. So, it becomes a mechanical amplifier.” The bridge then sits in two soundposts, which Powers says makes it “almost like a cello.”
“Literally every little bit other than a couple screws” on the A-Type is custom made.
The single-coil pickups take it from there. They’re available in two variations, Full Faraday and Partial Faraday, the latter of which were in my demo model, and Powers tells me they are the brighter option. Their design, he says, has been in progress for about seven or eight years. The concept behind the pickups is to use the “paramagnetic quality of aluminum”—found in the pickup housing—“to shape the magnetic field … which functions almost like a Faraday cage.” And he complements them with a simple circuit on the way out.
I found them to run quietly, as promised, and offer a transparent tone with plenty of headroom. They paired excellently with the ultra-responsive playability and feel of the guitar, so I could play as dynamically as I desired. If a standard solidbody with single-coils offers the performance of a practical sedan, this combo gave the A-Type the feel of a well-tuned racecar. At low volumes and with no pedals, it felt like I was simply amplifying the guitar’s acoustic sound, and I had full control with nothing but my pick. (Powers explains that the pickups have a wide resonance peak, which plays out to my ear.) Add pedals to the mix, including distortion and fuzz, and that translates to an articulated, hi-fi sound.
Now up to serial number XXX, the Powers Electric team has refined their production process. I wonder about that first guitar, the dream guitar Powers built in his house. How similar is the guitar I’m holding to his original vision? “It’s very, very, very close,” Powers tells me. “Literally, this guitar outline is a tracing. It’s an exact duplicate of what I first drew on paper with a pencil. I have the blueprint, still, that I hand drew. I can hold the guitar that we’re making up against that drawing, and it would be like I traced over it.”
“It’s one of those things you do because you just really want to do it. It puts some spark in your life.”
Playing the guitar and, later, talking through its features, I’m left with few questions. But one that remains has to do with branding and marketing, not the instrument: Why go to all the effort to create a new brand for the A-Type, which is to say, why isn’t this a Taylor? For Powers, it’s about design. “As guitar players,” he explains, “we know what Taylor guitars are, we know what it stands for, and we know what we do. The design language of a Taylor guitar is a very specific thing. When I look at a Taylor acoustic guitar, I go, ‘I need curves like this, I need colors like this, I need shapes like this.’”
Those aren’t the same curves, colors, and shapes as the Powers Electric design, nor do they mine the same influences. “There’s a look and a feel to what a Taylor is. And that is different from this. I look at this and go, ‘It’s not the same.’”
Of course, adding the A-Type to the well-established Taylor catalog would probably be easier in lots of ways, but Powers’ positioning of the brand is a sign of his dedication to the project. It feels like a labor of love. “They’re guitars that I really wanted to make,” he tells me enthusiastically. “And I’m excited that they get to exist. It’s one of those things you do because you just really want to do it. It puts some spark in your life.”
“It’s like a solo project,” he continues. “As musicians, you front this band, you do this thing, and you also like these other kinds of music and you’ve got other musician friends, and you want to do something that’s a different flavor. You try to make some space to do that, too.”
Oklahoma City sludge rockers Chat Pile have had a busy few years. Their 2022 LP, God’s Country, broke them internationally, and their critically acclaimed 2024 follow-up, Cool World, solidified them as one of the most exciting heavy bands of the moment. We spoke with bassist Stin and guitarist Luther Manhole about the record for our November 2024 issue.
Now, we bring you the band’s first official Rig Rundown, filmed ahead of their show at The End in Nashville last fall. Tune in to see how Stin and Luther conjure the band’s brutal soundstorms on the road.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Bari Blast
Manhole’s main machine is this baritone 6-string, an Ernie Ball Music Man BFR Axis Super Sport, finished in “starry night.” Luther took a tip from tourmate and Agriculture guitarist Richard Chowenhill and slapped some tape over his neck pickup near the first string to prevent it from catching on the edge of the humbucker. It’s tuned to drop A, with Ernie Ball Mammoth Slinky strings.
Quite the Quilter
Back at home, Luther and Stin lean on big vintage amps, but on the road, Luther brings out this Quilter Tone Block 202, which is plugged into an Ampeg VT-40 combo amp that’s been gutted to run just as a 4x10 cabinet. Luther digs the icier, cutting tone from the 10″ speakers.
Luther Manhole's Board
Manhole’s board is minimalist: All he needs is a TC Electronic PolyTune, a Suhr Riot for dirt, an Electro-Harmonix Memory Boy (which is set for a wobbly chorus effect), and a TC Electronic Hall of Fame for reverb—pedals he’s used for over a decade. An Acoustic PBIS08 supplies the quartet with power.
Peavey Power
Around 2007, Stin went on a hunt around Oklahoma music shops for a Peavey T-40. He finally found one—in a total “Wayne’s World moment”—that belonged to a country singer who had passed away. Since the band’s formation, this “hot and clangy” white T-40 has been Stin’s tool for crafting Chat Pile’s elephantine, bottom-heavy sound. He uses the 5-string Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalts (.060–.125), omitting the .040 string, and plucks with orange Ernie Ball Everlast .73 mm picks for strong, percussive attack.
Building Blocks
Stin’s signal runs to this Quilter Bass Block 802, which blasts through a Trace Elliot 4x10 redline cab with horns—the cab that’s been used on every Chat Pile recording to date.
Stin's Board
Stin probably thinks Manhole’s board is excessive. He packs just his Boss TU-3 and a Tronographic Rusty Box, each with their own individual power supply plugged into a power bar that’s fixed to the board.
