?'s regarding the Lil's and Rails

[Indie P Bass]

Ok... so, I know the JB jr, Lil 59 and what have you's sound like humbuckers, but, what do the hot rails, cool rails and vintage rails sound like? Are they humbucking single coils or humbuckers in single coil's clothing?

I'm putting new pickups in an old Japanese electric 12-string and I can only fit single coil pickups (cutting the guard is out of the question, it's a two peice laminate of flamed maple finished in a thick coat of polyurothane) and wanted humbucker tone, but and was considering a cool rails/cool rails rig or a hot rails/cool rails rig. But now, I'm considering a dual lil 59' rig. The controls are gonna be WIERD, though.

Also... how much does the lil 59 sound like a 59 with the ceramic magnet?

so... the controls will be (this is wierd, bare with me) on/off rocker switches for both pickups, to a tone switch that has a .047 cap on it (it's a rick knockoff) to a volume control to a tone control to a variable coil tap control on a pot... yes... I am crazy. I'm thinking in wiring the coil tap pot will be before the .047 cap switch, but in layout, it'll be the last knob... it'll take me a while to figure this out, but... it'll be cool. It's my first elaborate wiring setup.

[Rainmaker]

Re: ?'s regarding the Lil's and Rails

Hey Indie, hows life?

Not sure about the Vintage Rails, but I have a Cool Rails in the neck of my alder bolt-on Pacifica... the website describes it as a 'vintage humbucker', but as I have not much experience on vintage hummers I can't really comment on that.

I'll tell you what it is though - it's fat, not that hot but quite powerful, bloddy bloddy smooth - at least compared to my Distortion in the bridge.

I haven't tried Hot Rails but I REALLY want to try them out. Dave Murray from Maiden uses them through Marshalls (yes I know it's one of those "my favourite player uses these pickups, so I'll get them too!") and if you hear his solos, the notes just blisters heavenly together... if that's much of a description... and I've read in the Vault that it's really good for legato stuff. So is the Cool Rails though... it's the "cooler" alternative to the Hot Rails, because it was modelled after the Hot Rails.

Take my words with a grain of salt though, I'm pretty new and my descriptions are what I THINK are right :P

Hope it helps
Bee

[jeremy]

Re: ?'s regarding the Lil's and Rails

the vintage rails and duckbucker are very similar pups in construction and sound, designed to sound like a nice spanky strat pup with no noise

the lil 59 and cool rails are not quite as similar as the vr and duck but still share some similar characteristics. more like a 59 mixed with a single coil, warmer and fatter than a strat pup but not quite as open as a full sized bucker. ive never had a 59 with a ceramic mag so i cant comment on that. the reason the lil series use ceramic magnets is that alnico wont work for that application, too small to hold a solid charge

the hot rails sounds closest to the invader in tone

i think a pair of lil 59's would sound great but i think with a 12 string i might go cool rails to get a similar tone but with the rails to cover all 12 strings