Les Paul coil tap with the tone control,possible?

I have a Les Paul Supreme and I have been thinking about changing out the pickups as I dont really care for the clean tone.

I personally dont think that you can get a good clean tone out of humbuckers (just my taste maybe).

So before I spend the scratch on replacement pickups I would like to check out coil tapping the pickups to see if that makes me happier.

I dont like adding switches as I just dont like the look and Im not adverse to push/pull pots but I have heard there is a way of using the tone controls to act as a coil tap when the tone control is rolled right off which would suit me better than push/pull pots anyway.

Does anyone know if this is correct? and if it is possible to do could someone help me out and explain how I would go about doing the mod?

If it is indeed possible and I check it out and am still not happy with the stock pickups then when I change the pups I will still want to use this idea with the replacement pups.

I dont use the tone controls anyway so they may as well be put to some use :twisted:

The only thing that I know of that will produce 'coil-tap-like' tones with out actually doing a coil tap and adding a switch is the "Q-Filter" that Bill Lawrence sells on his site. I bought one and installed it on my Iceman when I got the L500R and L500XL pickups. Its about 20$ and is installed in series with a resistor on your tone knob. That said...

Most Gibson pickups, (read: the ones that come stock with their guitars) are two wire; and therefore cannot be tapped. I have two such pickups that came from a Gibson Studio Gothic Les Paul. So you would need to get new pickups if you wanted to do the coil tap, no matter what.

In order to coil-tap a humbucker you need to have a third wire (or 4). This wire is the start (?) of the second coil. The switch shorts the 2nd coil, leaving one coil operational. The switch is ESSENTIAL. To my knowledge there is no way to short out a coil using a potentiometer. There is something on the duncan site called "Spin-a-Split" that seems to work as more of a 'blend' knob, but it is not the same as a coil-tap. And inorder to make it work you need a pick up that is 4-wire. I have not seen a 4-wire pickup from gibson. I am not sure if they even make that.



Your best bet is to either try the Bill Lawrence "Q-Filter", or buy some new pickups that are 3 or 4 wire. I HIGHLY recommend Bill Lawrence pickups, and would get some more while he's still alive.

http://www.wildepickups.com/The_Wilde_Collection.php

I took me years to figure out how to get a clean sound that I liked out of humbuckers (I'm a little slow).

Turn down the volume on the guitar.

you want the jimmy page modification.

google guitar player magazine, somewhere in there, is a full blown diagram of what page does to his les pauls....

dmt said:

There is something on the duncan site called "Spin-a-Split" that seems to work as more of a 'blend' knob, but it is not the same as a coil-tap.

Click to expand...

Why not the same? It's basically variably shunting the two wires to the ground. At full CCW turn (or CW if you solder the ground to the other lug), it's practically 0 ohm between the center and other soldered lug, same as shorting with a switch, effectively turning off one coil. It's a great idea if you don't use the tone control.

Using a push-pull tone pot is another idea. You still get to use the tone control, but you don't get the controllability of the "Spin-a-Split". In any case, DMT is right in that you need at least 3-wired humbucker (4 if you count the ground wire) to make coil tap possible. The duncan diagram shows a 4-wired humbucker (again 5 if you count the ground).

I have a set of Gibson 496R and 500T four conductor pickups available if anyone is interested. Look here: http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?t=25376

I would use the Jimmy Page setup, push-pull pots, separate for neck/bridge, the new Gibson Axcess has one push-pull pot that controls both pickups.

Thanks for all the replies.

Im not sure but I think the option for push/pull pots is a non starter because the Supreme is a semi hollow guitar without any access plates on the back so the larger push/pull pots may not fit in the guitar,Gibson had to use smaller pots than standard so they could get them to fit as all the internal electrics are installed thru the larger jack plate.

The spin a split option seems to be what I am looking for.

I will have to have a search on the Seymour Duncan site and see how to go about doing the mod.

Try the Triple shots from Duncan. 2 micro switches on the pick up ring. You'll never get the coil tap pots through the small access hole in a supreme. I've put them on a bunch of my guitars.