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1) It's not fun wiring them
2) I've never found a coil split sound I liked
I do use them very occasionally, but it's like the lesser of two evils in certain situations and that is it.
Do they sound exactly the same as a Fender-style direct-magnet true single coil? No.
Do they give a useful approximation of that sound without having to carry an extra guitar to a gig? Yes. You can also easily switch mid-song, which is pretty difficult with two guitars and impossible if you want it on the fly.
Personally, I prefer true splitting, or with a resistor in the split path. I don't really like the sound with a cap, and I'm even less keen on parallel wiring, even though this retains full hum cancellation. Although for bass, parallel is much better than split! I really don't know why the difference.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
For me partial splits as per PRS are the way to go; I tend to use a 5 or 10k multi-turn trimmer and tune the split by ear.
The neck split on my PRS (the aforementioned BB61) with a bit of a boost from an EHX Soul Food does a very good approximation of a Strat.
The majority of these were interesting to try out but of limited practical use in performance.
Using a really hot neck pickup was a bit of a revelation for me really, I always went for hotter bridge, but something interesting happens in the middle position, and adding a push pull vol for split coils gives me 6 very interesting tones with a 3 way switch,
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I've heard it can be vastly improved with a resistor, but I can't be bothered any more. I used to love weird wiring schemes but now I'm tending towards simpler guitars.
I’ve fitted them on my Swamp Ash Special and it does make a noticeable difference - the splits are much less overly thin-sounding than they are without. (I used a plain 1K on the neck.)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
If I gigged, I'd agree with @ICBM . I don't so a lot of the time I just chicken out and don't bother, unless it's a guitar which really suits a coil split (usually a superstrat of some description which also has single coil(s) as well as the humbucker(s)).
Given who it was originally designed for, neither of these things are a surprise .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein