Separating Precision Pickups

[Mickguard]

I've been playing around with a dual circuit on my baritone -- the neck and bridge pickups each have their own circuit, so I have two jacks. The bridge pickup feeds a Vox AC15, the neck pickup feeds my new Fender Rumble.

Right now I have a standard guitar humbucker at the neck, but I'd like to experiment with placing half of a Precision pickup set there instead -- this will focus that circuit mostly on the bass strings.

I have a Fender MIM Precision set -- there's a blue wire connecting the two halves to each other. The white lead attaches to Half One. The black ground attaches to the Half Two.

Am I'm right in thinking that I should connect the black ground to the blue wire's pole on Half One?

[psw]

Sounds like you mean half two...yes, basically there will be two wires, the blue and whatever other...listen to see that it isn't out of phase with the other pickups.

For get where I have seen this...maybe charlie Hunter, but probably that Chicago band (?)...anyway...they put both pairs of the split bass side by side (creates a mini HB) under the low e and a strings...between the neck and bridge pickups (on a tele from memory). One would probably be ok though, but effectively a single coil so potentially attract noise like any other SC.

Good luck with the project

pete

[SwedishLuthier]

As you do not run this "half a pickup" together with anything else you can use any of the leads as "ground". It is only if you combine it with anything else you will run into phase problems. Pretty much the same thing I did on my electric ukulele and the electric mandolin I made some years ago. I used one half of the pickup for the uke and the other half for the mandolin. Worked perfect and they are not more prune to pick up hum than say your everyday strat. But I say that Peter have an interesting point about the possibility to combine the coils for a HB effect. Might be interesting to try, but it will probably mean that you will have to expand the rout.

[Mickguard]

Well, I'm interested in what the single-coil is going to sound like. I have a humbucker in there right now, but I find the tone less focused than what I want. And I'll be able to mount half the precision without having to dismantle the entire guitar (much less route for the second half).

[SwedishLuthier]

On lighter strings (my electric uke and mandoline) they sound great. Take a pinch of the meaty beafed up sound from a P90 and one and a half pinch of the clearity of a fender SC and stir well. Or something like that...