Tappable Humbucker

[Chistopher]

I've been thinking about a new concept recently. Is it possible to wire a humbucker so that you could tap each coil as well as split It? Or more importantly, can it be done without 8 conductors?

I was thinking a possibility would be a pickup that could be split and tapped, but now that's starting to sound a bit far out there in my head. How would I wire a humbucker so that it could be tapped, but not have the option of splitting? I think there's a way to do it with only 3, but I'm not quite sure it would be practical to do it. I'll draw up a schematic tommorow to see if my way is possible.

Is this as an idea something people have already tried?

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

there are tap-able buckers out there but fairly few and far between. most come with seven wires that ive seen (which has been a whopping two). three for each coil (ground, tap, full) and the ground for the base plate. the concept is cool but the pups i heard were nothing to write home about. cant recall the brand but they were in a friends guitar so i can probably find out

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

there are tap-able buckers out there but fairly few and far between. most come with seven wires that ive seen (which has been a whopping two). three for each coil (ground, tap, full) and the ground for the base plate. the concept is cool but the pups i heard were nothing to write home about. cant recall the brand but they were in a friends guitar so i can probably find out

What I'm looking for is winding myself something similar to two Quarter Pound pickups that tap to about PAF output. To be able to go from thick and creamy to bright and articulate. I might get the Custom Shop to do it, they'd know more than me.

But if I give up the ability to coil split could it be done with 4 conductors?

 

[justFred]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

What I'm looking for is winding myself something similar to two Quarter Pound pickups that tap to about PAF output. To be able to go from thick and creamy to bright and articulate. I might get the Custom Shop to do it, they'd know more than me.

But if I give up the ability to coil split could it be done with 4 conductors?

Buy a Fishman Classic. It will do exactly what you describe.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Buy a Fishman Classic. It will do exactly what you describe.

I'm looking for this for a HH Tele and the 9v battery won't fit without any routing that I don't really want to do.

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Curious… Why are you trying to keep it to only four conductors?

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Curious… Why are you trying to keep it to only four conductors?

Too keep it simple. It's easier to wire 4 conductors than 7.

 

[Artie]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

It wouldn't be very difficult to do a DIY tapped Stag-Mag-ish humbucker. Just mount two tapped singles side by side.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

It wouldn't be very difficult to do a DIY tapped Stag-Mag-ish humbucker. Just mount two tapped singles side by side.

Good thinking, I'll try that before I go deeper into the concept.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

If there was any measureable demand for tapped HB's, they'd be a lot more common. As it is, coil splits are only recently being commonly seen on Gibsons and Epiphones, and it's not an particularly useful mod for most players. Spin-a-split, coil swap mod, & the Kinman mod are more versatile, and very inexpensive to do (actually cheaper than coil split).

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Tapping should be a dream come true; two pickups for the price of one. But it never works out that way, the tapped mode always sounds extra wimpy compared to the the "full" mode. You'd have the same issue with a tapped humbucker.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

^ Not really. It all depends on where the tap is wired in. You can wind the tap in at any point.....where the lower output isn't wimpy for example. Also winders who are experienced in winding pickups specifically for a tap can vary the wind pattern so that you tweak the lower output section for more fullness but then wind the outer layers differently so you don't suffer congestion when its the full pickup.
Zhangbucker is a classic example of someone who thinks more about where a tap is wound in than the average person - and doesn't simply go halfway. I have a strat bridge wound to approx 9k with 42 gauge. The tap is at 7.5k. Both sound similar in tone, but there is merely a dollop of extra drive under gain to the full output.
He does humbuckers the same way......so you have a splat - a mixture of tap and split.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Tapping should be a dream come true; two pickups for the price of one. But it never works out that way, the tapped mode always sounds extra wimpy compared to the the "full" mode. You'd have the same issue with a tapped humbucker.

I really like tappable single coils. There's a slight dark edge on the tap usually, I think because all the wiring around the tapped part. It's actually really nice "teleish" sound.

I guess it might sound "extra wimpy" if you tap the the other side. I haven't tried that myself.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

tapped singles can be great! the duncan cs '53 tapped tele bridge pup is fantastic at 6.5k/9.5k flat pole alnico II. sounds kinda like an antiquity I tapped and a fatter darker version with more balls full up. i dont usually like the tap in the middle, more like 2/3rds of the way through the coil. 8000 turns at the tap and 12000 turns full up or something like that.

for a bucker i might try 4500 turns then 6000 if you use #42. light paf at the tap and fat overwound paf full output. the trick with the wiring is for the tap you want start south-tap south->tap north-start north rather than start south-finish south->finish north-start north. you cant have the tap as one wire, needs to be two unless im not thinking of something (totally possible, still on my first cup). basically you want either the two finish wires connected in series or the two tap wires connected in series which you can do with a dpdt switch but i think ya need all the wires

 

[Davii]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Didn't Gibson do this with their LP standards, either last year, or 2016? There was a set of DIP switches in the control cavity that you used to change whether one of the humbucker coils was tapped, or grounded out completely for normal split when using the push/pulls?

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

You know, BachToRock was talking a while back about tapping a single coil with one side of the tap having a different wire gauge than the other side. I wonder how that worked out for him.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

ive done that with single coils before. #42 till the tap, then #43 till finish. it was for a customer and he loved them. i didnt spend much time with em though

 

[Artie]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

. . . you cant have the tap as one wire, needs to be two unless im not thinking of something (totally possible, still on my first cup).

You are correct. You need both wires since they would connect to different places. However, the two could just be shorted together with a simple SPST switch.

We can think of a guitar pup as the secondary winding of a transformer. But, whereas the secondary winding of a transformer is stimulated by a primary coil, the coil of a pickup is stimulated by a moving magnet. (The string.) Other than that, they're effectively identical so we can just visualize transformer windings. That would would make our "tapped" humbucker look like this:

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

Certainly some people like tapped coils, but the lack of dedicated tapped pickup products shows that it's not a big seller. They're even a little hard to buy, as not many retailers stock them. DiMarzio doesn't even offer any such pickups. If a tapped SSL-5 sounded legitimately like an SSL-1, or even similar, they'd probably be a hot seller for vintage output Strat players looking for a "boost" switch.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Tappable Humbucker

i dont care for the ssl5 tapped, but that doesnt mean a tapped pup cant be very useful and sound great. again, most pups i see out there are tapped at 50% of the total wind. it is much more usable (imnsho) at 65% or 70%, there is a noticeable boost with full output but the tapped output isnt as weak