page_title: Guitar wiring
section_title: Coil splitting
hierarchical_section_title: Guitar wiring / Custom wiring modifications / Coil splitting
caption_attribution_description: English: Modified guitar wiring scheme for a Les Paul. This wiring scheme is a recent evolution from the famous Jimmy-Page-wiring using four push-pull-pots to allow 21 different pick-up combinations. The Twenty-Dual adds one more, including a parallel-wiring for the bridge-pickup (dual-sound), as well as a number of other useful features such as a bypass for the serial combinations and a tone-control (NT) that can be used as a treble booster in a so-called broadbucker-configuration.
context_page_description: Guitar wiring refers to the electrical components, and interconnections thereof, inside an electric guitar. It most commonly consists of pickups, potentiometers to adjust volume and tone, a switch to select between different pickups, and the output socket. There may be additional controls for specific functions; the most common of these are described below.
context_section_description: A humbucker pickup is electrically equivalent to two single-coil pickups wired together in series. Coil splitting involves shorting one of the coils to ground, essentially turning the humbucker into a single-coil pickup (not a perfect replica, though, as the magnetic circuits of the two pickup types are different). This is usually done with a DPDT switch, but can also be done with a push-pull pot. Some manufacturers have used a pot to vary the amount of signal shorted to ground from one coil, thus producing a range of tones between a humbucker and a single-coil. Coil splitting results in a sound that's brighter and has less output than a full humbucker. It also eliminates the humbucker's noise-cancelling properties. This modification requires the start and end of both coils to be exposed, which is more commonly available on aftermarket than stock pickups.
  This modification is commonly (and incorrectly) referred to as "coil tap", which actually involves bypassing part of a pickup's coil using a tap point on the coil. This also serves to reduce the pickup's output and change its sound, but is found only on single coil pickups (and even then rarely).
caption: A diagram showing a wiring modification for a Les Paul or a similar electric guitar with two humbuckers. Wiring schemes using four push-pull pots for additional pickup combinations were made popular by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and later produced as a signature model by Gibson. The modification shown in this diagram is an evolution of the original concept combining coil splitting, phase cancellation and parallel/series switching for a total of 22 different pickup combinations.
exif: {}