Noodle Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 I see the term 'coil tapping' everywere. But i don't have a clue besides that it has something to do with humbuckers.. please enlighten me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truerussian558 Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 as you might now, a humbucker, is like 2 reverse polarity single coils, wired in a series, thus they cancel noise, the same way that the 2 and 4th position on a strat hum less because the middle pickup has a reversed polarity (relative to the others), so they act like a humbucker, COil tapping a humbucker means thet you only use one of the coils on a humbucker, basically making it a signle copil pickup, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noodle Posted June 29, 2004 Author Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 Aha ok so thats the trick So to do coil tapping you need one of those humbuckers with a switch (on the potmeter) like for example the Dualtone from Dimarzio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEdwardJones Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 I read once that there was actually a difference between "coil tapping" and "coil splitting." Coil Tapping properly refers to changing the humbucker from series to parrallel (or back) which gives it a similar sound as a single, but with less noise. Coil Splitting is cutting the volume from one of the coils of a humbucker, which gives it a sound similar to a single, but with less noise. I've never read this anywhere else and for the whole 18 years I've been playing, I've never heard anyone refer to coil tapping as anything other than killing one of the coils. anybody else heard o' this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truerussian558 Posted June 29, 2004 Report Share Posted June 29, 2004 Aha ok so thats the trick So to do coil tapping you need one of those humbuckers with a switch (on the potmeter) like for example the Dualtone from Dimarzio. no you can always wire your own tap, the basic rundown, is that theres a wire connecting the two coils, and if you connect another wire to that wire and use it as a lead, the second coil isnt used at all, and then you can connect it to any kind of switch, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jefm Posted June 30, 2004 Report Share Posted June 30, 2004 Ummm Coil tapping as it's properly known is used in the same coil to split it in half....it's only done on a few PU's...all single coils I think...so you can go from a coil with 1000 turns to one with 3000 turns at the flick of a switch....(just an example) Most common place to see a coil tapped is in transformers...actually almost always transformers are tapped in anycase....coil taps are designed into the product and can't be added afterwards Coil splitting...often mistaken as coil tapping is used with Humbucking pickups...it's as simple as.....now you've got 2 coils.....now you've got 1.....that's about it... that's acheived either by bypassing a coil completely or shorting it to ground... Going series/parallel is just that... HB's are normally 2 coils in series...if you put 2 coils in parallel...it works like 2 single coils... While were on the topic phasing is another fun thing to do....if you wire the 2 PU's out of phase instead of complimenting each other they cancel each other out...it's actually quite a different sound...I like it.....some don't Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truerussian558 Posted June 30, 2004 Report Share Posted June 30, 2004 the hting is that generally when guitarist sre taking about coil tapping they're talking about coil splitting Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivin Posted June 30, 2004 Report Share Posted June 30, 2004 Is there an echo in here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truerussian558 Posted June 30, 2004 Report Share Posted June 30, 2004 Is there an echo in here? huh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hy_dro66 Posted June 30, 2004 Report Share Posted June 30, 2004 Is there an echo in here? huh huh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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