Can anyone explain to me how to add a coil split function to the 2021 SG Tribute? It comes with 490R/490T pickups which are 4 connector. I want to activate it with a push pull on the top tone pot so that pulled up is single coil on BOTH pickups and pushed down is humbucker also on both pickups. Thanks to anyone who helps!
First off, use the below FIRST to modify the diagram below it for the color codes for Gibson. Guitar Humbucker Wire Color Codes | Guitar Wirirng Diagrams (guitarelectronics.com) Now follow this diagram. 2 Humbuckers/3-Way Toggle Switch/2 Volumes/2 Tones/Coil Tap (guitarelectronics.com)
Utilizing its DPDT switch, one of these would do it - https://toneshapers.com/cts-pot-500k-audio-push-pull-split-shaft.html Although they're a little taller than the guitar is thick. Without removing any wood, you'd have to form a hole in the control cavity cover as shown in this thread - https://www.everythingsg.com/threads/70s-tribute-w-cts-wiring-modifications.37581/ I've emailed CTS and explained the issue and so far they haven't made it any more compact.
Ok, define what you mean by "coil split". If you mean turning off one coil of a humbucker, same thing.
Coil split means removing one coil of a humbucker from the circuit. Coil tap is when you tap into the windings somewhere on a single coil to get a lower output signal. They are not the same, but people often say "tap" when they mean "split". Look on the Seymour Duncan site, they have heaps of easy to follow wiring diagrams.
In the 50's and 60's, a "coil tap" was a wire, buried somewhere in the windings, that allowed you to "tap" that wire, and get a lower output on your pickup. Later on in the 70's, a split, or a tap, the terms became interchangeable since no one was building pickups with the original "tap" wire in them. Even Duncan and Dimarzio are using the term tap for coil split.
And Leo Fender misused the terms tremolo and vibrato, and his mistakes continue to be used to this day, but it doesn't change the fact that they're wrong.
My 2015 SG Standard came from the factory with push-pull coil splits. The results are somewhat under - whelming with the original pickups. Just so you know.