can i replace humbucker with single-coil?

[pistolsteve]

I've got an old RG 440 that I'm thinking fixing up a little. It has all the original pickups in it: humbucker in the bridge, single coils in middle and neck as show in the picture below.

I think I'd like to go with a typical strat-style 3 single coil configuration. Can I do that? If so, what does one do with the extra space where the humbucker route is?

[forest4]

The guitar looks so great original! Do you really want to change and re-wire the pick guard to accomidate the new pups. Why not just add a new pot and ciol tap the humbucker. I'd bet you would have to get a custom guard made for it. then you might even have to do a little routing on the single coil spaces to make the new parts fit.

[pistolsteve]

Originally Posted by forest4

The guitar looks so great original! Do you really want to change and re-wire the pick guard to accomidate the new pups. Why not just add a new pot and ciol tap the humbucker. I'd bet you would have to get a custom guard made for it. then you might even have to do a little routing on the single coil spaces to make the new parts fit.

Actually, the guitar's tone pot already serves to coil tap the humbucker. But I've never entirely understood what that means. If I tap the humbucker, is it essentially turning it into a single coil? If that's the case, then i guess the easiest thing would be to stick with a humbucker in that position, and retain the coil tapping capability.

[kotornut]

Originally Posted by pistolsteve

Actually, the guitar's tone pot already serves to coil tap the humbucker. But I've never entirely understood what that means. If I tap the humbucker, is it essentially turning it into a single coil? If that's the case, then i guess the easiest thing would be to stick with a humbucker in that position, and retain the coil tapping capability.

That's exactly what a coil tap means, but just for info's sake: many people would say that a tapped humbucker doesn't sound exactly like a single coil. I agree with that, however, I think it's close enough so that I wouldn't bother with it. Also, having a tap allows you to both humbucker and single coil sounds even if the single sound is 90% and not 100% accurate. Some humbuckers are better at tapping that others too. Conversly, there is no way to have a single tap into a humbucker or anything like that. So this is much more flexable as set ups go.


Your guitar is an old style RG the roadstar style from the early 80s I haven't seen a lot of those. It's nice

http://www.ibanezrules.com/catalogs/us/1986/p08.jpg

http://www.ibanezrules.com/catalogs/us/1986/p09.jpg

Look familiar?