If you’re like me, you love your Strat, but you’re not always in love with the traditional Strat bridge pickup.  For many of us, the bridge pickup is the first one to get swapped out when it’s time for an upgrade.  Alt rock, hard rock, punk, and metal tend to demand more power, midrange, and low end than a good ol’ vintage-style single coil can pump out.  Those of us whose tastes lean in that direction have eagerly wired up everything from high output singles to blazing hot active humbuckers in the bridge slot of their Strats.

And yet, by giving up that lower output single coil you lose a big part of a Strat’s essential character.  That legendary “notch position” tone – made famous by Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, and countless others – relies on having two true single coils in the bridge and middle slots.  A humbucker isn’t going to cut it for “Sultans of Swing” or “Cocaine”; even when paired with a middle position single coil it just can’t give you that Strat-y spank and quack.  There’s also something to be said for the magical sparkle and chime of a vintage Strat bridge pickup through a nice clean amp.  Humbuckers and hot single coils each have their own clean tone, but neither can do what a vintage Strat pickup can for clean rhythm playing.

The good news is that we Strat lovers can have our vintage single coil cake and eat it too, thanks to the versatility of a tapped single coil.  These wonderful little inventions are a dream come true for those who want a Strat that can do it all; vintage sparkle or big juicy rock tone at the flick of a switch (or push-pull pot, if you prefer).

Here’s the tech talk.  A standard single coil is a spool of very thin copper wire wound around a set of magnets.  The coil has a start and an end, which are connected to the two lead wires coming off the pickup.  You connect those two leads, a “hot” lead and a “ground” (or “earth” if you’re from across the pond) lead, to your guitar’s controls.  The hot lead comes off the end of the coil, and it’s what carries the sound of your strings from the pickup to your amp.

With a tapped pickup, you get two hot leads.  One lead is connected to the end of the coil, just like with a standard single coil.  The other is connected to a point somewhere in the middle of the coil, effectively “tapping into” the coil to access a different tone.  The tapped lead gives you a lower output version of the full coil, thus giving you access to two tones from the same single coil pickup.

The trick with a tapped pickup is to wire it up in such a way that you can access either tone using a switch.  You flip over to the tapped mode for that unmistakeable classic Strat tone, or turn on the full power of the pickup for chunky riffs and scorching lead lines.

My personal favourite tapped pickup for the bridge of a Strat is the SSL-5 Custom Staggered.  In full power mode it has a tone that’s fat and sweet enough to hang with humbuckers while retaining that distinctive Strat voice.  In tapped mode, it’s vintage Fender all the way.  I have it wired up to a push-pull tone pot in my Strat so I can access both tones whenever I need them.  Since I’m mainly a rock player I spend most of my time with it in full power, but when the part I’m playing calls for a tone that’s clear and sparkly the tap is there for me.

Because words are never enough when it comes to tone I went ahead and recorded a little demo of my SSL-5 in action.  In this clip you can hear me compare the tapped and full modes starting with clean bridge tone, then a clean “notch” (bridge and middle) tone, then a more rockin’ overdriven tone.  Notice how clear and articulate the clean passages are on the tapped coil, then compare to the fatter growl of the pickup’s full power.  I have the amp set so that it gets pushed to the brink of distortion with the full coil, but cleans up nicely with the tap engaged.  In the dirty clips, it’s all about the harmonic shift.  You get more distortion in the treble range with the tapped mode, and a throaty midrange roar from the full mode.

Tapped pickups aren’t just for Strat lovers, of course.  A Tele can definitely benefit from a tapped bridge pickup, and the result is just as awesome.

Do you have a Strat or Tele with a tapped pickup?  Let me know in the comments what you think of it, and how you put those two settings to work.  If you have a different preference for the bridge slot, let me know that as well.  There is no right or wrong way to do this, only the way that sounds and feels right to you!