Pickup choice for coil tap

[mrpinter]

I want to get a good single coil sound out of a dual Humbucker guitar; so I am thinking about a coil tap on the bridge and maybe the neck pup too. Specifically, the single coil sound I really would like to get close to in the bridge is a Duncan Broadcaster. What bridge pickup would be best for this type of sound? And then, what neck pickup would you pair with that?

 

[AlexR]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

If you are actually talking about a tap (as opposed to just splitting) then your best bet is have the pickup wound so the tap matches the K rating of the pickup you are trying to copy.

But there is no way in hell you'll get anywhere close to a singlecoil polepiece magnet pickup with a brass baseplate by using a bar magnet humbucker.......unless by close you mean 'barely in the ballpark'

 

[jestre700]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

+1.
It's hard enough to get a good strat single sound from a split bucker. A Tele is probably asking too much - not to mention there are some things unique to tele construction, like the ashtray bridge, pickup mounting angle, and baseplate. Having said that, aim for a high output coil (whether in a matched or hybrid bucker) and Alnico poles if possible - the usual suspects in "best split bucker" discussions. Stag Mag, Muy Grande, etc. Maybe Catswhisker's S-bucker, which adds some extra windings when split. I've never seen anyone try to amp the "splitting bucker" concept up to tele levels, but it would be interesting.

Maybe find a way to mount a twangbanger and another single in your bucker space?

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

Assuming you are actually talking about coil splitting (which any 4-lead humbucker can do) as opposed to coil tapping (which very few can do), try a '59/Custom Hybrid wired to split to the slug coil (normal splitting).

 

[Mincer]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

Yeah, I think there is a language issue here. A tap is different than a split. My guess is that you mean splitting? A JB will get you close to the tone and output of a Broadcaster pickup. If you decide on that, go with a Jazz neck, and you'd be ready to tackle most forms of classic and modern music.

 

[mrpinter]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

Thanks guys. Yeah, I guess I mean coil splitting (I"m not young enough anymore to know everything). So the characteristics of the humbucker un-split stay pretty much like they are but just get thinned out?

 

[Demanic]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

Stagmag.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk

 

[stratguy23]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

So the characteristics of the humbucker un-split stay pretty much like they are but just get thinned out?

A normal installation of this type would have the humbucker as its normal self as the default.

You would flip a switch or pull/push a pot to split it so only one coil is operational (your choice as to which one). This would be literally half the pickup, so, yes, the sound will be thinner. Sometimes that thin sound is very usable or even desirable. I have never split a JB, for example, but by many accounts it is a fine-sounding single coil in split mode. I've never played a Stag Mag, but it's designed to sound like a Strat pickup when split.

Some pickups have mismatched coils where one coil is hotter than another. So splitting to the hotter coil will yield more beef/less of a volume drop in split mode. To my knowledge, Seymour Duncan only has two pickups with this construction, the Custom/59 Hybrid (splitting to the Custom yields a somewhat Tele tone, to my ears), and the P-Rails (which usually gets split to its P90 half).

Generally, the hotter the pickup, the more usable the split sound is b/c it's half of something big, not half of something small. That said, there are some hot pickups that don't split well, and there are some low power winds that split well (Pearly Gates comes to mind). Because split is not the primary application of 99.9% of humbuckers, you may have to experiment a little (or Google a lot, heh) to find humbuckers that perform well in secondary applications.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

^ +1

One of the problems with splitting to sound like an authentic singlecoil (or as close to it as it gets) is that the humbucker tone is MEGA hot. The JB I found better in parallel, and its sort of nice for some jangle, but the series tone is pretty full-on. When you go single to series, it is much fuller and fatter. Its a different tone, not just the single coil version with more. The whole is more than the sum of the parts.

So there will be a compromise - one, you'll not get an authentic tele tone anyhow, but in getting close you get toward molten lava with the full tone and certainly nowhere near vintage humbucker (assuming you'd be shooting for both being somewhat vintage.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

The Stag-Mag, as I understand it, is 2 single coils mounted to a humbucker baseplate, so splitting this will give you the most accurate single-coil tone, because it's an actual single coil with magnetic poles running through the coil instead of a bar magnet nestled between two sets of poles.

You might also want to consider a Variax instead.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Pickup choice for coil tap

The Stag Mag, Custom or 59/Custom Hybrid have good split sounds. The Stag Mag sounds closer to a Strat, but at the expense of the humbucker sound, which isn't quite the same as other humbuckers due to the construction.