Coil splitting adds sounds, but their usefulness is a you-call. Coil splitting comes with a roughly 50 percent output decrease (aka, volume drop) compared to full humbucker mode, plus the introduction of 60-cycle hum into your signal.

You can compensate for the shortcomings of splits with a compressor and/or a noise gate respectively, or you can just deal with it. I say wire the splits in, because even high quality push-pull pots are very affordable. Even if you rarely use the split sounds, they are there in case you want or need them.

The Alpha Omegas are cool. My favorite rock Duncans for the bridge position are the Custom 5 (Alnico V mag) and the Nazgul (ceramic mag). My favorite neck position is the Duncan '59 (A5). Titan is my favorite Dimarzio in this class.

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Posted by PillageUrVillage

Mordor

Member since Mar 2011

14845 posts

Posted on 5/5/22 at 1:05 pm to TheFretShack

quote:
You can compensate for the shortcomings of splits with a compressor and/or a noise gate respectively, or you can just deal with it. I say wire the splits in, because even high quality push-pull pots are very affordable. Even if you rarely use the split sounds, they are there in case you want or need them.

So I can essentially turn my humbuckers into single coils? Am I understanding that correctly? Are there any particular push-pull pots you'd recommend? If they're cheap enough I may go ahead and give them a try. I've always played on dual humbuckers full output, but maybe I'll discover a sound that I like from splitting. If I don't like it I can always go back to traditional 500k pots. Or I guess I could just leave the humbuckers in full output.

quote:
Custom 5 (Alnico V mag)

This is what I currently have on my bridge. My neck pickup is whatever came with the guitar. And I'm not sure if the humbucker doesn't work, or if there is an electronic issue. That's why I figured I'd rewire with new pots first.

Thanks for the reply.