Jupiter - First Contact! (Warning: 6-string Content)

[Golem]

I bought a Kauer yesterday with these Jupiter pickups installed by a previous owner. It's going to Kauer first for a Plek (he does this for free on some older Kauer's that never got it from factory). I'm not really a big high gain player but I've liked blade pickups and am game for having something different.

[Mincer]

I bought a Kauer yesterday with these Jupiter pickups installed by a previous owner. It's going to Kauer first for a Plek (he does this for free on some older Kauer's that never got it from factory). I'm not really a big high gain player but I've liked blade pickups and am game for having something different.

Love to hear what you think about them after you spend some time with them.

[zionstrat]

Re: Jupiter - First Contact! (Warning: 6-string Content)

Does anyone know of PAF-output-level rail pickups? They all seem to have a pretty bright quality to them. I would need one warmer set and one scooped set, if that is possible with rails.

I discovered a wonderful half rail pup a couple of years back that fits your description and if it looked traditional they would probably sell a billion of them..

It's the rail hammer hyper vintage, and as mentioned, the bass 1/2 rail creates a tight, relatively bright tone. And it has three oversized pole pieces for the trebble strings that do the exact opposite. It makes them warm and smooth.

https://railhammer.com/products/humbucker/hyper-vintage-bridge/

It's one of the few pups where the name tells it all. It behaves like a paf with more of the good stuff.. Great for anything other than metal.

It's 8.5k and it parallels to self very nicely.




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[Ashurbanipal]

I guess rail pups are associated with hot, screaming output to many people, so they think, 'nah, pass'. I've never played any but they seem cool (Parallel Axis too!), though if I were buying some, I'd be looking for something that's lower output.

It's kind of funny - one the OG guitar pups full stop was the Charlie Christian; and original style Firebird pups are rail too, but since they're covered, folks don't think about it.

[Gtrjunior]

I discovered a wonderful half rail pup a couple of years back that fits your description and if it looked traditional they would probably sell a billion of them..

It's the rail hammer hyper vintage, and as mentioned, the bass 1/2 rail creates a tight, relatively bright tone. And it has three oversized pole pieces for the trebble strings that do the exact opposite. It makes them warm and smooth.

https://railhammer.com/products/humbucker/hyper-vintage-bridge/

It's one of the few pups where the name tells it all. It behaves like a paf with more of the good stuff.. Great for anything other than metal.

It's 8.5k and it parallels to self very nicely.




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This looks very interesting. I’ll bet the neck version is stellar.
I just looked at the website…too bad they don’t do something like this in a single coil neck pickup. A brighter low end with a warmer high end….who doesn’t want that?!?! Lol

[jeremy]

the railhammers are good, i really like em. they do have their own sound but i dig it

[zionstrat]

the railhammers are good, i really like em. they do have their own sound but i dig it

Yeah, totally agree.. it's not just a slight variation from a standard pup

In the video in the link that I posted earlier, the guitarist plays a riff over and over... warm and clean and then he kicks in an orange with extreme overdrive and continues to play the exact same riff until the end of the vid. No discussion, no variation just one progression.

My immediate response was "that was uninformative" until the point hit home... It doesn't matter if it's sparkling clean or hypercrunched, it always has the same clarity and warmth.

And clarity and warmth are my words... It's kind of hard to describe but easy to hear..




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[zionstrat]

This looks very interesting. I’ll bet the neck version is stellar.
I just looked at the website…too bad they don’t do something like this in a single coil neck pickup. A brighter low end with a warmer high end….who doesn’t want that?!?! Lol

Single coil size is a very interesting thought... Joe Barton's use the rails to get a clean thick crisp attack, so a single coil size is certainly doable... Cool rail is another warmer example.

In my mind, the question is can you fit the extremely fat pole pieces for the treble strings in a single coil size?

I can't imagine how that would work but it made me think of something that I'd never considered before..

Could you use conducting slugs covered by a conducting cover on the slug side?

I'm thinking that a cover on the slug side would have about the same area as the oversized slugs from the rail Hammer design.. so what kind of tone would it get with the magnet connected to three slugs which connects to a conducting cover?

I don't have time to wind anymore but if I thought of this 5 years ago I would have given it a shot just to see what happens :-)





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[Gtrjunior]

Single coil size is a very interesting thought... Joe Barton's use the rails to get a clean thick crisp attack, so a single coil size is certainly doable... Cool rail is another warmer example.

In my mind, the question is can you fit the extremely fat pole pieces for the treble strings in a single coil size?

I can't imagine how that would work but it made me think of something that I'd never considered before..

Could you use conducting slugs covered by a conducting cover on the slug side?

I'm thinking that a cover on the slug side would have about the same area as the oversized slugs from the rail Hammer design.. so what kind of tone would it get with the magnet connected to three slugs which connects to a conducting cover?

I don't have time to wind anymore but if I thought of this 5 years ago I would have given it a shot just to see what happens :-)





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I’m guessing that an oversized slug could work. Isn’t that what is in the Quarter pounder?
If that fits I’m thinking there wouldn’t be a need for a cover…? Unless I’m misunderstanding something In the construction aspect?
And of course the rail side construction would be the same except it would only need to extend halfway along the pickup?

That said, you clearly know much more than I do about the construction and practical application etc.

[dave74]

Good comparison here of Jupiter vs Dimebucker. Like usual the iso-tracks are at the end.

[zionstrat]

I’m guessing that an oversized slug could work. Isn’t that what is in the Quarter pounder?
If that fits I’m thinking there wouldn’t be a need for a cover…? Unless I’m misunderstanding something In the construction aspect?

On this forum, I claim absolutely no expertise... There's heavy hitters in every corner and I'm here to learn, but it is always fun to imagine something new.

I was thinking about a side-by-side instead of a coil on top of another coil. There's a lot of options with the rails in a standard side by side strat size because the rails are narrow (thinner than the coil).

But if you look at the oversized poles with the rail Hammer design, they are three or even four blades wide.. so I don't think there's enough real estate for oversized poles within the coils. I guess it would be possible to fit them in a over-under coil scenario as you suggested.

Back to the side by side, I have absolutely no idea if it would work, but I was thinking there is enough room for small pole pieces, inside the treble side of each bobbin, to protrude enough that they would connect to a relatively large hunk of metal... with the mass about the same in proportion to the full sized rail hammer poles.

I'm thinking that might get the treble side into the ballpark for inductance but I have no idea what the effect would be of essentially connecting the treble pole pieces together and the fact that the mass is above the coils instead of within.

So I threw out the cover concept because it would be a relatively easy test.. but as I said in my earlier posts, I don't have the time to wind anymore and I don't have the expertise to accurately project what it would sound like.

As always, I'd love to hear from people that actually understand how pickups work at the level that I can't imagine.

But if there was enough interest, we're talking about half of a cool rail plus something new on the treble side and there are plenty of people we could pay to wind it if anybody wanted to give it a shot.

Considering this is quite a bunny trail away from the original post, feel free to start a new thread if you want to expand on the concept.


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[Golem]

I got the guitar with them in today. It went to Kauer first for a free Plek. Doug is very cool to do that.

These are excellent pickups for playing clean or dirty and split very well with very little noise. These might have taken over from Saturday Night Specials as my favorite set because of the way they split and how good they sound through the entire range of settings with vol/tone controls. They might be the most versatile pickups I've yet tried. I actually think someone who likes the SNS specials and just wants a bit more mids in the bridge pickup and a bit more clarity under gain and a bit more compression would love these.

They are much better than the JBE Two Tones I've tried which I found rather bland and lacking in high end.

[eclecticsynergy]

I like the Railhammers a lot. Have the Hypervintage set, an Alnico Grande, and a Chisel bridge.

Joe does make a "Humcutter" with one rail and three slugs. It's humbucker-sized, though.
Could be two short coils underneath; I think more likely they're full length bobbins.

I believe he initially offered several half-rail P90-types in a hum-sized chassis but discontinued them.
As I remember, the poles were along the centerline so that one probably used one coil inside.

Wayback Machine has a cached page from 2014 showing those:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140728063543/http://www.railhammer.com/pickups.html

[chadd]

I got the guitar with them in today. It went to Kauer first for a free Plek. Doug is very cool to do that.

These are excellent pickups for playing clean or dirty and split very well with very little noise. These might have taken over from Saturday Night Specials as my favorite set because of the way they split and how good they sound through the entire range of settings with vol/tone controls. They might be the most versatile pickups I've yet tried. I actually think someone who likes the SNS specials and just wants a bit more mids in the bridge pickup and a bit more clarity under gain and a bit more compression would love these.

They are much better than the JBE Two Tones I've tried which I found rather bland and lacking in high end.

Doug is a great dude and builds some absolutely fantastic guitars. I sold one of my Banshees but I plan on keeping the other for as long as I play.

[Golem]

I'm still loving these pickups. If I roll of the tone enough it can basically sound like a PAF'ish pickup regardless of it's output. So I don't have to give that up at all. Describing this as a metal pickup is doing it a disservice as it sounds great clean.