Best Practice: HB w/ single coil option

[claxor]

Guys,

When you guys have a 2 humbucker custom Jackson, but you like to have the single-coil tone for cleans or whatever, what is the best way to implement it into the guitar design? (sound-wise) A true five-way switch? A normal three-way switch, including a push-pull knob for hum or single?

What do you guys recommend? I would have one volume knob, no tone knob.

Thanks!

[murkat]

you get a push / push pot. just tap it and done. better than trying to pull on it while trying to play and fiddle around in the command center.
Push /Push

[claxor]

Push/push pot: I don't know about these, but wouldn't one be worried about not being able to see what setting it is on, or does the knob rise in one setting?

[MountainDog]

It depends on what you want, i.e. Do you want the versitility of being able to go back and forth between humbucker and clean or do you always want a single coil clean.

i play in a cover band and have always needed a very clean single coil sound from my neck pickup, so my ideal guitar would be a Hum in the bridge and Single in the neck. There aren't very many guitars with that set up, so on my guitars with 2 humbuckers, I 'permanently' make my neck humbucker (assuming its a 4-wire pickup) a single coil by soldering the coil tap wires to ground. If I ever wanted to sell a guitar, all I would have to do to return to original is to un-solder the wires and tape them off to bring guitar back to stock.

If you have a 4-wire neck hum and want to easily switch between hum and coil-tapped-single, the easiest thing to do is get a tone pot with a pull-push switch and wire it so the coil tap wires go to ground either when you pull up on the switch or when you push down.

Some of the guitars I have came with the tone pot already having the pull/push switch for coil taping the pickups. Usually in the pushed down position the pickup(s) are humbucker and when pulled up the coil tap is engaged. Since I always want my neck as a single and bridge as a hum, if I get these type of guitars, I re-wire the tone pot switch so that when the switch is down the neck hum is in 'tapped' single coil mode (and bridge is in hum mode). Again, if I wanted to sell that guitar, I could easily return to stock by moving the wires back to original on the switch.

As you mention, if your 2-hum guitar come with a 3-way blade switch and you have 4-wire pickups, you can change to a 5-way switch and wire up so you get a coil tapped sound in poisition 2 or 4. I have several guitars that came wired this way (example 2 hum or hum/sing/hum Ibanez/Schecter/carvin) but I always have to remember that I can't just flip the switch all the way forward, I have to click to position 2. Even on some of those type guitars, I just un-solder the neck pickups coil tap wire from the 5-way switch and solder direct to ground, this way I know I can just click the 5-way switch all the way forward (positon 1) and have my single coil tone. (And to return to stock, just solder the wire back where it was on the switch).

if you have a neck hum that is only a 2-wire (like my Les Pauls), it gets more complicated..I remove the chrome cover, un-tape the fabric tape and try to find the correct wire to splice into that connects the coils so that I can add a wire that then goes to ground to coil tap for my desired single coil sound. To return that back to stock, I just un-solder that wire and tape it off.

Hope this helps give you a few ideas.

[metalhobo]

push/pull pot is fine for a studio guitar to have maximum versatility, but IMO it can get cumbersome if you're trying to switch pickups and hit the coil tap quickly in the middle of a song. if you value ease of control, then it would be better to have as few switches as possible.

[EggZoomin]

For me, I tend to remove the tone control (never use it) and put the volume where it was to keep it out of the way (very rarely use that either), then replace the volume with a toggle to tap both p'ups, with "down" being humbucking and "up" being tapped.

[murkat]

Push/push pot: I don't know about these, but wouldn't one be worried about not being able to see what setting it is on, or does the knob rise in one setting?

the knob would pop up a little bit. I would think you would hear the difference between humbucker / single or series / parallel.
I know I sure do without looking.
These are very nice~ http://www.mojotone.com/guitar-parts...-Potentiometer

[jeff9beck]

another option is that a true single coil might sound better (dpepending on the sound you want) than a tapped or split humbucker.
you can non-destructively install one using a $3 adapter plate that sits on the front humbucker ring.
Try "frets on the net"

Then, extra switching is not even needed..and you can play with SC Pickups until you find your favorite

[DonP]

A super 5 way is a great option for getting cleans with an HH setup.

In my SL2H I use a push/pull on the tone (out of the way). If only the 59n were a 4 conductor I'd split that. Currently I split the JB only.

[claxor]

A super 5 way is a great option for getting cleans with an HH setup.

With the HH setup, what would all of the positions be? (from neck to bridge: neck H, neck split-coil, both H's split-coil, bridge split-coil, bridge H) Is this correct?

[pianoguyy]

I'm wondering ---
Would there be a way to use a "no load" knob to swap between single coil and humbucker?
For me, I think that would be great.

But, I think that, if it suits your playing style, use a 5-position switch, and hook up the individual coils of the neck humbucker as if they were two single coils. As if it was an HSS setup.

[pianoguyy]

With the HH setup, what would all of the positions be? (from neck to bridge: neck H, neck split-coil, both H's split-coil, bridge split-coil, bridge H) Is this correct?

That's up to you. You can do it any number of ways.
Ibanez has some interesting 5-way HH wiring schemes - especially if you use "special" knobs in addition to the wiring. Most of them were on their website at one time (and may still be).

[claxor]

If you have a coil-split with the humbucker, does the full humbucker tone suffer at all when the coil-split is not engaged? (for example, when you have a tone knob, even when the tone is at 10, there is always a little frequency loss compared to not having any tone knob in the circuit)

[murkat]

If you have a coil-split with the humbucker, does the full humbucker tone suffer at all when the coil-split is not engaged? (for example, when you have a tone knob, even when the tone is at 10, there is always a little frequency loss compared to not having any tone knob in the circuit)

non that I have experienced. Some different pickup manufactors "split" better than others.

"I'm wondering ---
Would there be a way to use a "no load" knob to swap between single coil and humbucker?
For me, I think that would be great."

During my phone conversations with Bill Lawrence (RIP) in the past, He explained to me a cool little trick...
(and it works great)
on a four conductor pickup, Hot to the volume pot or switch, ground to ground wherever.
the two other wires soldered together.... solder them to un used lug on your tone pot.

When tone pot is on 10, pickup is now single coil mode.
Roll the tone pot down to 9, it is in humbucker mode.
Try it. it is about the most easiest mod to do, works great for a neck humbucker neck pup.

[claxor]

murkat,

Well, I was thinking of using either a Seymour Duncan JB (bridge trembucker) or Seymour Duncan Distortion (bridge trembucker)

Are these known to be good for coil-splitting "single coil" tones?

non that I have experienced. Some different pickup manufactors "split" better than others.