Signal Out of Phase w/Volume Pot

[Kriss]

Hi, I just joined today.
I own a 1995 fly Deluxe ( I think) all original parts and I have a bit of an odd question.
Whenever I play using a lead high gain sound and I turn back all the way/roll off/ the mag tone pot the sound becomes as it’s out of phase like .I’ve got used to like the way it changes the sound and my question is: is there any capacitor or any other “thing”,or phase reversing etc. connected to that tone pot?
More important: is there any way to find out what frequency exactly the roll off cuts of, so I could reproduce/duplicate this with my effect processors or with an equalizer pedal.
Hope my explanation doesn’t sound to dumb.
Thanks in advance for any opinions.

[vjmanzo]

Hi @Kriss—welcome! I've moved your post to a new thread as it will get more visibility here (see the FAQs at some point re: making new posts).

I've not encountered this issue myself, but hopefully others can chime in. Have you looked at the internal wiring yet? Is the flex PCB all together? Welcome once again!

[mmmguitar]

@Kriss, unless I'm mistaken, I saw you post about this in one of the FB groups somewhat recently. A recording demonstrating this would be most helpful.

I don't know how tech-savvy you are, but the mag tone control for the Fly is like most others (a potentiometer and capacitor, with typical values). Your description of the effect suggests an internal fault in the pot or its grounding, and the specifics may be difficult to infer, reproduce electrically, or even pin down 100%; given the ToCos-branded pots used in the guitar are sealed and not easily serviced or examined on a component level. Knowing what the other controls are set to when this effect occurs (e.g., the positions of the two toggle switches, whether the volume pots are all the way up, etc.) will help narrow down precisely where in the signal path this effect is happening (a short causing the tone control to act like a high-pass filter, rather than a low-pass one could explain this - But so could piezo signal bleed causing phase cancellation when put in parallel with a mag signal that's had some particular frequencies shunted to ground). Also, does tweaking the other knobs or switches cause the effect to stop?

[Kriss]

Hi, thank you both, for the warm welcome and for taking the time to help.
Yes I asked that question in a Parker guitar group in FB, but was thinking that I’d find some more helpful answers here. Was also hoping that maybe Mr.
Ken Parker could stumble by some chance to my question and say: there’s that and that in there that causes this ))
I’ll try to post a 10-20 seconds video( or maybe audio ).
I have absolutely no knowledge of electronics, can’t read schematics. Most technicians I know don’t even want to start working on the electronics of my guitar.
Just to make sure: this effect happens only with high gain lead sound. With a clean sound it just acts as normal tone pot. I have another Parker Fly pre-refined 2010 - it is the same there as well.
My 10 days tour starts today but I’ll try to find time to upload a sample.
Thanks again and cheers

[vjmanzo]

With a clean sound it just acts as normal tone pot. I have another Parker Fly pre-refined 2010 - it is the same there as well.

Are you certain the issue isn’t with your lead sound/signal path? Sometimes gates and compressors and EQs in combination can introduce phasing things at low volumes—especially if you’re running in stereo. Can you try a different high-gain mono analog pedal directly into an amp with both Flys and see if you get the same result?

[Patzag]

Maybe you can also post your signal path. What amp/modeler are you using? Pedals? etc ...
And yes, audio recordings would help tremendously.

[Kriss]

First, I apologize for my mistake: the other Parker fly is Year 2000( not 2010 as I wrote.
This “issue” I noticed as soon as I started to use my Parker Fly instead of my ‘79 Stratocaster. All effects were buil to work with it, but I realized that with the Parker, only for the lead sound I had to back off the tone pot in order to avoid the hissing trebles. As soon as I rolled off completely the tone pot, the sound became almost as out of phase-it was close to the Still Got The Blues Gary Moore sound( in that case on my neck pickup). Of course I liked it and started taking advantage of it. When I’m at the middle position of the magnetic 3 way switch, meaning both pickups, the sound is also very “round”, kind of soft but still ( at least to my ears) kind of out of phase sound -not bad by no means. The reason I discussed the issue is - some times I have to switch very fast between lead and clean sound as well as between lead and crunch and then there’s a gap between turning back tone pot to full open, same time often I need to roll the volume pot as well. Tone pot also started to deteriorate little by little ( one reason I found this site-want to buy replacement parts). So I thought if I can find what causes the change in the sound I could program all my lead sounds with that frequency cut or phase reverse switch or something. I remembered I friend of mine mentioning 20 years ago, as I got the Parker guitar, that ( he read somewhere) this tone pot “ turns over the phase”.
The reason I got more active right now about this is that I just purchased a Fractal FM9 effect processor and it has many, many possibilities to manipulate the sound.
To answer the question if it does it with other pedals -yes, it’s the same with my Boss GT and now the FM9. It used to do it also as I played directly into my Bogner 45 amp.
I tried to upload an audio sample, just few notes of both, open and rolled off tone pot, but it was over 3mb. I can’t convert it right now from wave to mp3. I might be able to post a link to a Facebook post I did about this in a Parker guitars group, but I’m not sure if I’m allowed to post url here( have to read the rules-I’m just a newby here after all )) )

mod edit: FB link and video attached

327235188_1843959819298940_6285263066552575523_n.mp4

(494.06 KiB) Downloaded 273 times

[mmmguitar]

I might be able to post a link to a Facebook post I did about this in a Parker guitars group

I apologize: I should have looked up your post after first recalling it. Until the bosses upstairs state otherwise, I'm under the impression that non-malicious/on-topic links are fine. I've linked the FB post and also attached one of the videos to your post so it can be viewed by non-FB users (at the moment, I can't seem to rip the other one nested in the comments).

My ears may be deceiving me but, assuming the video is you gradually turning the tone pot down and demonstrating, I'm hearing more of the Clapton "woman tone" effect (tubular, vocal timbre produced by turning the tone pot all the way down before boosting with distortion) than any phasing. Again, I may not be getting an accurate impression. Concerning the middle pickup position on your Fly: It's the inside coils of the split humbuckers in parallel; which itself has a somewhat natural degree of phase cancellation caused by the proximity of the coils to one another.

[Patzag]

I don't hear anything weird in the video. Seems like the treble roll off expected from the tone knob. But being that I also hear string noise and such, it's not a super accurate method of evaluating tone.
Can you record a sample in a DAW?
(Nice playing though!)

[Kriss]

Thank you @Patzag and @mmmguitar. I can’t record anything at the moment. Friday afternoon I’ll have some “ me time” on stage and I’ll try to hook up the Fractal fm9, it works as
audio interface. Actually as I mentioned, I have 2 samples, but they are bigger than 3mgb, so I couldn’t attach them.
Btw, those same samples with open tone sound and rolled off, I sent to a friend. He analyzed the frequency that’s got cut off and then showed me the picture of how it looks like on the spectrum. I’ll try to attach it now. I tried that with an equalizer -but somehow wasn’t working.
Lately, I also started to think, that maybe that’s the “woman Clapton sound” what you mentioned, but because it’s so …enhanced, I might hear it as phase reversed.
I would like to make a short demo from the stage. When it’s really amplified, then it’s very obvious. Will try that on Friday afternoon. Thanks again guys, especially for putting up with my ignorance in technicality.

[Patzag]

If you have dropbox, you can upload the samples and share the link here.
The graph looks pretty much like a standard treble cut, though it seems a little high.

[vjmanzo]

I don't hear anything weird in the video.

Same for me—if I had to suggest any insights about the tone, it's that you may be hearing the sort of artifacts inherent with many modeling platforms (Fractal, Kemper, etc.). Keep in mind that the piezo tone mixed into a high gain circuit will saturate in a different manner than a magnetic pickup alone since these are, in fact, two discrete signals. In a clean context, the piezo signal can add a high frequency chime that blends in quite transparently, but when really pushed, the piezo signal will sound drastically different in the upper register.

Having said all that, are you using the piezo signal?

[Kriss]

I don't hear anything weird in the video.

Same for me—if I had to suggest any insights about the tone, it's that you may be hearing the sort of artifacts inherent with many modeling platforms (Fractal, Kemper, etc.). Keep in mind that the piezo tone mixed into a high gain circuit will saturate in a different manner than a magnetic pickup alone since these are, in fact, two discrete signals. In a clean context, the piezo signal can add a high frequency chime that blends in quite transparently, but when really pushed, the piezo signal will sound drastically different in the upper register.

Having said all that, are you using the piezo signal?

Nooo, I am not using the piezo signal. Those videos and the samples that are analysed in the graphic are made with a mono cable with just magnetic pickups.

[Kriss]

If you have dropbox, you can upload the samples and share the link here.
The graph looks pretty much like a standard treble cut, though it seems a little high.

Ill try to upload those as soon as I can.Thanks.

[Kriss]

Actually here's a good example of how this exactly sounds. That's the Parker on the neck pickup with tone pot rolled off, mp3 file is attached. The solo starts 40seconds into the sample-couldn't trim that at the moment-please just forward 40 seconds to the solo.
P/s sound goes out mono from a Boss GT5 through an Edirol audio interface to the DAW exactly the way I play live. No other effects. Just guitar- Boss GT-interface-DAW.

[mmmguitar]

I'm afraid my impression remains "Clapton 'woman' tone." To my ears, it simply sounds like a medium-output neck humbucker with the tone control all the way down.

[Kriss]

I'm afraid my impression remains "Clapton 'woman' tone." To my ears, it simply sounds like a medium-output neck humbucker with the tone control all the way down.

In that case what would be the smartest way to recreate this with some "tool" in my effect chain, without having to use the tone pot every time, especially when playing rhythm on the bridged pickups.
I also would like to say Big Thank You to you and everyone who helped with their opinions in this!!!

[vjmanzo]

In that case what would be the smartest way to recreate this with some "tool" in my effect chain, without having to use the tone pot every time…

The tone pot is what’s referred to as a low-pass filter—you can remember it as “the tone knob turned down only allows low frequencies in the signal to pass to the output”. Any EQ effect in your signal chain can do this, so add one toward the front of the chain and lower the high frequencies down until you get the sound you’re looking for. A wah effect left fully “up/open” can sometimes also be a quick way to get to the right tone as wahs are effectively tone controls.

Let us know how it goes!

[Patzag]

I'm afraid my impression remains "Clapton 'woman' tone." To my ears, it simply sounds like a medium-output neck humbucker with the tone control all the way down.

In that case what would be the smartest way to recreate this with some "tool" in my effect chain, without having to use the tone pot every time, especially when playing rhythm on the bridged pickups.
I also would like to say Big Thank You to you and everyone who helped with their opinions in this!!!

If you can make a clean recording of all strings played together with the tone knob wide open and another rolled off and send them to me, I'll make a block in the FM9 that duplicates that behavior and send it to you,

[Kriss]

In that case what would be the smartest way to recreate this with some "tool" in my effect chain, without having to use the tone pot every time…

The tone pot is what’s referred to as a low-pass filter—you can remember it as “the tone knob turned down only allows low frequencies in the signal to pass to the output”. Any EQ effect in your signal chain can do this, so add one toward the front of the chain and lower the high frequencies down until you get the sound you’re looking for. A wah effect left fully “up/open” can sometimes also be a quick way to get to the right tone as wahs are effectively tone controls.

Let us know how it goes!

Thanks I’ll let you know for sure!