Bc Rich Pickup Question -

[RightD27]

Hello everyone. I’m gonna ask a question to which I’m pretty sure of the answer but hoping that you guys will prove me wrong.

A little preface. Between two of my sons and myself, we have about 40 guitars. Even though I have a bronze model Warlock (which I replaced the stock humbucker with a Lace high gain humbucker). It was used and onsale at a Guitar Center for an insanely low price. This was about 10 years ago. About this time last year me and my oldest son were talking and I mentioned that I wanted the REAL Warlock, all black with chrome hardware and not with the offset headstock. Well, the knucklehead went and got one and handed it to me on Christmas morning. This guitar is sick !!!! Despite it feeling so good playing it, the tone is sweet as honey. Clean or paint blistering gain. Outside of putting on skull volume / tone knobs, I had ZERO intention of doing anything to her.

This is where I need your help. My other son mentioned thinking about coil splitting his Charvel which has a single passive EMG humbucker. I joined this forum a few days ago when I took 2 of Marshall combos out of storage and went direct into them with the Warlock and was floored at how they sounded. Especially after about 30 years. When I plugged my Strat into them it was more ear candy. I don’t remember the Strat sounding that good on any of our other amps. Doing some research, it looks like all you need is a push / pull volume knob and some soldering. Providing the pickups have 4 wires. I can’t find the specs for the Warlock. Does anyone know if the stock pickups have 4 wires ? If not, what humbucker has 4 wires would sound like the pickup I’d be taking out ? I don’t want the guitars’ tone drastically changed when the coil isn’t split.

Apologies for such a lengthy post.

 

[jensvonbustenskjol]

Impressive collection, and you have great sons, no doubt. What if they just loved dub-step!?

Any who,
Have you thought of modifying a 2-conductor pu into 4-conductor?



Easy as pie

 

[RightD27]

Impressive collection, and you have great sons, no doubt. What if they just loved dub-step!?

Any who,
Have you thought of modifying a 2-conductor pu into 4-conductor?



Easy as pie

Thanks. It’s pretty fun with my 2 older boys (ages 21 and 19) because we’re all guitarists and teammates. We play together on a men’s league ice hockey team. I’m waiting for my youngest son (age 12) to get the bug to play music or hockey. LOL.

WOW !!!! Thanks for that vid. After I posted here I was drilling around the ‘ net to get an idea of what pickups had 4 wires and be versatile enough for the most extreme metal and then crystal clean or bluesy without a problem. Then I saw a problem I didn’t think of. Would the pickup fit ? Being able to use the existing pickup would be awesome. This seems like a great idea with modding the pickup. Thanks again !!!

 

[jensvonbustenskjol]

Sounds great! Best wishes to all four of you

I've been playing around with covering different 70s pus to 4 conductor, splitting, using slug coil as the prim,and also the PRS resistor mod.
A lot of possibilities, not just split "the common way".

One example

 

[ampmadscientist]

Hello everyone. I’m gonna ask a question to which I’m pretty sure of the answer but hoping that you guys will prove me wrong.

A little preface. Between two of my sons and myself, we have about 40 guitars. Even though I have a bronze model Warlock (which I replaced the stock humbucker with a Lace high gain humbucker). It was used and onsale at a Guitar Center for an insanely low price. This was about 10 years ago. About this time last year me and my oldest son were talking and I mentioned that I wanted the REAL Warlock, all black with chrome hardware and not with the offset headstock. Well, the knucklehead went and got one and handed it to me on Christmas morning. This guitar is sick !!!! Despite it feeling so good playing it, the tone is sweet as honey. Clean or paint blistering gain. Outside of putting on skull volume / tone knobs, I had ZERO intention of doing anything to her.

This is where I need your help. My other son mentioned thinking about coil splitting his Charvel which has a single passive EMG humbucker. I joined this forum a few days ago when I took 2 of Marshall combos out of storage and went direct into them with the Warlock and was floored at how they sounded. Especially after about 30 years. When I plugged my Strat into them it was more ear candy. I don’t remember the Strat sounding that good on any of our other amps. Doing some research, it looks like all you need is a push / pull volume knob and some soldering. Providing the pickups have 4 wires. I can’t find the specs for the Warlock. Does anyone know if the stock pickups have 4 wires ? If not, what humbucker has 4 wires would sound like the pickup I’d be taking out ? I don’t want the guitars’ tone drastically changed when the coil isn’t split.

Apologies for such a lengthy post.

You can split the coils but it takes some soldering talent.
Single coil: It buzzes. So really it's usually better to use it as a humbucking PU and forget about coil splitting.

 

[jensvonbustenskjol]

BTW pictures of the guitar is welcome

 

[RightD27]

I tried uploading a picture of my beloved Warlock in it’s stand next to the Lead 12 and Bass 12 but I got an error message saying that the file was too large. I took the picture with my iPhone 8 and never had a problem uploading pics anywhere. LOL.

I know that I’m going to take the plunge and split it. Unless the pups are potted, it’s pretty much a done deal. LOL. I am so curious as to how she’ll sound with a single coil in the bridge and then switch to the middle position where I’ll have the humbucker in the neck going while the single coil is on in the bridge. Then I was thinking of how I could wire it so that both pups would be split. I would think that I’d need to add a switch to have complete control over which pups are doing what. I gather that I’d need to install a volume pot that could do it (which I’d be amazed if they exist) or add a completely new switch which ain’t happening because I’m not making holes in the body of the guitar. If there was a pickguard it might be a different story.

We went to our local music store (Sam Ash) yesterday for little things like picks and strings. While we were there my son and I were checking out guitars and amps. I was curious about Vox. Damn that thing is loud. With the gain all of the way up, I barely had the volume to one and it was loud as hell. It was hard to really gauge how good the amp was because I couldn’t find a guitar that felt good or sounded good. I tinkered with a few Ibanez guitars and an SG. I was interested in seeing what newer Marshall combos sounded like. I was messing with the Code 50. That thing sounded great. I would need to read the manual on it because I couldnt get the onboard effects or reverb settings to change. LOL. It seems that simplicity is out the window with it until you learn how to get tones that you like and be able to save and load them.

 

[ampmadscientist]

I tried uploading a picture of my beloved Warlock in it’s stand next to the Lead 12 and Bass 12 but I got an error message saying that the file was too large. I took the picture with my iPhone 8 and never had a problem uploading pics anywhere. LOL.

I know that I’m going to take the plunge and split it. Unless the pups are potted, it’s pretty much a done deal. LOL. I am so curious as to how she’ll sound with a single coil in the bridge and then switch to the middle position where I’ll have the humbucker in the neck going while the single coil is on in the bridge. Then I was thinking of how I could wire it so that both pups would be split. I would think that I’d need to add a switch to have complete control over which pups are doing what. I gather that I’d need to install a volume pot that could do it (which I’d be amazed if they exist) or add a completely new switch which ain’t happening because I’m not making holes in the body of the guitar. If there was a pickguard it might be a different story.

We went to our local music store (Sam Ash) yesterday for little things like picks and strings. While we were there my son and I were checking out guitars and amps. I was curious about Vox. Damn that thing is loud. With the gain all of the way up, I barely had the volume to one and it was loud as hell. It was hard to really gauge how good the amp was because I couldn’t find a guitar that felt good or sounded good. I tinkered with a few Ibanez guitars and an SG. I was interested in seeing what newer Marshall combos sounded like. I was messing with the Code 50. That thing sounded great. I would need to read the manual on it because I couldnt get the onboard effects or reverb settings to change. LOL. It seems that simplicity is out the window with it until you learn how to get tones that you like and be able to save and load them.

You can take a picture and reduce it with microsoft paint, then post it. (or photoshop etc...)

You can put 2 humbucking PUs out of phase with a push pull pot.
This gives you the out of phase sound without the buzzing of a single coil pickup.
Sounds similar--without the noise.

IMHO coils splitting is just a goofy gimmick invented by vendors who wanted to make more cash and didn't think about all the noise it would make.
With a high gain amp, it's pretty un-usable...the buzzing is so loud.

 

[RightD27]

You can take a picture and reduce it with microsoft paint, then post it. (or photoshop etc...)

You can put 2 humbucking PUs out of phase with a push pull pot.
This gives you the out of phase sound without the buzzing of a single coil pickup.
Sounds similar--without the noise.

IMHO coils splitting is just a goofy gimmick invented by vendors who wanted to make more cash and didn't think about all the noise it would make.
With a high gain amp, it's pretty un-usable...the buzzing is so loud.

Thanks. I’ll look into the phase that you mentioned. What got this whole thing started was my playing my Strat with a hot rail in the bridge though the 2 Marshalls that I brought out of storage. I was amazed at how great she sounded with next no noise at all. I even took the noise gate off which I could next to never do before. The idea burrowed into my brain of getting my beloved Warlock to have the ability to have a single coil.