What is coil tapping/splitting etc?

[Frazer Stockton]

Im getting a little bored and more so frustrated with a p100, dog eared pickup, I have in an old epiphone. Its muddy and dull and soul crushing and i really wanna try pulling a new sound out of it.

Trying to make it a little brighter, ive muddled about with pots and pole pieces and pickup height etc but its not really doing as much as i would like.

Are there many ways to modify the wiring of a pickup? Can i make it give more output or less ?

Kind festive regards
Frazer

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: What is coil tapping/splitting etc?

Er, from what materials is the guitar constructed? This has as least as much influence on how the instrument will sound as the pickup(s).

I have to confess that the Gibson P-100 stacked coil pickup is not one of my favourites. I recently narrowly avoided buying a pre-owned Gibson LP Junior Special equipped with these pickups. It lost out in an A/B test to my Squier Tele Custom II with Duncan Designed P-90 single coils.

If your P-100 has four conductor + shield wiring, you can try coil tap, series/parallel and phase reversal between the two coils. Obviously, on a stacked coil design, there is no advantage in tapping off the upper coil. Similarly, phase reversal will achieve little due to the imbalance of the signals from the two coils. Switching between series and parallel connection should yield two tonal variations - one bright but quiet, the other fat but muddy. (You already know THIS sound!)

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: What is coil tapping/splitting etc?

Cut the bottom coil of the P100 out of the circuit. It will be noisy but it will sound a lot better.

 

[Will S-T]

Re: What is coil tapping/splitting etc?

What is the magnet setup in these? One or two?
Can they be swapped and/or mixed?