Mooney’s Sho-Bud pickups

[Ben Godard]

I’m a big Mooney fan like most here on the forum. I’m trying to figure out what was different about his pickups thoughAs the stories I’ve read, when he stopped playing the Fender 1000, he went to the Sho-Buds, he didn’t like the sound. Supposedly he sent the pickups to Fender to get them as close to spec and the actual Fender pickups.
Then I found an older post here on the forum that claims the only difference in the redesigned shobud pickup and the stock shobud pickup was a coil tap that you can toggle with a switch. Knocking the pickup from 17k to about 10k. I personally have seen an LDG early 70’s round front shobud with the coil tap switch and I didn’t know what is was for. I thought it was to quiet everything down about half volume but I honestly can’t remember the effect it had on tone or volume.
So I guess my question is that, was this coil tap switch made to make the guitar sound like Mooneys bakersville sound, if not what was it for. Secondly is anything I said about the redesigned pickup correct.
Just trying to get the true story


Thanks for any input

[Donny Hinson]

The tap gives you a choice of the mellower sound, or a brighter sound. The brighter sound harkens to the old days, when every pedal guitar (not just Fenders) had a fairly bright sound. The 18k - 20k pickups commonly used nowadays were unheard of back then.

Keep in mind that Mooney's "sound" was much more than his pickups. "Tone" only gets you halfway there.

[Brett Lanier]

Coil taps were pretty common in the 60’s. I have 4 that came that way from the factory: 3 Marlens and a Sho-Bud. Usually the older the guitar, the lower the windings.