I was messing around with the idea at the time. Then the switching system would engage that extra winding when going to single coil vs humbucker. On a regular humbucker they added around 1500 more winds to one bobbin after pulling a 'coil tap' connection. PRS did the coil switching 'no volume drop' a few years back on a couple of guitars. Can't say it sounds quite the same as a single coil, or a coil split, but it's worth tweaking the cap value.
Single coil vs humbucker split coil comparison full#
The full low end is still there, so it retains the girth and volume of a humbucker, which is why it's useful for eliminating the dreaded coil split volume drop. What it does is removes some high end from the pickup being shorted.
Put the cap on a mini on-on-on switch, and you have the effect (darker when applied to bridge, brighter when applied to neck) on the extremes, and nothing in the middle position. I stole the Gibson idea (on my LP), and used it on my S/S Teles, treating series-connected singles as a 'spread out' humbucker. Fender used it as one setting on their 50th Anniversary Strat (and maybe others). The second, with a cap, is what I call a 'fat tap', and I dunno what Gibson or Fender call it, but Gibson used it in their faux coil tap on the 2012 LP Std (and maybe others). The first, I'm not sure how you're tapping that coil, unless you get someone to wind the pickup to accommodate it. Instead of tapping with a plain wire, there's a cap and/or resistor inline with the tap. Instead of tapping where the two coils connect (and shorting one of them), the tap is done somewhere mid-coil. What exactly is this 'partial split'? Is it: