Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

[lord.cabot]

Hey guys,

My friend really loved my Hot Rails pickup, he's completely blown away.
His guitar has a humbucker cavity so the two questions are:

1) Is there a humbucker equivalent to the Hot Rails and is it really the same sound or just very similar?
2) Got any clever hacks on how to install a Hot Rails sized pup in a humbucker cavity without a pickguard?

Seymour Duncan rules btw. \m/

Love,
cbT

 

[DonP]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

DiMarzio X2N. I never thought I'd like it, but I got one with a Charvel SoCal. I went online and bought another!

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

This conversion ring will help you out.

 

[Demanic]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

DiMarzio X2N. I never thought I'd like it, but I got one with a Charvel SoCal. I went online and bought another!

The X2N is similar to a Hotrail?
Who would have thought?

Sent from my Alcatel_5044C using Tapatalk

 

[Techy Beccy]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

Hey guys,

My friend really loved my Hot Rails pickup, he's completely blown away.
His guitar has a humbucker cavity so the two questions are:

1) Is there a humbucker equivalent to the Hot Rails and is it really the same sound or just very similar?
2) Got any clever hacks on how to install a Hot Rails sized pup in a humbucker cavity without a pickguard?

Seymour Duncan rules btw. \m/

Love,
cbT

You could try a pickup conversion ring. Or somehow mounting it inside a closed humbucker cover.. has anyone tried anything like this with single coils??

 

[Techy Beccy]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

[video]http://www.fu-tone.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=96&products_id=261&zenid=tplsjhua9i1jnsg81tnk9b73v6[/video]

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

You could try a pickup conversion ring. Or somehow mounting it inside a closed humbucker cover.. has anyone tried anything like this with single coils??

[video]http://www.fu-tone.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=96&products_id=261&zenid=tplsjhua9i1jnsg81tnk9b73v6[/video]

The pickup ring that I linked to is not only 10% of the price of that unit, but does not leave a ugly exposed pickup cavity. It also requires no drilling and will allow the Hotrails more space to be lowered from the strings.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

A powerful humbucker with lots of mids would be the Invader.

 

[lord.cabot]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

Wow I forgot about the Telecaster... That is an awesome pup cover.

I think it's safest to go with the actual Hot Rails and use the cover.

Now I wish I had an X2N... Always wanted one to be honest.

 

[freefrog]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

About the Hot Rails: its narrow coils side by side give a reduced magnetic windows, generating a "comb filtering" of harmonics which is unique to rails pickups.

[EDIT: let's say "aperture" instead of magnetic windows].

Such transducers also exhibit a more efficient coupling between coils, boosting the inductance - with a whooping value of almost 12H for a Hot Rails: it's 3 times the inductance of a P.A.F. and 1.5 times more than an Invader... Regular sized HB with such a high inductance are very rare and would sound different because of their larger windows anyway.
For these reasons, there's no HB equivalent to the Hot Rails IMHO.


Regarding single coils in a HB cavity, there's also the "Humbucker rout adapters" in this page:
https://www.guitarfetish.com/Guitar-Hardware_c_37.html

On single coil sized pickup mounted instead of HB's: yes, done it more than once... but a strat pickup in a Gibson guitar won't make it sound like a Fender, for several reasons that I won't dig here.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

One of the reasons why people have different opinions about the HR is, that they you it with 500k or 250k. About 20 years ago i bought a Squier JV and couldn't rip it out fast enough. Middy, no cut, just flat mud in my ears. Years later i played a HR strat with a 500k pot, no tone pot into a Marshall - not bad, although i want to avoid clean tonez with it.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

About the Hot Rails: its narrow coils side by side give a reduced magnetic windows, generating a "comb filtering" of harmonics which is unique to rails pickups.

The mechanical comb filtering effect is actually reduced by the small footprint of a rail pickup and is not some unique property generated by small magnetic windows. It happens to all multi-coil pickups, more so if there is coil imbalance.

Comb filtering is a mechanical property of the two coils of a pickup not quite sensing the string at the same location. This is because the string travels back and forth farthest at the 12th fret, but less and less as you move closer to the bridge or nut. This leads a slight bit of phase cancellation that isn't usually noticable unless there is considerable distance between the coils, like on a Strat.

 

[freefrog]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

The mechanical comb filtering effect is actually reduced by the small footprint of a rail pickup and is not some unique property generated by small magnetic windows. It happens to all multi-coil pickups, more so if there is coil imbalance.

Comb filtering is a mechanical property of the two coils of a pickup not quite sensing the string at the same location.

My post wasn't meant to suggest anything else. But it's true that an expression like "magnetic windows" is too ambiguous to avoid mutual misunderstanding, finally.

For the OP: try the applet below and use the "Width" box to vary virtually the size of the pickup below the strings. Maybe it will clarify what I was trying to share in my previous answer.

http://www.till.com/articles/PickupResponseDemo/

 

[Tone-Analyst]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

Back in 1998 I was playing a stock '84 Japanese strat and after a show I asked my good friend how my guitar sounded. In a honesty overdose he replied "your guitar sounds country/western". I was in shock.. A few days later I walk into my fav music store. The local "guru" tells me kid you need a Seymour Duncan Hot-Rails. He pulls out a black one outa the counter, I ask if he had a white one, said no, doesn't matter I'm not a poser gimme the black one.. That pickup completely warped my destiny. I've owned a truckload of guitars and pickups since then but the Hot-Rails will always hold a special place.

It does have a weekness being that it may not have all the low-end width of a full size HB, and maybe forgettable cleans but the gain and musical harmonics that it's capable of are incredible.

Note that the guitar had a basswood body and that made a major difference. I tried the HR in typical alder strat bodies later and it sounded fuzzy and terrible. Basswood or mahogany are also necessary imo. Basswood was the wood of choice of Ibanez. It does attenuate the nasty fuzzy freqs.

It's true the X2N is probably the closest but no full size HB will be exaclty like it. I ran into some amps where it sounded messy but it sounded perfect in the good amps of the day. JCM 800, SL-X, 5150.

 

[allstarrme]

Re: Hot Rails Humbucker Equivalent?

I’ve heard the super 3 has a vary similar sound and eq to the hot rails. I’ve had both but not at the same time in the same instrument. I could definitely see the similarities though. The super 3 has huge output that is mostly mids. I would try that before the x2n if you needed a hot rails sound, unless you just put a hot rails in.