What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

[GuitarStv]

I really like the concept of P Rails pickups, but have never seen them anywhere around here (let alone heard them in any guitars). Does anybody have experience with them? What kinds of woods/guitar scale length do they sound best in?

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

P90s sound killer in Alder and in Hog bodies, so I imagine that may work.

Both body woods can sound great w/full on HBs, which sort of covers the P-rail.

[GuitarStv]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

I'm soon to put a P-Rails Hot in an Alder bodied guitar with a Speedloader tremolo, check out my thread (updates coming soon!): https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=191514


And in THIS THREAD (click!), forum bro 'Eddiesideways' has posted some clips demonstrating the P-Rails Hot.

Hope that helps.

Oh yeah, I forgot that you were using the P-Rails in that guitar . . . let me know what you think of the pickup. I'm looking for a bunch of different clean/cleanish neck position options and something that's smooth/beefy for the bridge.

[Empty Pockets]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

P-rails are the best pickups. They're not optimized for any type of wood...they're good for all of them.

So far I have loved them in my Strat and my SG. I'm seriously considering replacing every pickup in every guitar with a P-Rail of some description. I love having the options at hand and the normal bridge model is just barely "un-hot" enough to maintain the guitar's character.

Turned my one-pickup SG-X that i only used for metal into a four-voice powerhouse i can use for blues, rock and even ska if i want to. Is awesome. Just get 'em.

[Sludgenutz]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

They are not as hairy as Gibson P90's in P90 mode, and the HB mode is straight up full and smooth in mahogany. They can do some chug, yet still react nicely to a reduced volume knob. 500K pots are a must.

[Sanford]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

They are great pickups! I have a set in a semi-hollow (maple ply, rosewood, 24.75" scale). I haven't used them in a solid body yet.

[matizadomrb]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

Hey Sanford!

I'm about to install P-Rails on my Epi Supernova (semi-hollow, maple ply, rosewood fretboard as well)... Glad to hear they do the job well!

Couple of questions:

1) What pot and cap values did you use? (500K and 0.047 as the SD diagrams suggest?)

2) How did you position the pickups? (with the rails inwards facing each other as the SD diagrams suggest or did you flip any of them?)

I'm asking because I've generally found that these sort of decisions must be done taking into account the subtleties of the tone you get from the wood and the type of guitar.

Cheers!

[GuitarStv]

Re: What kind of wood would be best for P Rails?

Hey Sanford!

I'm about to install P-Rails on my Epi Supernova (semi-hollow, maple ply, rosewood fretboard as well)... Glad to hear they do the job well!

Couple of questions:

1) What pot and cap values did you use? (500K and 0.047 as the SD diagrams suggest?)

2) How did you position the pickups? (with the rails inwards facing each other as the SD diagrams suggest or did you flip any of them?)

I'm asking because I've generally found that these sort of decisions must be done taking into account the subtleties of the tone you get from the wood and the type of guitar.

Cheers!

I'm interested in this too, I'd likely flip the neck P-Rails to get the neck blade in the warmest spot if I was installing them. That way the blade would be in the right spot for a traditional single coil neck sound. It just seems to make more sense to me to have it that way . . .