Pickup 4 conductor wiring question

[Telewanger]

If you split a 4 wire double coil to make it sound more like a single coil, what is the best way to wire it. My diagrams say parallel?

I want it to be a dual coil as it was intended, but I want to use another 2 or 3 way switch to also get the best single coil sound that I can out to it.

I have a bunch of wiring diagrams, but I wanted to hear some opinions.

 

[markb]

Parallel wiring gets you a thinner sound but retains the hum cancellation. Coil tapping (really coil shunting) uses one coil only. No hum cancellation. Deaf Eddie has lots of variations and some good technical background.

http://deaf-eddie.net/drawings/drawings.html

 

[Ch0jin]

So if I understand correctly, you want SC tone, but you -don't- want to wire it for what they call "coil shunt" which is effectively taking one half of the HB out of play by 'shunting' to ground. I think coil shunt is the "standard" way of wiring a coil tap switch, that's how the SD SH4 in my Maton and the GFS Fat PAT in my Squier are wired anyway.

Instead you are thinking of switching from series (standard HB wiring) to parallel, which (in theory, I've not tried it) results in a brighter tone with lower volume and maintains hum bucking properties.

Is that about right?

Because if it is, my experience with two guitars wired for coil shunt is less than encouraging I'm afraid.

The SD SH4 JB in the Maton is an amazing pickup, but tap it, and all that happens is it becomes a slightly thinner version of itself.

The GFS FAT PAT in the bridge of my Squier is more usable when coil shunted (because, I assume, it's a hotter PU than the SD SH4) and I guess it does sound like a very hot angry SC, but play it for a while then switch it back to HB mode and you realise you were missing out on a lot of extra fullness to your tone.

Basically, my limited experience reveals that with -my- combination of guitars and pickups, making HB's into SC's is a waste of good HB tones.

Hopefully someone has tried the series parallel switch and can comment on that. I've not tried it because I haven't needed lower output and more treble from a guitar (...yet haha)

Oh and if you haven't seen it. THIS is a pretty good site explaining guitar electronics and switching in really basic terms.

 

[Telewanger]

Thanks!

I will wire it several different ways and just try different things. Since I am putting a Duncan Little 59 in it, I will need to wire it pretty bright for single coil tone and just series for regular Dual tone.

 

[marnold]

My old Fender Showmaster just had a single 'bucker in it. I had it wired once with a coil tap/shunt and once with series/parallel. I liked the parallel tones a lot better. It gets brighter, thinner, almost single coil-like, and still hum canceling. I posted a bunch of clips comparing and contrasting the various options. Hope that helps.

You could get some of those Seymour Duncan switching mounting rings. That way you could have series, parallel, and shunt either coil.