Introducing the Rail Series...

[Mincer]

Introducing the Rail Series from Seymour Duncan, where classic pickups meet innovative rail design for modern players. This collection features JB Rails, Jazz Rails, the Hot-Rodded Rails Set, Nazgūl Rails, Sentient Rails, and the Nazgūl Sentient Rails Set. Each pickup retains the revered characteristics of our originals while infusing them with the clarity, tightness, and sustain of rail design, making them ideal for high-gain applications.

The JB Rails has our classic JB Model’s full low end, crips highs, and upper-midrange bump, but adds the tightness and accentuated attack of the rails platform. The Jazz Rails pickup is a perfect complement, maintaining the original Jazz’s glassy treble response, full bass, and scooped mids while incorporating the string-to-string balance of a rail design. The Hot-Rodded Rails Set combines JB Rails and Jazz Rails, delivering a versatile, high-gain setup.

The Nazgūl Rails retains the brutal articulation of the Nazgūl while adding the rails design gives focused low-end and precise sustain, perfect for modern metal. The Sentient Rails neck pickup, designed to pair with Nazgūl Rails, delivers exceptional clarity and harmonic range, ideal for intricate chordal passages and lower tunings. Together, the Nazgūl Sentient Rails Set offers blistering highs, cutting mids, and precise bass, capturing the essence of modern metal.

Available for both 6-String and 7-String guitars. They are suitable for both standard humbucker and trembucker string spacing.

[Seashore]

I'm interested in these. Just saw the email. Any chance that they will appear in "active mount" housings?

[Securb]

I love these I wish I had something I could throw them in. I would love a Black Winter Rails.

[Mincer]

I'm interested in these. Just saw the email. Any chance that they will appear in "active mount" housings?

I would think that would depend on how popular these get.

[Chistopher]

Will they be available in double cream?

[Chistopher]

Also worth noting they all come stock with A8s.

[jeremy]

yeah, thats interesting. look forward to seeing these in the wild and checking them out. hopefully they will roll out more rails models

[Rex_Rocker]

The JB is 18.7K and Alnico 8.

That... and it's rails.

So... what makes it a JB, then?

I'm sure it's a great pickup. Hell, I'd love to try it out. But I'm very curious what makes it a JB at all?

[Chris Pile]

Truly a product whose time has come.

[Blix]

The JB is 18.7K and Alnico 8.

That... and it's rails.

So... what makes it a JB, then?

I'm sure it's a great pickup. Hell, I'd love to try it out. But I'm very curious what makes it a JB at all?

Indeed, it had me scratching my head as well.

[Seashore]

I'm going to hazard a guess that they had to tweak the recipe to compensate for how rails sound compared to poles and slugs.

[Rex_Rocker]

I'm going to hazard a guess that they had to tweak the recipe to compensate for how rails sound compared to poles and slugs.

Yeah, that's understandable. But I mean... they tweaked the recipee to make the JB more suited for gainy tones... but they just called it Distortion, not JB Distortion or JB Ceramic. Or then, they further tweaked it, but they called it Invader, Black Winter, Thrash Factor, RTM, Alex Skolnick, Eclair, Concept, Metal Fatigue, etc.

But if they tweaked the JB... is it still a JB? They even acknowledge it sounds tighter and more attacky, which means the specs are something else, and the sound is something else, LOL. I mean, it's obvious it's a marketing move, partiallly or wholly, I don't know. I haven't got a problem with that. It's their pickup. They can market it however they want. I still wanna try it. But maybe it still has the same number of turns, the same winding pattern, or something else I'm not seeing, and that's why I'm curious.

[eclecticsynergy]

Cool idea IMO. Not so sure about choosing A8 for all of them. Of course, nobody asked me...
Rails can be expected to appeal primarily to high gain players, so I suppose A8 makes sense for the line.

[Seashore]

Yeah, that's understandable. But I mean... they tweaked the recipee to make the JB more suited for gainy tones... but they just called it Distortion, not JB Distortion or JB Ceramic. Or then, they further tweaked it, but they called it Invader, Black Winter, Thrash Factor, RTM, Alex Skolnick, Eclair, Concept, Metal Fatigue, etc.

But if they tweaked the JB... is it still a JB? They even acknowledge it sounds tighter and more attacky, which means the specs are something else, and the sound is something else, LOL. I mean, it's obvious it's a marketing move, partiallly or wholly, I don't know. I haven't got a problem with that. It's their pickup. They can market it however they want. I still wanna try it. But maybe it still has the same number of turns, the same winding pattern, or something else I'm not seeing, and that's why I'm curious.

Aren't all these different material and construction choices just means to an end? Say you took bobbins with steel blades and did a JB wind on them in conjunction with an A5 magnet, and it sounded thinner and quieter because of the way the blades distribute the magnetic field. So it's a JB wind and a JB magnet but it doesn't sound like a JB. You need a stronger magnet to get the same strength of field where the strings are, and maybe you need a heavier wind to get a similar EQ because of how blades "read" string movement, and in the process you wind up changing all the original specs to get something that sounds and feels close to a JB.

I'm just a guy on the internet, so I have no idea how they actually approached it. Maybe all of that is off base. But it does seem like they put time and effort into finding the JB tone with different materials, which is super cool. And if that was the goal of the design, and they think they achieved it, why would they call it something different? I think that would be more confusing... "It sounds like a JB with rails, but we didn't want people to get mad that we didn't use the same wind so we called it the Lord Farquad." Most people who are going to buy these don't care one way or another about the specs.

Wish I had a guitar for it. Maybe I can put rings on the soapbar guitar but I'd rather not.

[Bowtomecha]

I think it’s just regular Duncan marketing to get people onboard. Like the Pegasus and Nazgūl thing. They already have pickups that cover the purpose of those. In this case they are going the other way knowing that they won’t sell pickups that are similar but named completely different. I think they did their homework with the Jupiter and found what design would be optimal and be more efficient production wise. Now they have a valid reason to keep those bobbins produced for more than one model. I also suspect that this is a way to address angled multiscale humbuckers as well.