This mod enables variable splitting of humbucker pickups, allowing you to easily blend your desired amount of humbucker and split-coil tones.

Hello and welcome back to Mod Garage. As a follow-up to the “Tapping and Splitting: What’s the Difference?” column in the October 2021 issue, this month we’ll take a closer look at variable splitting of humbuckers that’s also known as the “spin-a-split” mod. This mod can be applied to all humbuckers with a 4-conductor wiring because we need access to the start and end of both coils. You can’t do this mod to humbucker pickups with a standard 2-conductor wiring. Most humbuckers can be converted from 2-conductor to 4-conductor wiring; however, you need to open the pickup for this, which can be a delicate job. That job is best left to a guitar tech, because destroying the pickup is easy to do.

The basic idea of this mod is very simple. With a switch, you can split the humbucker to a single-coil pickup resulting in two very different tones: 100 percent humbucker or 100 percent single-coil. The variable coil-splitting mod uses a pot instead of a switch, so you don’t have only two given tones but also anything in between, giving you precise control over the amount of split.

This is not just about balancing tone, but also balancing hum-free operation. The more humbucker you have, the less hum and noise will be present and vice versa. With the pot fully opened you have 100 percent humbucker, and with the pot fully closed you have 100 percent single-coil. But it’s easy to dial in any tone you want, for example, 70 percent humbucker plus 30 percent single-coil, which gives a good proportion of hum-free operation.

So, you’ll have easy access to a huge range of tones from only one humbucker pickup by mixing single-coil and humbucker sounds. You can also mimic other pickups with this mod, such as P-90s or Filter’Trons. Another cool bonus is that when you have too much bass or overdrive in full humbucker mode, you can use the spin-a-split to instantly clear things up.

The idea is not new. It first showed up in the mid 1970s and Hartley Peavey is the person to whom all the credit must go. Most people think this is an easy mod, which only partly hits the nail, and I’ll explain why in just a moment.

Let’s have a look at the basic configuration and how this mod works (Fig. 1). You need a spin-a-split pot for each humbucker pickup you want to install this wiring into. As usual, I chose the Seymour Duncan color code to demonstrate the mod because it’s the quasi-standard in the guitar world. If you want to transfer the color code to humbucker pickups from another company, you can use one of the many color code transfer charts on the internet.

As usual, the green and the bare wires go to ground so there’s nothing new here. The black wire is the output, going to a pickup-selector switch or to the input lug of a volume control. The red and the white wires are going to the middle lug (lug #2) of the spin-a-split pot while the bottom lug (lug #3) is grounded. When the pot is turned all the way down, the red and white wires will be connected directly to ground, which is a normal coil-split setup for single-coil tone. When the control is turned all the way up, the red and white wires are not connected to ground at all, which means normal humbucker mode and tone.

This is where the trouble starts. In reality, both wires are still slightly connected to ground but with a large resistance, depending on what pot you use for this. This will drain a good portion of volume and tone to ground. A perfect and easy fix to get rid of this lingering connection to ground is using a no-load pot, which removes the ground connection when the pot is turned all the way up.

If you want to use a tone pot as a spin-a-split pot, you’ll find a 500k or 250k audio pot. It’s essential to replace this one with a no-load pot or convert the existing pot into a no-load pot by breaking the connection internally. If for any reason this is not possible, you should use a 100k pot, but finding them in guitar-friendly configurations is a challenge. Linear pots work best for this mod, so with a little luck you’ll find a 500k linear tone pot in your humbucker guitar, which is a perfect base for this mod by making it a no-load pot.

As you can see, it’s not as easy as it seems, and as always, the devil is in the details.

In closing, here’s an illustration (Fig. 2) of the spin-a-split mod together with a volume pot for the same pickup. Instead of connecting the wire to the input of the volume pot, you can connect it to a pickup-selector switch if you have more than one pickup in your guitar.

That’s it! Next month we’ll do a mod for Stratocaster guitars called the “Ricky King” mod, so stay tuned. Until then ... keep on modding!

Dr. Z releases the Z-28 Mk. II, a new take on his EF-86 design, and designed to hold its own amongst the classics of the Z Amp lineup.

Two-plus years in the making, the Z-28 Mk. II builds upon the original Z-28 by revamping the power section to two robust 5881 tubes pushing a Celestion Creamback M65 in a specially-designed 1x12 cabinet draped in muscle car red tolex. Dr. Z included his Mk. II master volume control circuit, as seen in the flagship MAZ series, to achieve full control over the volume and dynamics this high-headroom amp is capable of, be it at home at practice, or on stage.

The Z-28 Mk. II 1x12 Combo retails for $2049, and the head version for $1899. The Z-28 Mk. II is available for sale at authorized Dr. Z dealers.

For more information, please visit drzamps.com

These compact amps are designed for home practice and jamming and have custom-designed stereo speakers.

Boss announces the Dual Cube LX and Dual Cube Bass LX, the latest members of the acclaimed CUBE amplifier family from Boss and its parent company Roland. For over four decades, Cube amplifiers have brought exceptional value to musicians everywhere, offering great sound and versatile features in portable, go-everywhere designs. These new guitar and bass amplifiers carry on this long tradition, evolved with the latest Boss advancements for unmatched flexibility.

The Dual Cube LX Guitar amp produces full, punchy guitar tones that belie the amp’s compact size. There are eight versatile amp types to choose from, all with natural feel and organic response honed with decades of BOSS amp development. There’s also a mic preamp type for using the amp as a portable vocal PA system. DUAL CUBE LX The DUAL CUBE LX includes a variety of BOSS stereo and mono effects to enhance the sound. Each amp type features three user memories, allowing users to store gain, EQ, and effect settings for quick recall. Dedicated editor software opens up even more creative power, providing access to different amp and effect variations, detailed parameter adjustments, and more. The DUAL CUBE LX also features a special Stereo In amp type for connecting stereo devices, complete with advanced spatial processing for even more expansive sound. By default, it provides a full-range platform for an amp/effects processor such as the GT-1000, GT-1000CORE, GX-100, GT-1, or IR-200. With the editor, it’s possible to choose a neutral guitar amp tone inspired by the famous Roland JC-120, providing an ideal platform for stereo pedals like the BOSS 500 and 200 series.

This amp delivers big, refined bass tones from an amazingly small footprint. Five different preamp types are available, offering uncolored sounds for studio and slap playing, vintage sounds for classic styles, and aggressive modern tones for heavy genres. A variety of bass-tuned effects are also included. Like the DUAL CUBE LX, the amp features onboard memories for storing sounds and support for deeper editing via dedicated software.

The Dual Cube LX and Dual Cube Bass LX amplifiers will be available in the U.S. in September for $299.99 and $359.99 respectively. To learn more about Dual Cube LX and Dual Cube Bass LX amplifiers, visit boss.info.

Made with a super light Neodyme magnet, these custom guitar cabinets can be driven by the power amp of a Profiler PowerHead or PowerRack, as well as by utilizing any external solid-state power amp.

The Kemper Kone is a 12“ full-range speaker which is exclusively designed in cooperation with Celestion for Kemper. The Kone is controlled and driven by the Kemper Profiler’s processor to an ultra-linear (full range) frequency response, using a dedicated algorithm. In contrast to the conventional idea of a full-range system, the radiation pattern of the Kemper Kone has been narrowed towards the physics of a classic guitar speaker chassis, so that even the full-range sound carries a distinct guitar speaker character, unlike regular PA speakers or monitor speakers. To season the speaker behavior to the player’s individual taste Kemper offers the unique Sweetening“ and Directivity Parameters for detailed adjustment.

The 19 included speaker imprints offer the finest choice of well-known guitar speakers from Celestion, and many renowned other classic brands, and even rare and particular speakers. More speaker imprints may be added via future software updates.

The KEMPER Kone replacement speaker is available exclusively from the Kemper Online Store for Euro 150,- USD 180,- GBP 128,-. The prices for multi-speaker Sets below:

2x12 Set: 270,00€ 191,00 GBP 31.280 JPY 545,00 CAD

4x12 Set: 480,00€ 337,95 GBP 55.609 JPY 1.040,00 CAD

More information at:www.kemper-amps.com.