Coil Tapping Seymour Duncan Rick Replacement Pickups?

[ADWolpert]

I put the Seymour Duncans humbuckers in my Rickenbacker 4001 back in the mid-90s -- when I was getting frustrated with the noise from the stock single coils. The SDs, as many have pointed out, don't sound like the original hi gains, but they're very full -- and very quiet.

What I'm wondering is, have any of you set up the SDs so that you could split the coils -- so you could go from humbucking to single coil mode? If so, how does it sound? Is the single coil mode similar to what you might get with the stock hi gains?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Alan

[Ric5]

The SD Ric replacement pickups come from the factory wired as a parallel humbucker. They are pretty bland and lack personality that way. If they have 4 seperate leads then you can wire then single, parallel, series with a toggle switch. If they only have 2 leads then you are probably stuck with the parallel humbucker wiring.

[ADWolpert]

The Seymour Duncans definitely had 4 separate leads (at least, they did before they were installed), so I know it's possible to set them up for single coil use -- SD even incudes a wiring diagram with the pickups to show just how it's done. I was just hoping, though, that somebody on the forum had actually done it and would have some comments about how it sounded.

[ADWolpert]

I'd still love to hear from people on this.

TIA,

Alan