Split humbuckers

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

 

What's the forums view of coil splits on humbucker guitars. I've done 4 over the past few months, three on Ltd 256s.

 

On all occasions the owners were looking to upgrade their stock pickups and in all honesty the G&Bs in the Ltd, which I understand is also what comes in most PRS SE models are very decent.

 

Out of all the replacemenst the ones that really rocked me were the Tonerider Rocksongs, simply glorious bridge sounds through my little workshop Laney Cub 12R, but all were underwhelming whne it came to the coil splits.

 

On teh Ltd EC-256 they use a push-pull on the master tone and it's a 250K pot, and its fine with the buckers but when engaged, just sounds a but muffled and ordinary.

 

Anybody LOVE any particular pickup split or anybody concur with my findings?

 

Thoughts

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

As an aside, the Ltd EC-256 is just f

[jpnyc]

I have two split guitars. My Schecter C1-EX baritone has a Duncan

[thewthrman]

The only aftermarket pickup that I thought sounded anything like a dedicated single coil pickup when it was split was a duncan invader I used in a top-40 band in the 80s.  I guess a regular humbucker's individual coils are smaller than a regular single coil pickup.  When you split them, they don't sound like I thought they would.  I thought the invader sounded like crap as a humbucker, but when i split it, it sounded OK. 

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

 

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jpnyc wrote:

 

I have two split guitars. My Schecter C1-EX baritone has a Duncan

[kayd_mon]

I put a coil split on a JB of mine once, but reversed it soon after. Too much of a volume drop.

 

I play SGs at shops a lot, and newer Gibsons have coil splits on them. I think that they sound good in split mode, but still there's the volume drop.

[P. Hubbs]

I like to split my humbuckers. But I seldom use them split alone, but often use two pickups with one split. It gives an airy and jangly tone useful for chords. Here

[stormin1155]

I had a 335 with split '57s.  I didn't care for the split sound.  I currently have a Fender Showmaster with split Fender's Atomic II in the bridge and Santa Ana in the neck.  I love the Santa Ana... I can get an almost acoustic tone.  The split Atomic is very thin, out of phase sounding, and I find little use for it.

[Danhedonia]

Out of curiosity, how and why are you seeing so many of the same models and mods?

[thecakeguru]

The dimarzio AT1, Dsonic, and Norton, all sound really good in split modes.. I like the dsonic's split mode a lot.. THe At1 I can pull out some country'esque sounds when its split.. imo

[guitarcapo]

I sometimes will add a split feature to a neck humbucker to brighten it up....Not so much with the bridge.

 

Humbuckers with one coil wound hotter are nicer to do this with....Like Burstbuckers, Fralin Unbuckers, SD Pearly Gates. They also have a touch more single coil character with both coils activated which is nice.

[PurpleTrails]

Dimarzio SD pickups sound good split, pretty strat-like.