The video and wiring diagram below illustrate how to wire your Les Paul to enable coil splitting using the components in our Les Paul coil split wiring kit. Coil splitting humbuckers is a popular and simple wiring mod that essentially sends one coil to ground when the push pull pot is activated in the "up" position.
The mod involves using a push pull pot to split the coils. Note - this is only possible if your humbucker pickups have 4 conductor wires (black, white, red and green). Pay attention however - whilst the vast majority of pickup manufacturers use the same colours, the order is different. For example, on a Gibson humbucker, it is the red wire (typically) which is the hot signal output, whereas on a Seymour Duncan, it is the black wire. Refer to our coil splitting page for a handy chart highlighting various pickup manufacturers colour coding system.
Note - the video and diagram is based on Seymour Duncan pickups. It is also identical for House of Tone pickups.
You will need
- 2 x 500k CTS push pull pots (audio taper)
- 2 x 500k CTS pots (audio taper)
- 2 x capacitors of choice (0.022uF is typically recommended for humbuckers but as we will be splitting the coils, 0.047uF is also an option)
- 1/2 ft of cloth wire
- 1ft of ground wire
1) Ground the 3rd lug of the volume pot as normal. Use a jumper wire connecting the lug to the pot casing and solder it to the pot casing.
2) We need a common route to ground from the push pull switch. Typically, the lower solder point on the left hand side (out of the 6 solder points of the upper part of the push pull switch) gets grounded. Again, use a jumper wire and solder it to the pot casing.
3) Time to add the pickups. For Seymour Duncan/House of Tone pickups:
- black wire to volume input
- red and white wires - twisted and soldered together into the middle solder point/lug on the left hand side
- green and ground (bare wire) - go to ground
4) Capacitors: for each tone control, solder one capacitor lead to the middle lug of the pot, the other lead gets soldered to ground (top of pot casing)
Follow the wiring diagram and video for guidance. The toggle switch and jack socket are wired exactly as before.
More Guides
Copper Shielding - How to Shield a Guitar
Coil Split Les Paul (Tone Push Pull Pots)
Les Paul Series Parallel Wiring
Wiring a Guitar Jack with Braided Wire
