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Has any one acutaly played a guitar with this feature? I you have
did you like it?
> Has any one acutaly played a guitar with this feature? I you have
> did you like it?
A few years ago I bought a blue sparkle Squire Super-Sonic to be my surf
guitar when I was first getting interested in surf. It has a reverse Jaguar
style body AND reverse over sized-headstock, 24" scale, strat style trem, 2
Atomic humbuckers, and 2 volume pots. Its a sister to the more popular
Jagmaster, and was probably made to cash in on the grunge stuff going on at
the time. My other motiviation was to learn how to do some guitar mods. I
took out the pickups and installed a Seymour Duncan Jazz humbucker pickup in
the neck position, and some other kind of Seymour Duncan Humbucker in the
bridge (HB-3?). I wanted it clean for surf. However, these pickups are
humbuckers, and I really wanted single coils. So I replaced the volume pots
with the push/pull kind and coil tapped the pickups. After installing .011
flatwounds I was good to go!! Coil tapping gives you a lot of options for
sounds.
Its a great little guitar, it looks very cool in an odd way, very light and
well made. However the neck is too narrow for me, its probably equivalent to
an A width. Since I got a Jaguar now I don't play this anymore and <gasp>
I'm actually thinking about selling it.
BN
I have a Kramer Baretta with the QuadRail pickups that include that feature.
I leave it in the "tap" mode most of the time because I like a lot of treble
and it seems to deliver more treble when tapped. Here's the specs: Push/Pull
"Quad to Dual-Rail" Dual-Tap Mode
- IN: 4 coils x 2 pickups = All
8 coils engaged
- OUT: 2 coils x 2 pickups = 4
coils engaged
(Closest to the neck on both
pickups is engaged)
By the way, I was in California on business and caught Los Straitjackets at
the Galaxy Theater in Santa Ana. It was the first time I have seen them. Deke
Dickerson was in the show and I was in guitar heaven. I have not seen any
discussion about the guitars that Los Straitjackets had on stage. They were not
the
double cutaway variety, but I couldn't make out what the make was. I liked
them and was blown away by the show as were the business associates I dragged
along who were not really familiar with Los Straitjackets.
Back to coil tapping, it does allow for a wide range of style. The Baretta
has a Floyd Rose so it's sort of suited for hard rock, but can deliver a surf
sound, especially in the tap mode.
rl
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I have had several coil tapped guitars. Basically, two wires are
wrapped around the magnetic posts, one less wraps than the other. This
basically gives two different impedances for the pickup. It's an
attempt to add a single coil type of tone to a humbucker. It kind of
sort of gives you an effect like the thin switch on a Jag. When
dealing with good coil tapped pickups, I have appreciated the feature.
I've had them on schecter and modified PRS guitars. I had some Barden
Two-Tone pickups that were coil tapped that were virtually
indistinguishable from his single coil strat pickups. I found I was
using the coil taps all the time and asked myself--why not just get a
guitar with single coils? I personally prefer the tone of the JM
pickups, or the P90 soapbars. I never like the tone of heavy
humbuckers, so I now see coil taps as pretty much a form of
versatility I no longer have any use for. I never play any type of
music that requires humbuckers. Twang is my thang...
--- In , "Ian" <skatilite_of_love@h...>
wrote:
> Has any one acutaly played a guitar with this feature? I you have
> did you like it?
> I have had several coil tapped guitars. Basically, two wires are
> wrapped around the magnetic posts, one less wraps than the other. This
> basically gives two different impedances for the pickup. It's an
> attempt to add a single coil type of tone to a humbucker.
Coil tapping is where you flip a switch and voila, one of the coils on the
humbucker is shorted to ground, thus giving you a true single coil pickup.
BN
Do you have a picture of it, ive never seen that particular kind of guitar
before, i am very interested in coil tapping, i have a gretsch with
humbuckers, and i love the guitar but cant play surf on the humbuckers. that
leaves me with either coil tapping or replacing the pick ups with the
tv-jones hi-Lo tron pick ups, that the gretsch company is re-issuing for
thier newer guitars.
>From: "Brian Neal" <>
>Reply-To:
>To: <>
>Subject: RE: [SurfGuitar101] coil tapping
>Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2003 10:41:31 -0500
>
> > Has any one acutaly played a guitar with this feature? I you have
> > did you like it?
>
>A few years ago I bought a blue sparkle Squire Super-Sonic to be my surf
>guitar when I was first getting interested in surf. It has a reverse Jaguar
>style body AND reverse over sized-headstock, 24" scale, strat style trem, 2
>Atomic humbuckers, and 2 volume pots. Its a sister to the more popular
>Jagmaster, and was probably made to cash in on the grunge stuff going on at
>the time. My other motiviation was to learn how to do some guitar mods. I
>took out the pickups and installed a Seymour Duncan Jazz humbucker pickup
>in
>the neck position, and some other kind of Seymour Duncan Humbucker in the
>bridge (HB-3?). I wanted it clean for surf. However, these pickups are
>humbuckers, and I really wanted single coils. So I replaced the volume pots
>with the push/pull kind and coil tapped the pickups. After installing .011
>flatwounds I was good to go!! Coil tapping gives you a lot of options for
>sounds.
>
>Its a great little guitar, it looks very cool in an odd way, very light and
>well made. However the neck is too narrow for me, its probably equivalent
>to
>an A width. Since I got a Jaguar now I don't play this anymore and <gasp>
>I'm actually thinking about selling it.
>
>BN
>
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Well, I've been winding pickups for years, but since you probably
won't believe me, here is the definition of coil taps from the pickup
glossary located at:
"Coil Tap - traditionally a way of dividing the coils of a humbucker
to produce a single coil sound, however, coil tapping can be true coil
tapping whereby the windings of a coil are interrupted during winding
and a lead attached before the windings are then finished thus in
effect on one bobbin you would have two coils, one wound on top of the
other. These two coils will not be humbucking as they will be be in
the same magnetic field. Coil tapping can also be used for making
pickups out of phase, and for series/ parallel switching."
Coil tapping is an electronic techique originally used in building
radio tuners, that was the inspiration for the pickup winding method.
There are two ways of accomplishing this. One is to wrap multiple
coils, each with their own lead, the other is to periodically bring a
lead out from a single coil after so many windings.
--- In , "Brian Neal" <bneal@i...> wrote:
> > I have had several coil tapped guitars. Basically, two wires are
> > wrapped around the magnetic posts, one less wraps than the other. This
> > basically gives two different impedances for the pickup. It's an
> > attempt to add a single coil type of tone to a humbucker.
>
> Coil tapping is where you flip a switch and voila, one of the coils
on the
> humbucker is shorted to ground, thus giving you a true single coil
pickup.
>
> BN
> "Coil Tap - traditionally a way of dividing the coils of a humbucker
> to produce a single coil sound, however, coil tapping can be true coil
> tapping whereby the windings of a coil are interrupted during winding
> and a lead attached before the windings are then finished thus in
> effect on one bobbin you would have two coils, one wound on top of the
> other. These two coils will not be humbucking as they will be be in
> the same magnetic field. Coil tapping can also be used for making
> pickups out of phase, and for series/ parallel switching."
I bought a humbucker with 4 leads instead of 2. When I flip a switch (or
pull up on my push/pull volume pot), I send one of the coils to ground. And
voila, the humbucker (2 coils) now becomes a single coil. When the switch is
closed, you have your standard 2 coil humbucker. That, to me, is coil
tapping.
I realize that you can tap the pickup at arbitary points, but when you see a
guitar advertised as having a coil tap, they are most likely talking about
turning a humbucker into a single coil with some kind of switch.
BN
Thanks for all the input on coil tapping... although a bit more than i
expected, none the less good info, i think that this might be a better
alternative to getting new pick ups.
>From: "Brian Neal" <>
>Reply-To:
>To: <>
>Subject: RE: [SurfGuitar101] Re: coil tapping
>Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 11:57:27 -0500
>
> > "Coil Tap - traditionally a way of dividing the coils of a humbucker
> > to produce a single coil sound, however, coil tapping can be true coil
> > tapping whereby the windings of a coil are interrupted during winding
> > and a lead attached before the windings are then finished thus in
> > effect on one bobbin you would have two coils, one wound on top of the
> > other. These two coils will not be humbucking as they will be be in
> > the same magnetic field. Coil tapping can also be used for making
> > pickups out of phase, and for series/ parallel switching."
>
>I bought a humbucker with 4 leads instead of 2. When I flip a switch (or
>pull up on my push/pull volume pot), I send one of the coils to ground. And
>voila, the humbucker (2 coils) now becomes a single coil. When the switch
>is
>closed, you have your standard 2 coil humbucker. That, to me, is coil
>tapping.
>
>I realize that you can tap the pickup at arbitary points, but when you see
>a
>guitar advertised as having a coil tap, they are most likely talking about
>turning a humbucker into a single coil with some kind of switch.
>
>BN
>
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