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An acquaintance of mine built a Warmoth strat with a pick guard that's cut out for only two single-size humbuckers (bridge, neck) in which he installed a Hot Rails set. I got to play it for a while today and it was thrilling. They seem to have a bit of concentration in the low mids, and in some ways even reminds me of a Dimarzio rail pickup. What surprised me is even though the output is quite hot and they're a bit dark, full sounding pickups, they really did have a nice clean sound. I can't say for sure because the amp he was using was a Brunetti (don't know the model) with 6L6 tubes and it had an incredible clean sound either way, but they sound better clean than my Little 59' ever did.
The Hot Rails seem to pick up a bit more of the pick quack than other pickups I've used. You can almost hear the pick scraping against the string when you pick, but that's really cool because it makes single note picked runs stand out a bit more. I have a question though, and I don't quite know how to describe his wiring deal, but he used some kind of pots that have some kind of preamp deal stuck on them and I'm not sure what exactly the function is. I didn't think about it at the time, but I wonder how much that thing affected the tone. If what I described is how Hot Rails are spot on then I guess his wiring system didn't affect anything. The last time I used a Hot Rails pickup was the stock pickups that came in a Jackson Soloist I bought a few years ago. I have since moved on to the Dimarzio Chopper neck, but thinking maybe I could put a Hot Rails in another one of my strats.
The Hot Rails seem to pick up a bit more of the pick quack than other pickups I've used. You can almost hear the pick scraping against the string when you pick, but that's really cool because it makes single note picked runs stand out a bit more. I have a question though, and I don't quite know how to describe his wiring deal, but he used some kind of pots that have some kind of preamp deal stuck on them and I'm not sure what exactly the function is. I didn't think about it at the time, but I wonder how much that thing affected the tone. If what I described is how Hot Rails are spot on then I guess his wiring system didn't affect anything. The last time I used a Hot Rails pickup was the stock pickups that came in a Jackson Soloist I bought a few years ago. I have since moved on to the Dimarzio Chopper neck, but thinking maybe I could put a Hot Rails in another one of my strats.
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