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

[Andrew Roblin]

Hi, Ben...
I took my Sho-Bud Professional to Harry Jackson a few years ago. He said the coil tap was to make the Sho-Bud pickup sound like a Fender.

A very useful feature. It's nice to have the choice of a Sho-Bud or Fender pickup sound.

[Johnny Cox]

My Shobud perm has coil tapped pickups. They are wound at 15k and tapped at 9.6k. I play it at 9.6.

[Ben Godard]

Interesting. So does the coil tap make the guitar sound more like a Mooney tone. Or is there a lot more to the puzzle of sounding like Mooney’s guitars

[Donny Hinson]

Most of the tone difference is in the lower-wound pickups, which accentuate the highs and reduce the lows...and Mooney's hands! The pickup is a piece of the sound, but you also have to think and play like him. If you can't capture that picking style (his note choice, pedal work, and staccato picking), you'll never sound like Moon.

[Bob Carlucci]

Interesting. So does the coil tap make the guitar sound more like a Mooney tone. Or is there a lot more to the puzzle of sounding like Mooney’s guitars

I have been doing this since the 70's with pedal steel pickups...typically have single coils wound to twelve k with a tap around 8.5-9 k.....over the years,I have compared various steels with lightly wound single coils to my'real' cable fender pedal steels,and I can say that I get real close..not exact, but nothing a little eq'ing wouldn,t correct.. As Donnie said, some of the sound is in the unique fender body and ' drive train',but you can get a good take on the moon's tone by using nine k single coils,and using a similar staccato picking style.

[Bobby D. Jones]

Many of the old guitars have many things that makes their sound unique.
The low wound pickups and tapped pickups, They used in early steels, Was just 1 thing.
The way the body was built affected sound and tone.
The metal used in the changer fingers, Affect sound and tone.
The use of double trees in the pull change affected the sound and tone too.
Double trees in pull train, Allows multi stings to be pulled, But 1 string will hit its stop, Then the double tree will rotate and another string will come to its stop. That gives some old guitars a unique sound, That modern guitars with a pull rod on each string, Coming to note together can't match. Unless some very special setup work.
Good Luck chasing sound and tone.