I have a American Special HSS Strat. My question is this: Is it possible to mod it with a coil splitter switch using the factory Atomic Humbucker that comes in it?? Not sure I can do it with the existing pup or would have to buy and aftermarket replacement. Appreciate anyone who can shed some light on this for me. Thanks.

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"It's about sound and sound alone. Looks are irrelevant. You can have the best-looking guitar on earth, but if the sound isn't there it is nothing more than a beautiful piece of trash. The sound it makes is the soul of any guitar."

To the best of my knowledge it can be done, but it's not easy if you don't know what you're doing.

I would get an aftermarket one. Know one thing though. When you hit the coil tap you will lose output when you strike the strings. And it will make you mad. I ended up using a separate volume boost pot just to make up for the loss.

There is another thing you can do. Find a luthier who can build one or put an order in to Lindy Fralin and have him make you the pickup. I here that he can make a pickup that solves the output loss.

http://www.guitarpartsresource.com/pickups_fenderhum.htm


This site says it has a four conductor lead, so you should be able to do it, but paris is right, depending on how the coil is wound you could lose alot of output.

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I have an Epi Les Paul Trad. Pro with coil tapping and there is barely a perceivable boost in volume when you switch from one to two coils,it may be 1-3 db at the most. I don't know how they get around this problem but it's obviously doable.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

probs mis-matched coils, so that the one you split to has a few more turns, or the magnets are taller...

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Thanks for the guidance! I'm not planning to try doing it myself at all, but would take it to a good guitar tech I know and trust. I plan to let him pop the pickguard off and look things over and I'll ask him about the loss of output issue, and if there's any way he knows to lessen the effect of that. Like one of you mentioned, I'm not worried if it drops as little as 1-3 dB, as that's barely perceptible, but if I'm going to get a BIG drop, then I'll scrap the whole idea and live with it, as-is. The Atomic 'bucker don't sound bad, at least to my ears, at all. I just had the thought that it would make my sound more versatile if I were able to switch between and HB and a single coil tone when playing different things.

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"It's about sound and sound alone. Looks are irrelevant. You can have the best-looking guitar on earth, but if the sound isn't there it is nothing more than a beautiful piece of trash. The sound it makes is the soul of any guitar."

There is an easy (IMO) way to do it where you would use one of your tone pots while converting the other tone pot to a master. With this setup, you can dial in and out how much you'd want from the one coil while the other coil remains full on.

Here's a diagram:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/sc ... c=sum96tip

Note that per this diagram, they show red and white leads going to the splitter pot. Now of course, this is for a Duncan pickup. With your Fender pickup, it would be the black and white leads. With the Duncan pickups, the green and black leads are ground and hot respectively. With your Fender pickup, the red and green are ground and hot respectively. Naturally, the bare wire for either brand is a ground.

The best part about this mod is that the guitar remains totally stock looking, there is nothing to buy and obviously, it is completely reversible.

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You dig?

Install an S-1 switch.

Thanks, Martian!! That just might be the ticket for me. I'll print out the schematic, make a note about the color differences and take it to my tech.

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"It's about sound and sound alone. Looks are irrelevant. You can have the best-looking guitar on earth, but if the sound isn't there it is nothing more than a beautiful piece of trash. The sound it makes is the soul of any guitar."

I have about a dozen different guitars that offer coil splitting (ranging from a FSR Tele to my new Epi Nighthawk) and I have found the differences in output drop to be wide ranging - some very noticeable and some not so much. I have a Washburn Idol with VCC (Voice Contour Control) that took the Tone control knobs and turned them into variable coil splitters. As you turn each of the knobs, bridge or neck humbuckers move slowly into single coil mode. There is NO output drop and no hum of any kind and the options are infinite. I should take that thing apart someday and see how they did it wiring wise.



If you look closely you can see VCC in gold on what would ordinarily be Tone knobs.

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

You're quite welcome.

FWIW: The S-1 switches have a HIGH propensity for breaking down. Yea, I know, some will say, "I've had mine for 95 years now and I've never had a problem with it." To them I say, "You have no idea how lucky you are!"

Just a thought: If you have to take this information to your tech as either a revelation to her/him or simply in order for said tech to accomplish this, I'd seriously consider finding another one as any COMPETENT tech should surely know all about it. (As always, this is merely IMO where YMMV.)

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You dig?

Well, I've known this guy for years and he's done some successful work for me. I have no doubt that he is very competent and most likely will know what to do anyway. In fact, he mentioned putting a push/pull S1 switch in it, so I guess he wouldn't even need the schematic at all.

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"It's about sound and sound alone. Looks are irrelevant. You can have the best-looking guitar on earth, but if the sound isn't there it is nothing more than a beautiful piece of trash. The sound it makes is the soul of any guitar."