HCP Humbucker Control Pot

[NQbass7]

Anyone seen these HCP Humbucker control pots?

http://precisionmusictechnologies.com/hcp_humbucker_control_pot_for_guitar_and_bass.htm

I'm curious how well they work and how they compare to other switching methods. I'm putting together ideas for a Les Paul, and was thinking of doing Jimmy Page wiring or something similar, but this sounds pretty cool.

It has two modes - in TAP mode:

...rotating the pot counterclockwise fades from HUMBUCKERS to OUTER Coils (HB1 South coil & HB2 North coil). Pulling the HCP control up and rotating it counterclockwise fades from HUMBUCKERS to INNER Coils (HB1 North coil & HB2 South coil).

And there's another mode, called coil filter mode which sounds basically like it applies a low-pass filter to only one coil of the humbucker. In that mode:

turning the HCP control applies varying amounts of a specially tuned high frequency filter to only one coil of the selected coils of the humbuckers (either North or South coils can be filtered). This makes each pickup a single coil at high frequencies and a humbucker at lower frequencies which produces a sound similar to a pair of single coils but with a stronger, fuller tone and 50% less noise than coil tapping.

So with this one pot, and a three way switch, you can do the normal humbucker options, any one of the single coils on their own, inners, or outers - and even blend them, doing outers + half of inners, or other stuff like that. Not sure if it's possible to do parallel type stuff as well - then again, I could try to figure out the switching myself if I wanted to do that.

Anyone used these? What do you think about the idea?

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Sounds cool and gadgetish. But do you need the extra variety of sounds?

 

[NQbass7]

Sounds cool and gadgetish. But do you need the extra variety of sounds?

Do I NEED them? Well, about as much as I NEED another guitar :laughing11: I just like being able to play around with knobs. I build pedals too, and I usually end up adding tons of knobs that I don't need there too.  And this would actually simplify things a little bit, I think.

 

[drewfx]

The coil filter mode is likely what I call "G&L series" - when you put the dual coil PU on a G&L bass in series mode it also inserts a cap to ground between the 2 coils, so the high frequencies just go through the first coil then to ground.

Whether it would be worth bothering with probably depends entirely on the PU's used.