Can I use just half of a pbass pickup?

I play mainly guitar and plan to install half of a pbass pickup in my guitar and wire it up to a separate jack to allow me to essentially play bass and guitar at same time.

Scott Lucas from a band called Local H does it and a few others have done it as a result.

The pbass pickup is angled so that it covers just the bottom 2 strings and wired to another jack input. This extra signal goes through an octave pedal etc.....into a seperate amp, the normal guitar pickups work as normal.

My problem is...I only need to use half of a pbass pickup (as it is only for 2 strings).
pbass pickups seem to be wired together. How can I use just half?

From searching it looks like dimarzio split bass pickups look to be individual (ie not wired together but i could be wrong).

anyway, hope that makes sense, i just need to figure out how to use half of the pbass pickup before i order the parts.
how to wire it etc....just need to go straight to jack most likely

For info:
pic of guy from local h..
http://hideoconcert.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Local_H_Scott_Lucas_0163.jpg

video of him explaining how it works (but not how to only use half)


thanks for any help.

 

cool, thanks for the reply.
the split p from dimarzio is the only one i could find that were not linked together.

Are there any others?

if i got a split p, could i use 1 in a guitar and use the other in another guitar?

one has black and red wires.
the other has white and green wires.
http://www.gearnuts.com/store/detail/DP127BK
what's the difference?

would I just solder one wire to a pot to ground it and another to the jack?

i'm clueless when it comes to bass pickups, only ever installed guitar pickups.
cheers.

 

each half of the split p is a humbucker apparently, i figure that will sound better with dirt?

 

i had thought of that rip but i need to angle the bass pickup to accommodate for it being on a guitar instead of a bass and so it only covers the bottom 2 strings.

the guitar i'm gonna do it on already has 2 guitar humbuckers in it.

good idea though if it could work.

 

thanks for all your help people. I thught you all should get your own little reply!

smeet - checked out krappy guitars, not what i'm looking for but thanks for the heads up. I'd never heard of them. Nice to see someone doing lofi stuff!

blargh - sound interesting. i'm gonna try it with a standard guitar first but maybe sometime down the line this would be something to look into!

mudcat - did you just snip the wire connecting the 2 sides? how exactly did you wire it?

bassist4eris - that sounds cool, i'll try find it on youtube.

line6man - most pbass style pickups seem to be linked together like http://d3d71ba2asa5oz.cloudfront.net/50000170/images/spb-3.jpg

But the dimarzio split p each have their own 2 wires and are not wired together http://www.gearnuts.com/images/closeup/xl/1600-DP127BK_detail1.jpg

Dimarzio say "Each half of this unique double-blade P-style pickup is a complete humbucker".

http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/bass/standard-bass/split-p

i was hoping i could do it without soldering extra wire etc, i'm clearly not an expert!

lowerthetone - great point! i measured the space between the guitar i plan to do it in and there is roughly 2.5 inches (nearer 3 inches to be honest).

The split p is 1.1 inches across http://www.dimarzio.com/sites/default/files/diagrams/pbcovdim.pdf

so i could sit them both side by side straight up and down and jus make sure they only cover the bottom 2.

the only thing is, if each half is a complete humbucker I could use each in a separate guitar to keep as a spare for gigs.

tn woodman - i thought so too but apparently each half of the split p is a complete humbucker.

 

eeek, sorry, missed out bassic playing....i'm in the uk so it would probably end up quite expensive.
i'll check out his site though, cheers!