Have a coil split guitar on the way, which pickups to fit?

[timj46]

I have an Epi 339 Pro on order and the dilemma seems to be which alnico 2 pickup to eventually replace the stock pickups with? I really like the idea of non potted Alnico 2 pickups but single conductor or two conductor wiring plus the low output may not be any good for coil splitting, should I ditch the stock pots as well and just replace with some good CTS or similar? Spin A Split is another option I guess, watching some utube demos it seems that the coil split is very different to the full humbucker so it seems a shame to do away with the feature altogether. I know that pickups can be custom made with four conductor wiring but does that cost a lot of money? It also reminds me of the "low output to begin with" issue, I am a bit stumped.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Have a coil split guitar on the way, which pickups to fit?

For A2 PAF's, Seths have set the standard. They're unpotted and some have 4-leads.

For neck HB's, spin-a-split is the best option, far more useful and versatile than mere coil cut. What it does is make a tone pot a second volume control for one coil. Spin-a-split gives you coil cut, but also all the unbalanced coils sounds inbetween. Unbalanced coils open up the high end, without losing so much of the output and body as full coil cut does. It's a blend of HB and single coil tones. While you're at it, wire the volume pots for independent volume controls, so that in the middle toggle position you can dial in how much of each PU you want, which gives you many more tone options. All that involves is switching which lugs on the volume pot a couple wires go to.

In the past week I started a thread here on a simplified way I came up with to wire a single lead HB for spin-a-split. Only takes a few minutes. Check it out. I have a number of single lead neck HB's that I've been wanting to convert to 4-lead one day. I recently figured that I didn't need to have 4 leads for spin-a-split or coil cut, and could convert theose PU's much quicker and easier. Saves a lot of time and work. And in playing those guitars, realzed how superior spin-a-split is to coil cut.

Between spin-a-split and independent volume controls, you have a huge palette of tones available that you never did before, and no push-pulls are used. There's online wiring diagrams for both.

 

[timj46]

Re: Have a coil split guitar on the way, which pickups to fit?

Thanks for this, very helpful

For A2 PAF's, Seths have set the standard. They're unpotted and some have 4-leads.

For neck HB's, spin-a-split is the best option, far more useful and versatile than mere coil cut. What it does is make a tone pot a second volume control for one coil. Spin-a-split gives you coil cut, but also all the unbalanced coils sounds inbetween. Unbalanced coils open up the high end, without losing so much of the output and body as full coil cut does. It's a blend of HB and single coil tones. While you're at it, wire the volume pots for independent volume controls, so that in the middle toggle position you can dial in how much of each PU you want, which gives you many more tone options. All that involves is switching which lugs on the volume pot a couple wires go to.

In the past week I started a thread here on a simplified way I came up with to wire a single lead HB for spin-a-split. Only takes a few minutes. Check it out. I have a number of single lead neck HB's that I've been wanting to convert to 4-lead one day. I recently figured that I didn't need to have 4 leads for spin-a-split or coil cut, and could convert theose PU's much quicker and easier. Saves a lot of time and work. And in playing those guitars, realzed how superior spin-a-split is to coil cut.

Between spin-a-split and independent volume controls, you have a huge palette of tones available that you never did before, and no push-pulls are used. There's online wiring diagrams for both.