Name: Marc Kuffler
Hometown: Detroit, MI
Guitar: The Marcel Paul
Marcel (left) and Marc (right).
As you can probably tell, I love dogs. I also love guitars. I got my first guitar in 1969. I was 4, and my grandparents gave me my mom’s Harmony Patrician to strum on. (My mom was not pleased.) I still have that Patrician and it is, oddly, still playable in 2024.
I started building a few guitars for myself starting in 2019, mostly because I wanted guitars with a neck and feel that I needed. There were also tones that I wanted that I just couldn’t get any other way. I began by buying a few kits online from different vendors.
After acquiring the mahogany body, mahogany neck, and maple back with a flamed-veneer top from a kit, I started sanding and finishing. I bought some red stain and started applying it over a month. But, it just looked awful. (Yes, it was because of my inexperience, 100 percent.) I really thought about throwing the whole thing in the garbage. I was disappointed in myself and the stain. I set it aside for two weeks and finished building another “brother” guitar of this one in the meantime.
The Marcel Paul: A solidbody Les Paul-style axe in olive green, equipped with DiMarzio PAF 59 humbuckers.
Then I fired up my tablet, a Samsung Galaxy S9 FE. It has a pen for input and tons of tools for tracing and color sampling. I dropped in an image of the guitar body to create a mockup. It was super easy with some AI and an advanced camera. This made the build so much easier! I also used this strategy to place my dog Marcel on the guitar as well as my name and design on the headstock. The tablet made it much easier to build out the space and understand distances.
To fix the red-stain issue, I ended up getting an olive green finish from Oxford Guitar Supply. It’s traditional and ages beautifully. I also sampled different knob and guard colors and came up with the cream- and black-colored hardware.
At first, I tried sourcing the pickups, bridge, and tuners through eBay, but what I bought ended up being pretty inadequate. Most of the electronics I wanted to upgrade or replace. The biggest feature I wanted to address was the pickups. I dropped in DiMarzio PAF 59 humbuckers and I was super happy with the sound.
I replaced the tuners from eBay with Kluson tuners, which are some of my favorites on any guitar. I like the old-timey vibe and yet the newer versions provide very nice control, especially if I want to do any drop tuning.
“It sounds as unique as the little animal it is named after. It does growl and it has a really nice attack.”
I was a little worried about fret leveling and wiring so I sought out some guidance from an experienced guitar tech. The Jedi master guitar tech I worked with was Thomas Voytek at Tom V Guitar in Seymour, Connecticut. His guidance made the guitar move from good to great.
The finished product sounds as unique as the little animal it is named after. It growls and has a really nice attack. Once I stood back and listened to it, I had a slight epiphany. I’m a perfectionist and this still has a few faults, mostly in the finish. Still, I saw it and said to myself....
1. I’m never parting with this guitar.
2. I’d buy it in 1.5 seconds if I saw it and played it (and if it was for sale).
Hundreds of years from now, when both of our memories are washed away, someone will be able to pick up this guitar and make great music with it—and know how much I loved my best friend.
Photo 1 shows the 4PDT switching matrix design for the "up" position, which will put the pickups half out-of-phase.
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!