Humbuckers and coiltaps

Pickups, Pots, Caps, Wiring

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jimi
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Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by jimi »

Do humbuckers have a primary and 2ndary coil, or are they effectively the same - so when you have a coil tap installed, does it matter which coil becomes the single?

I was a little surprised to notice its the coil with screw heads rather than the one with magnets that is active when I split the coil - did I do it wrong, / does it matter at all?

Cheers!

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Re: Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by NippleWrestler »

It matters in terms of placement of the coil just like it does with pickups. Closer to the bridge the brighter and thinner etc.

Fwiw I put the tapped coil closest to the neck in both positions but that's just me.

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Re: Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by Mattallica »

I believe they are effectively the same yes, unless you have a humbucker that has deliberately mismatched coils (SD 59/custom hybird)

As NW said, the position along the body will make a difference to the tone.

If you're splitting more than one humbucker you may run into phasing issues, depending on which coils you pick. I think that's the only situation where it would matter.

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Re: Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by Single coil »

By default, in all experiences I’ve had tapping humbuckers, the innermost ones tend to “turn off”. This caused issues at the bridge (shrill as all fuck).
Swapping the hot and ground wires sorts it out if I remember correctly, but then they’re out of phase. :problem: .
Either flip a magnet in one of them or put in a phase switch to remedy
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Re: Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by jimi »

Thanks. All seems to work fine, was just surprised to find it was the coil with the little screws and not the other one that was live. I think its the outside coil in both cases (nearest neck and nearest bridge).

If thats normal, then Im not going to worry about it - the pickups are Rio Grande set - Buffalo/BBQ.

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Re: Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by Single coil »

The slug coil will still be on, just not as much.
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Re: Humbuckers and coiltaps

Post by handsoffmatt »

1) Different pickups are engineered differently. Some have identically wound coils, some have different (i.e. "mismatched" or "assymetric"....or if you are DiMarzio: "Dual Resonance") coils. Some have drastically different coils (which will sound very different indeed from one another).

2) Even with identical/symmetric coils on the same humbucker, splitting one coil or the other will sound different, because of their position "sensing" the string.
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