Coil Splitting a Bridge Humbucker

ninjaking67

ninjaking67

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Guys (and girls), I have a question for you all-knowing types out there.
I am in the process of installing a HB in the bridge position of a Fender Strat. I will be adding a push-pull tone pot so I can coil split the pickup to give me both single coil and humbucking tones.
My question is, which coil should I use for the single coil? Common sense tells me that it should be the coil farthest away from the bridge as the strings will have more vibration there. This is what Seymour Duncan seems to suggest. However, the Godin Session that I had used the coil closest to the bridge in single coil mode and it sounded pretty great.
Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Robert Herndon said:
Generally, the screw coil...but you with a 4 or 5 wire pickup, you can do anything!
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Seymour Duncan's '59 Custom Hybrid uses the fixed pole coil from a Custom Custom and the screw coil from a '59 humbucker. They suggest using the Custom coil when splitting and not the '59 coil. That is one of the main reasons I asked the question.
It is all very interesting and I guess that I may have to experiment, as Adrian suggested above.
I was just hoping to get it right the first time though!
 
One thought I had earlier was to use a 3 position switch with forward being one coil, mid being humbucker and rear position being the other coil. Problem is I want the guitar to look and be stock so I don't want the extra hole in the pickguard.
I guess experiment it is!:)
 
I had another look at an SSS and an HSS pickguard with respect to bridge pickup positioning.
I tend to think that Robert was correct in his statement above as the HB coil closest to the bridge is nearly in the same position as a single coil would be (disregarding the angled orientation, of course). Looks like a winner to me!
 
I’ve set up coil splitting on two of my guitars. On both guitars, I used the coil closest to the bridge on the bridge pickup, which in normal usage would be the screw coil. As has been observed, that approximates the position where a single-coil bridge pickup will be positioned.

However, given that Seymour Duncan has essentially built a hybrid from two different pickup designs, I’d probably try their recommendation first.

However, there isn’t really a “right and wrong” with this. There is “normal practice,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something different.
 
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Thanks Smtty and Robert. I think that the screw coil is the right choice and that will be my first attempt. If, on the off chance, it sounds like a turd then I will use the other coil!
Thanks for setting me straight guys!
 
ninjaking67 said:
Seymour Duncan's '59 Custom Hybrid
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I have this same bridge pickup in one of my Hamers. The Custom coil is hotter than the '59 coil. In fact, Seymour Duncan advertises that when tapping the Custom coil, the DCR should be at 7k.

But instead of coil tapping, have you considered using the switch for switching the humbucker from parallel to series?
 
Interesting. I do not recall ever having a pickup where I could choose the coil that shuts. The only way to vary the on/off position of the pup would be to rotate it as far as I have been been aware.
 
RVA said:
Interesting. I do not recall ever having a pickup where I could choose the coil that shuts. The only way to vary the on/off position of the pup would be to rotate it as far as I have been been aware.
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I think with coil splitting with a two-way switch, you have the option to select which coil gets shut down. Usually the diagrams that you see favor the screw coil, or the outer coil for single coil operation.
 
syscokid said:
I think with coil splitting with a two-way switch, you have the option to select which coil gets shut down. Usually the diagrams that you see favor the screw coil, or the outer coil for single coil operation.
Click to expand...
Tom Anderson pups are representative of the most complete wiring options I have dealt with (see attached instructions that comes with pickups). Am I missing something or is something else required (presumably another conductor)?
 

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ninjaking67 said:
Guys (and girls), I have a question for you all-knowing types out there.
I am in the process of installing a HB in the bridge position of a Fender Strat. I will be adding a push-pull tone pot so I can coil split the pickup to give me both single coil and humbucking tones.
My question is, which coil should I use for the single coil? Common sense tells me that it should be the coil farthest away from the bridge as the strings will have more vibration there. This is what Seymour Duncan seems to suggest. However, the Godin Session that I had used the coil closest to the bridge in single coil mode and it sounded pretty great.
Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
I used a super strat 5 way switch with push/pull pots on Dirty Girl. No extra holes!

StratSPhss061111.gif
 
RVA said:
Tom Anderson pups are representative of the most complete wiring options I have dealt with (see attached instructions that comes with pickups). Am I missing something or is something else required (presumably another conductor)?
Click to expand...
Ok... I think I found a way to explain this. This is from the Tom Anderson info you posted:

Screenshot_2019-01-13-09-37-26.png

Each coil has a Start and a Finish on its respective windings.

The screw coil is usually the South coil, even if it's rotated 180°.

In a normal (series) humbucker operation, the red wire is the Start of the North coil winding which is connected to the Hot.

When the South (screw) coil is tapped for split/single coil operation, the Start of the South coil winding is now connected to the Hot. The North coil is now shunted to ground.

But if you want to shunt the South coil, then you need the Start of the North coil's winding to connect to the Hot. On the Tom Anderson humbucker, the North Start wire should be the green wire. Just reverse the green and red wire connections.

EDIT: The last part that is underlined is not all quite correct. More wires need to be shuffled at the switch. I'll try to find the proper diagram that shows this.
 
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Found some...

As you can see, the Seymour Duncan diagram clearly shows which wires are repositioned depending on which coil you want active when coil splitting:

Seymour Duncan Humbucker Splitting Diagram.png


The wiring color code for Seymour Duncans and others:

Humbucker Wires Color Code Diagram.png


Color code for Tom Andersons (And Bare Knuckles is the same, too):

anderson.jpg
 
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