Does coil spliting work better on humbuckers with high output?

[hamerfan]

The StagMag is the obvious first choice here.

Yes, i still have a The Mag in one guitar.

 

[freefrog]

with what humbucker does it sound more like a serious stratocaster pickup? In this case i tend to say alnico humbucker with a higher wound coil. Otherwise its too pling-pling.

IME, emulating a "serious Stratocaster pickup" firstly requires to have the resonant peak at the same frequency than for a Strat and with a similar Q factor (which is easier if the split coil has basically the right inductance, on par with a "real" single coil). Sometimes it's necessary to adjust the resistive and capacitive loads accordingly. Diminishing the resistive load also helps to obtain a bit more output from the split coil.

There's no general recipe for this, since it depends on the original specs of the humbuckers to split.
But much can already be done with cheap resistors and capacitors.

PRS did a lot with their partial coil splitting and frequency corrective capacitors in parallel with coils. But it's not forbidden to go further and it's not necessarily that difficult [for instance, I've explained several times here how putting a humbucker in parallel with some dummy coil(s), instead of splitting it, could give a convincing single coil tone (while keeping the benefits of humbucking) as long as the circuit is properly tuned. Enough said. ]


A last side note about coil splitting anyway: when one does that, the unused coil doesn't kill the hum no more but it can certainly disturb how the other coil works and can even bring more noise if not properly wired... It's always interesting to try several wiring options here (like keeping the unused coil open VS closed on itself, which doesn't give the same thing tonally and when it comes to noise; again, the best choice may vary according to the PU used and needs of the player).
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[beaubrummels]

IME when splitting the relative output drop is about the same regardless of how hot the humbucker originally was.

Also IME, as far as sound, both a Custom (any flavor, Custom, Custom 5, Custom Custom, 59/Custom) and a Black Winter when split and sounded very Fendery. The Custom family almost quacks on it's own when split to the slug coil with normal orientation along the string (think Dire Straits Sultans of Swing or Clapton Lay Down Sally). It sounds right and mixes well with singles and stacked singles. I have a StagMag also and I wouldn't say it was closer to Strat than a Custom, just a different flavor of Fendery sound, little more rounder but snappy kind of sound (or in other words every so slightly darker/softer on top but somehow a bit twangier than the Custom).

 

[misterwhizzy]

I'm a Humbucker guy. I can't believe that isn't because of the hotness of the X2N.

We have all kinds of questions about your perception of hotness.

 

[freefrog]

In order to share something else, I've surfed through my archives and found a test done a while back here, to compare a Duncan Custom split (with ceramic magnet), the same Custom split but with AlNiCo5 rods instead of slugs, and a real Strat single coil. Below are some of the related results.

Pic 1 shows the electrically induced response of each coil described above, on a linear scale.

Pic 2 shows the response of these coils played in bridge position of the same experimental guitar. Chords were played from unfretted strings to 12th fret, through a 1M input, direct to the board.

Readers should "get the picture". ;-)

 

[xxxplorer]

I swear I can make my explorer with a humbucker sound like a strat with just how I play it sometimes. But I'm no strat expert. I love how others make them sound.