Hot rails is too dark for me in a strat. Any advice?

[omni 1]

I have used a lil screaming demon in the past and it sounded better but what do you all suggest? It is not routed for a full size bucker.. The hot rails has no life to it if you know what I mean. I want harmonics and smooth warmth and chewiness.

[Securb]

If you want smooth and warm, you want something with an Alinco pickup. The Red Devil might be an option if you want single-sized, slightly warm, and the dynamics of an A5.

[omni 1]

I have never heard of that one. I will have to look into it.

[Securb]

I have never heard of that one. I will have to look into it.

.

Meet the Red Devil for Strat set. All the fat, P.A.F. tone and Texas hot-sauce sizzle of Billy’s favorite, in a pickup that will fit in any Strat-sized single-coil rout—proving that tone as big as Texas can come in deceptively small packages. The Red Devil for Strat set features three unique pickup winds, with specially calibrated Alnico 5 magnets.



The bridge is wound like an extra spicy P.A.F., with enough meat to beef up your Strat and provide the fat tone that Billy is known for. The neck and middle back off the heat a little and brush on sweet, smoky blues—making them perfect for ringing clean tones and chunky rhythms, but with the horsepower Billy demands for lead playing.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/red-devil

[Clint 55]

I want harmonics and smooth warmth and chewiness.

Red Devil

2nd. I think the red devil does have a good mix of warmth but with some spark too, not boring like the hot rails.

[Mincer]

In the mean time, you can also try wiring the Hot Rails in parallel, and see if that sounds better to you.

[CK71]

Are you using 500k pots? If not the higher pot value may make the tone more to your liking.

[Rex_Rocker]

I was going to suggest 1Meg pots. I honestly think the Hot Rails would be plain unusable with stock 250K pots.

[omni 1]

A friend of mine also suggested 500k pot. I guess I'll try that first. 1 meg would probably make the middle and neck vintage rails sound really bad though...

[Mincer]

I would think the Hot Rails really overpowers the Vintage Rails, huh?

[jeremy]

i have a hot rails neck, stratbro90 middle, hot rails bridge setup in a strat and its very versatile. the middle single is tapped so i have two output options there (on p/p tone) and i use a 4pdt on/on/on switch to give me series/split/parallel for the hot rails. 500k volume, 250k tone. the series option is a bit dark but i usually use it for overdriven solos and it works fine for that. i do use the series bridge sound for some cleaner sounds too. parallel sounds great all around and the split option is useful as well.

try the 500k pots but also think about a switch to get series/parallel options

[Clint 55]

I haven't tried the vintage rails, but ime the single coil size humbuckers can go up to 1 meg without getting tinny since they're kind of compressed.

[jeremy]

i would not like a vintage rails with a 1M pot