Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I am a newbie so bear with me. I would like to replace the High Gain pick ups in my Ric 360/12 with Scatterwound Toaster pick ups to get a more George Harrison sound. I have consulted the wiring schematics on the Rickenbacker web sight for the 360/12 and the 360/12v64 and I am pretty clear on how it has to be done. The question I have is... can the two Toaster pickups be wired out of phase so that when both the neck and bridge pickups on switched on they cancel hum...in the same manner a humbucker works? In the recent past I have rewired a les paul copy with P-94(a P-90 in a humbucker style body)single coils out of phase and it sound great no RF noise or hum. Any suggestions? PS. I haven't removed the replacement pickups from their packaging so I haven't seen if the are more that the ground wire and the hot wire.

Welcome Richard! There are only the hot and ground connections on a toaster so it will just be a drop in replacement for the hi-gains. Just solder the leads to the same lugs as the hi-gains were soldered to. As to the hum canceling, I am pretty sure there is more to it than just reversing the orientation of one pickups; if only it were that easy!

Richard, welcome to the forum. Humbuckers have reverse coils and magnets. They are then wired in series not parallel. What you are attemting to do will most likely result in a loss of bass response, kind of a hollow sound, good for funk not much else.

Only if you fail to also reverse polarity, that is. Which is to say that your reasoning is correct, Richard.

I own a '59 Duo Sonic (Fender), which is factory-wired exactly like Richard has described, so it's a humbucking guitar. I bought it in 1980. Its previous owner was Ry Cooder, who had Lloyd Baggs fit a mini-toggle to put the pickups out of phase. With the switch "on", the sound is the craziest snarl I've ever heard.

The switch is shown on this photo, indicated by the arrow.

Thanks every one for the advice. Some of the advice given is really good. I guess I am a little leary of rewiring the polarity on new scatterwounds (they cost me a $100 each). I guess I'll wait untill later to try to attempt this. I don't want to pull a fubar (fricked up beyond all repair). I thought if it could be easily accomplished I would try it. The Gibson pick-ups come with four wires and it is easy to reverse the polarity of the pickups. I guess george never had it wired this way anyway and if it was good enough for george it good enough for me

Good call on the toasters btw