Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

[tone?]

I am making an alder body maple neck guitar.


in the bridge i would put nothing but a JB in but for the neck i want a nice single coil. with no hum.

i play Malmsteen stuff as well as some blues.
what would you guys recommend??

The hot rails seem like they would be a bit too much. what do you think?

i will be using a 500k volume pot by the way.

 

[AmpliFIRE]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

The HS3 is a killer pickup IMO

 

[jony]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

Try a Fast Track 1 as well.. Malmsteen used it in the old days.

 

[tone?]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

will it work good with a 500k pot??? or is it better with a 250K??

 

[Kev]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

chopper?

 

[wixomwhat]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

if you are putting the single coil in the neck spot then I suggest the HS-2 for Malmsteen stuff. It has the Malmsteen tone. 500K pots do work well for
HS-2/HS-3.

 

[tone?]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

is it a pretty hot pickup or low output??

 

[wixomwhat]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

is it a pretty hot pickup or low output??

which pickup? the HS-2 and HS-3? both are very low output. look at dimarzio's website. the give the Resistance in K but also give the output in MV. go by the MV output.

 

[walt]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

if you are putting the single coil in the neck spot then I suggest the HS-2 for Malmsteen stuff. It has the Malmsteen tone. 500K pots do work well for
HS-2/HS-3.

I have 2 home made malmsteen strats and have found that the 250k pots work best for them. If you are putting a jb in the bridge, you will want a 250k pot anyways. As far as the neck pickup goes, I use the YJM which has a violin type to it. It is simular to the HS 3 but maybe a little brighter to compensate for it being in the neck. Either the YJM or HS 3 are great pups!!

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

I can't see the JB and those HS pickups balancing well. The output disparity is so great. Those HS pickups have about 25% less output than vintage strat single coil. I would re-think the bridge pickup choice if using the HS 2-3 pickups in the neck and middle.

 

[tone?]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

crap i thought that it might not be a good combination.

i usually use 500k pots cause those are the ones i like.

maybe they wont work well with the HS3

what does malmsteen use 250k??

 

[wixomwhat]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

Malmsteen sig strats come with 250K pots.

 

[walt]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

I first used 500k pots with my strat and didn't like it. The YJM/HS-3 seems to have an ice pick in the forehead effect with 500k pots. The 250k pots work best imho with the dirmarzios.

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

The 500k works well with the Hot Rails. However, the HR is both hot and dark.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

I can't see the JB and those HS pickups balancing well. The output disparity is so great. Those HS pickups have about 25% less output than vintage strat single coil. I would re-think the bridge pickup choice if using the HS 2-3 pickups in the neck and middle.

Zakkly..HS2/3 and the YJM are VERY low output and I think with 500K pots they would be wayyyy too thin and bright.

Hot Rails is the total opposite. Very high output. Like a JB or Distortion.

If ya wanna stay with Duncans I'd go with a a pair of cool rails (but they dont sound anything like a HS3).

Or change your bridge pup to PAF levels and keep the HS2/3

 

[tone?]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

there is no wiring to fix this??

 

[Farkus]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

In my experience, I'd stay away from mixing a JB and a HS Dimarzio product. The output of the HS is far too low...I couldn't believe how low, actually.

The HR series is very hot sounding to me...I use them myself, but I probably wouldn't if I was going to want an authentic clean or semi-overdriven 'blues' tone.

The HRn and JBb match up together very well though, for a higher output set.

In your position, I'd probably go with some good Chubtones (excellent vintage overdriven tones from my '63 set-the real deal) or maybe a whole set of the HS type pickups, which to me don't sound that vintage at all but are quiet.

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

LesStrat has HR/CR/HR

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[Folo]

Re: Hot Rails or Dimarzio HS-3???

You're stuck with lots of things to think about. If you want a hs-3 to complement a JB output-wise, you'll need to use some serious compression or gain boosting. If you want single coil tone, I wouldn't think the Hot Rails is the way to go. From what I understand, true single coils can be noisy and lower impedance pickups might serve better in that respect. Then again, that isn't necessarily a balanced pairing. From Duncan staff, the SSL-5/6 Custom single coils is a high output pickup voiced more like a traditional strat sound (as opposed to the QP single coil). I'm actually going for something similar on my strat with a HR bridge, custom neck, alnico II middle. I'll try to post a review.