SD Jerry Donahue/TS out of phase issue

Howdy out there in Tele USA..

I just finished wiring my new SD Jerry Donahue lead p'up into my MIJ TL52 and I LOVE the tone. Problem is apparently SD's are wired reverse from Fender p'ups and my Texas Special neck p'up (I think that is the model) is now out of phase in the middle position. The tone is thin, low output, and lacks bass in the middle position.

The SD instructions suggest reversing the wires of the lead p'up AND breaking the ground jumper to the baseplate, replacing it with a shielded wire directly to the cavity ground. This is a bit more involved and a challenge to my inconsistent soldering skills/equiptment.

The good news MAY be that the neck/rythym p'up has 3 wires (dedicated ground). So I should be able to just reverse the wires of the neck pup instead right?

On a Fender p'up with white, black, and yellow wires are they as follows?
WHITE= positive ; BLACK= negative ; YELLOW= ground
or is black ground and yellow negative?

ANY suggestions on how to deal wioth this discrepancy between Seymour Duncan and Fender p'ups? Thanks!

Before you mess with the bridge pup, try swapping the neck pup wires, move the one now on the pot to the switch, and move the wire one now on switch to the pot. I always had good luck trying this when mixing SD and Fender pups.

I have just done exactly that. Gosh I need to refine my soldering skills! I inevitable give up on the 40 watter and reach for the big gun which leads to smoke and burned cloth!

I am about to test it. Seemed okay tapping on it with screwdriver...now for sound...

Strange...well the pups sound great and in phase after reversing the Fender neck pup EXCEPT somehow the switch is now reversed, with the forward setting yielding the bridge pup and the righty setting giving the rythym/neck pup.

I had a similar situation on a LP I bought used online.

I guess I could reverse the leads at the switch, but now I wonder about the signal going through the caps/pots etc backwards???

I was considering unscrewing the switch and flipping it around until I noticed that the tone and volume pots are reversed as well! The left pot is now tone and the right pot is volume (viewed from above guitar held as played)...

Any possible wierdness from it being wired "backwards" like this?

I would like to get the switch in proper order but I may actually like the reversed pots if there is no detrimental impact on the signal. And boy does it souns terrific through my '72 Princeton Reverb and '57 Champ!!!

I may become a Tele guy instead of a Strat guy if my chops get better!!!

Well I am a bit puzzled after some thinking. I am wondering if I switch the wires from the pups at the switch it may reverse the positions back to standard, but I am unsure of that obviously ;)

I am thinking I will add a 4 way switch to have a series position also. Any warnings of what issues I will face with out of phase pups? I guess busting the lead pup jumper is the best bet in the end. I hate to put my questionable soldering chops to a new pup plate though!

Well it must be laughably obvious to the keen observer that I am not a longtime Tele player! I think I just reversed the control plate on reassembly and everything is fine!!! I did not even notice it was backwards b/c of my inexperience and started wondering why the pots had switched and the selector was reversed. The simplest explanation is always the most likely....my stupidity!!!

Glad we had this little talk.:mrgreen:

I like threads in which problems resolve themselves. I was really confused about your controls entering another dimension when all you did was switch the wires on one pickup. :)