Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

thefallingdarkness

thefallingdarkness

New member
Guys,

I recently purchased a guitar that has a slanted neck single coil pickup and a full sized humbucker in the bridge. I've decided on getting a Duncan Distortion for the bridge, and so I was curious to know which would balance better in the neck: the Hot Rails or Cool Rails?

The guitar has a mahogany body, flamed maple top, tune-o-matic bridge with string-through body, bolt-on 24 fret maple neck with rosewood fretboard. It has a master volume, master tone and 3-way toggle switching.

I'd be playing a lot of hard rock and heavy metal with it, but I'd want something that handled cleans better than the Distortion and wouldn't lose a lot volume-wise since the guitar does not have individual pickup volume controls.

Any help you guys can give is greatly appreciated!

TFD
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Hot Rails in terms of output yea. You could make the Cool Rails work but it would take dropping the Distortion down a lot and take more work and adjustment making. I'd go hot rails if its just output you are deciding between. If you want more of a single coil vibe look into the Hot Stack as well.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Neither of those are gonna be good for cleans, honestly

if you want hum cancelling I'd look at the stacks with a5's; don't try to match the output exactly cause the neck will end up being way louder than the bridge
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Gotta disagree with the cool rails not handling cleans very well. In my experience they clean up very well.

I wouldn't worry too much about output drop from a cool rails in the neck to a distortion bridge. If you want a little more oomph out of the CR, pick up the bridge model and install it in the neck.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Don't put a hot rails in the neck position - it would be muddy as sin, even with the neck winding. The cool rails will have plenty of output in the neck.

The distortion has a big upper mid boost. The hot rails has a big lower mid boost - there's no hope of a tonal match. The big lower mid boost is very present even with the neck winding. I've tried matching one of those to a bright bridge pickup before, don't go there.

The cool rails isn't the greatest clean tone pickup in the world, but if you really want great cleans you'll need a different guitar.
 
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Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

At 10.8k, the hot rails neck version would work best with the distortion, and that's not too hot to clean up. The hotter bridge version doesn't clean up well, but the neck model does fine.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Resistance doesnt mean anything.. You can have the same output on two pickups that have totally different resistance readings. If the wire is smaller it will have more resistance than a wire of larger size. Plus different magnets effect output as well. Dont take resistance readings to heart..
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

The cool rails provides a classic humbucker sound, not a single coils sound. The hot strat stack would not have adequate output.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

ACH91332 said:
Resistance doesnt mean anything.. You can have the same output on two pickups that have totally different resistance readings. If the wire is smaller it will have more resistance than a wire of larger size. Plus different magnets effect output as well. Dont take resistance readings to heart..
Click to expand...
Yea I understand how that works, but in general, with construction the same, the DC resistance does tend to parallel output, higher is usually hotter and lower usually is not as hot, mostly because higher DC means more wire, and that makes it hotter. Of course the magnets, type of wire, etc all come into play. But bottom line is the Hot Rails neck is nothing like the Hot Rails bridge, that was my point.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

MikeS said:
Gotta disagree with the cool rails not handling cleans very well. In my experience they clean up very well.
Click to expand...

Really? Cause the one I had in my strat got less distorted when you rolled off the volume but any time the amp was breakin up at all it was still way compressed

Ceramic humbuckers just don't have good cleans, it's not what they're for. Maybe with a split or something
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Hot rails are super high-output with a big midrange... they're pretty much a humbucker in a single coil size or at least come across that way. I'd go with the cool rails, or if you want something that actually sounds like a single coil "strat" pickup then vintage rails. The quarter pound or hot stack would be another interesting choice... either of those will have more slice & vibe then the CR or HR.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

Thanks for all the imput, guys, it's appreciated. I actually just heard Kiko Loureiro's set-up of an SHR-1n and TB-14 and found it to fit what I was looking for even better. The split-coil middle possition is really interesting sounding.

Check out the clip below I found on YouTube and see what you guys think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkJquRydYU
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

ACH91332 said:
Resistance doesnt mean anything.. You can have the same output on two pickups that have totally different resistance readings. If the wire is smaller it will have more resistance than a wire of larger size. Plus different magnets effect output as well. Dont take resistance readings to heart..
Click to expand...

In most cases that's true, but in the case of the CR/HR/VR family, resistance is everything. Same mags, same wire, same coil structure; you get the idea.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

I didn't like the Cool Rails.

The Hot Rails is a great pickup, IMHO.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

I had a Hot Rails neck in a Poplar Strat. Clean was very poor to me since I was looking for something to spice up my neck for soloing and I guess I was also used to single coil vibe for the neck. I moved it to the middle and used it as a riff pickup for a while, then I replaced it with the 30 days policy for a Jazz neck in a different guitar.

I ended with a hum canceling single coil tone pickup (JYM from DiMarzio, looking forward to test the new fury) , I just crancked up my distortion pedal and now I am very happy to say that I prefer lower output pickups with higher distortion in the neck, it is very articulated and expressive for solos. I had a PAF in the bridge it its fine so far but I still need to find the its perfect match for HSS configuration.
 
Re: Hot Rails Or Cool Rails?

The Cool Rails neck is supposedly awesome, but if you have a Distortion on there already, something hotter would "match" better, unless you use the neck pickup only for cleans and solos......then I'd consider the Cool Rails.
 
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