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I spent a couple of hours this morning cleaning and polishing an old original set of Mosrite pickups both rated around 10K, then changed out the Hallmarks pups in my candy apple red clone to the Mosrite pickups. I plugged it in and was blown away that it sounded exactly like the Hallmarks. It does not have that great 'quack' sound that I get in the middle position on all my other Mosrites or clones with Elliott Mosrite pups.

Another thing, it does not drop in volume as I change the positions from neck, middle, and bridge. Nor does it hum cancel on the middle position with the two pups combined. What is your thought behind this. Are a matched set of pickups made with reverse polarity on one of them? Maybe I have two neck pickups. The sound is very nice, they just sounds like P-90s. Very powerful and robust.

I assume that you wired the black and white wires normally, both blacks to ground and both whites to the selector switch.

If you have a small compass bring it near the pickups and see what the magnetic polarity of the pickups are. (Do not touch the compass to the pickups, as you may re-magnetize the compass point, thereby ruining the compass.) Compare the polarity with the polarity of the Hallmarks and of the other Mosrites. You may prefer the sound of reverse polarity pickups in the middle position.

Most modern Fender pickups are South pole up. Ed Elliott told me that most original Mosrites were also set up this way, but sometimes they were assembled with the North pole up, and the factory would reverse the hook up wires to re-phase the pickups in the middle position. You could try reversing one set of wires to see if that's the sound you're looking for.

I'd be interested to know the magnetic polarity of your old Mosrites as well as the new Hallmarks, and if you prefer the out of phase middle sound.

Yes, it's wired correctly.

On my '66, '64, '72 bass and unknown year original Mosrite pickups (no doubt mid '60s considering the history of where they came from) the North pole is 'up'. On all my Ed Elliott and Hallmark pups, South pole is 'up'.

Sometime back I tried to reverse the wires on the Hallmarks and soldered them in place and gave it a try. Dead! No sound! It would not work simply by reversing the wires. I always wire with black to ground and white to signal.

Maybe Ed will step in here and explain if he reverse winds one of his pickups in a set.

I reversed the leads on the vintage Mosrites and yep, I got that cool out of phase sound. The Hallmarks are not exactly wired with a two lead wire per se, but with a shield wire with the shield as ground. When I reverse these connection it ceased to work. Now with the Mosrites the reversible leads work fine making it in or out of phase. On all three of my originals the black wire is ground and the white wire is the signal wire, and they all have that out of phase sound. When I tested Mel's original '66 Ventures model it did not have the out of phase sound, but sounded as mine did before reversing the leads.

What was standard on a '60s Mosrite, in phase or out of phase? If you go by black is ground and white is signal, then they were all wired out of phase. Is it just me or does anyone else hear the 'squawk' or 'quack' sound on the center position of their Mosrite?

Dub,
You need to build yourself a V3! The sound palette is amazing, and you can get both the in-phase and out-of-phase sounds. I played mine at a gig tonight and I find I'm using all the different pickup combos at one point or another.
In the meantime, you could make a spare pickguard for one of your "Vintage" models with two DPDT switches and have access to both phases with two pickups.
Mel

Interesting thread. This just reminds me of how clever and simple Fender made it with the Mustang. Great pup/tone variations right on tap. From pretty fat tones to out-of-phase quack.

Hey Danny, I'm going to share my secret with you how I get that "Quack" sound
and many other cool Surf and Rock-a-Billy tones. When I wind pickups I always;

#1.Wear my Lucky Hawiian shirt.( My wife hates it).

#2.I lisen to The Ventures Live in Japan 1965 (Real Loud).

#3.Make sure "Surf is up" (It's a Mojo Thing).

Danny, glad you got the sound you were looking for!
Ed Elliott

LOL. Wow, what a 3-step-rocket manual you've got there Ed.
I'm glad you're not winding heavy metal pups because those steps surely could get ugly .

dubtrub wrote:What was standard on a '60s Mosrite, in phase or out of phase? ?

So, does anyone know?

Danny posted:

What was standard on a '60s Mosrite, in phase or out of phase? If you go by black is ground and white is signal, then they were all wired out of phase. Is it just me or does anyone else hear the 'squawk' or 'quack' sound on the center position of their Mosrite?

Danny, I'm a little confused here. All Mosrite Pickups were wired "in phase." Otherwise, every Mosrite
would have the "Quack, Honk, Out-of-Phase, Nasal" and every other phrase used .