Hotrail Help

[Guitaryellow]

I have put a Hotrail bridge in my Strat which has 2 Fender 57/62 pickups mid and neck, both wound the same no reverse.
When I put the hotrail in it sounded weak and nasal, thus I swapped the black and green wires and it sounds a lot better.
Is the reason I had to swap the wires due to the non reverse wound mid?
Pleas educate me as I would like to understand.
Thanks.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Hotrail Help

Welcome to the forum!

Most Duncans are out of phase with Fender pickups. So you get that weak sound when used together. Even if out of phase, it should sound just fine by itself. You fixed it the correct way.

 

[Guitaryellow]

Re: Hotrail Help

Many thanks, I feel better about it now.

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Hotrail Help

The Hotrails is named appropriately. It is a HOT pickup.

I had a Squier Strat with Hot Rails/Cool Rails/ Hot Rails pickups. That guitar was named "LesStrat".

 

[Nagisa]

Re: Hotrail Help

Yea, hot and dark. I like it, but if you end up feeling it sounds dark with stock strat pots you can replace the volume pot with a 500k pot, then use resistors (look up the values, I forgot) for the true single coils so they see 250k resistance. It’s a fairly common mod for hss fat strats and especially with hot rails. See how it goes with your wiring first though

 

[LesStrat]

Re: Hotrail Help

Yes, I forgot to mention that I changed the pots to 500k.