When splitting an humbucker....

[43apples]

I posted this in the Pickups forum, but i didn't get the answers i needed. If there's something wrong with posting this here, please tell me and i'll delete it .

Anyway... when installing a coil split on a paralell wired humbucker, would it work if i just installed an on\off switch on the hot wire of the coil i wanted to cancel? Or should i use a 2 way switch that either: 1. sends the signal to ground, 2. sends the sends the signal to the volume together with the other coil?

Sorry if this is hard to understand, but i'm not sure how to describe it .

Thanks alot,
-Erlend

[luknfur]

Originally Posted by Erlend_G

I posted this in the Pickups forum, but i didn't get the answers i needed. If there's something wrong with posting this here, please tell me and i'll delete it .

Anyway... when installing a coil split on a paralell wired humbucker, would it work if i just installed an on\off switch on the hot wire of the coil i wanted to cancel? Or should i use a 2 way switch that either: 1. sends the signal to ground, 2. sends the sends the signal to the volume together with the other coil?

Sorry if this is hard to understand, but i'm not sure how to describe it .

Thanks alot,
-Erlend

FWIW:

if I understand you correctly, you want to split one of the coils within a one dual coil pickup wired in parallel to get a single coil parallel tone? If so, can't be done - unless you have a quad coil pup with 8 leads. And even then, you wouldn't have a single coil wired in parallel, you'd have two single coils side by side wired in parallel. You must USE 2 coils (not just have them) to get parallel tone.

What you can do is take a pair of dual coil pickups, split the coils in each and wire one coil from each in parallel to accomplish what you're after. It can't be done with a single humbucker.

[pilotjones]

I will answer this taking the assumption that luknfur's assumption was wrong. That way you'll have both answers.

If in fact you simply have a dual-coil humbucker, currently wired in parallel, with access to all four signal wires, and you are just looking for the right way to get a single coil only, then- you can just add an on/off switch in series with one of the two coils. This will open circuit that coil, leaving you with the other one alone.

If you are mistaken and the coils are actually in series, however, this will not work.