Varied Tap

[Dave Hepworth]

Hi folks ,
Is it possible to have a device like some form of coil that you directly plug into .That coil would have tappings on a rotary switch to alter the impedance which you then feed into your amp.Would this give the same effect as replacing your pickup with a higher or
lower impedance pickup and hence sound.

[Fred]

I once used a dummy coil in parallel with a pickup to get a humbucking effect. It also lowered the impedance and altered the sound a lot.

The Gibson varitone used a coil and switch to several capacitors. Bill Lawrence had some coil device and Wilde still lists their Q-Filter. It's not tapped but they have info on using it in various applications.

https://www.wildepickups.com/collection ... s/q-filter

https://www.wildepickups.com/pages/q-filter

[Jon Light (deceased)]

Yep -- Bill Lawrence had this IQ 1200 unit. He described it to me as a "time machine" by which he meant that in his mind it was a way to alter the output of a modern humbucker to make it sound like a vintage low-wound single coil such as in the old Sho-Buds -- he specifically referred to that.
It has a dummy coil inside.

Every time I remember that I have it and hook it up, I remember that it's kind of cool. But it requires dramatic changes to your amp settings. You lose lots of signal (volume) and you need to boost your highs. But it certainly works in ways that you won't get to with a simple amp tone stack.

Even though I don't use mine, it remains in stand-by, a solution to a possible future problem. Years ago I said some embarrassingly wrong stuff about it here on the forum. Just saying that here in order to disassociate myself from anything the search engine might dredge up.

This is specifically addressing a post-pickup treatment. Of course you can have a pickup wound with a tap.

Ignore the bracket that I added long, long ago.

[Dave Grafe]

Brad Sarno's Steel Guitar Black Box and Revelation Pre both have excellent variable impedance inputs, plus 12AX7 tube response.