Bridge pup in the neck ???

[Gabrielf39]

i have ordered an kit of rails for my strat : hot rails to the bridge, vintage rails in the middle and cool rails at the neck.

I have waited 2 months for my kit. Couple of days later, i am home getting my stuff ready to the guitar tech and then i saw them on little stickers to the bottom of the lovely little plastic boxes . My hot rails was an SHR-1b, my vintage was an SVR-1n but my cool rails was SCR-1b.

what do i do with this ? Get a cool rails neck and waiting another 2 months or put it in the guitar, that doesnt really matter ?

[Clint 55]

Welcome to the forum!

The Cool Rails bridge will work fine in the neck because it isn't wound that much hotter than the neck model. It will probably be close in output to a Hot Rails neck.

[Mincer]

I might also check the DCR on that pickup to see if you actually got what it says, and it isn't just a sticker problem. It will be fine in the neck either way, though. The bridge Cool Rails is just a tiny bit hotter in the neck, which some may prefer, anyway.

[Gabrielf39]

Will it be ok with my vintage rails or the cool rails will "eat" it ?

[freefrog]

Welcome to the forum!

The Cool Rails bridge will work fine in the neck because it isn't wound that much hotter than the neck model. It will probably be close in output to a Hot Rails neck.

+1. I have a Cool Rails bridge in neck position of a Tele like guitar + a Hot Rails in bridge position and it works fine. Actually, the CR b as a neck pickup is a good choice if you want to wire it to a series/parallel switch (it delivers a rather convincing Strat single coil tone when it's in parallel and a warmer thcker sound in series)...

Regarding the balance with a mid Vintage Rails: a careful height setting should do the job. If ever it's not the case, there's possible solutions based on resistive loads. I'll precise what I'm saying later, if necessary.

Good luck in your wiring task,Gabrielf39 . :-)

[jeremy]

the difference between the neck and bridge cool rails isnt as dramatic as the neck and bridge hot rails. the vr in the middle is a pretty quiet pup but it gets the strat like tone better than most other rail pups

[beaubrummels]

the difference between the neck and bridge cool rails isnt as dramatic as the neck and bridge hot rails. the vr in the middle is a pretty quiet pup but it gets the strat like tone better than most other rail pups

Do you wire your VR coils in parallel or series?

[jeremy]

parallel is tonally closer to a single coil but usually series to get a bit more output/fatness to better match the other pups but it all depends on what you want. the old ones were hardwired in parallel

[Adieu]

Probably not an issue unless you had very specific expectations going in

Might be intentional design if you bought it as a set, since the SHR-1b is a hot high output beastie

Anyway, separate bridge and neck pup classifications only became common in the 80s, plenty of extremely popular and desirable vintage pickups were used in all positions