Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

Wabash Slim

Wabash Slim

New member
Looking at the chart I see the VR resistance is about 1/4 that of the CR for both N & B, which is suspiciously close to parallel vs. series. Of course, the VR has the half-rail in each coil which makes me wonder - why not a full rail in one coil and no rail in the other?

So anyway does a CR in parallel sound just like a VR? Anyone compared?
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

I'm perfectly happy with my CR. So, no, I haven't tried it. I'm not sure it would matter to me.
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

I like the cool rails and the hot rails. The vintage is the only duncan pickup I've ever tried that I didn't like. It's supposed to sound like a single coil with no hum, in a rails package. Granted, it have some advantages over regular singles; No hum, no string dropout when bending, plus less string pull. However it just doesn't sound very good, and doesn't sound at all like a cool rails either.
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

LesStrat said:
I'm perfectly happy with my CR. So, no, I haven't tried it. I'm not sure it would matter to me.
Click to expand...

How would you describe the tone of the CR?
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

Right now I only have a CR in the middle, with HR n+b. All are splittable. The HRb is a bit 'too much' so I'm considering putting the HRn in the bridge hole and sticking another CR I have in the neck hole.

I like the HR split tone, especially in the neck. The CR naturally sounds a bit thinner but it blends really nice in the 2-4 positions. I read that a lot of guys like the VR in the middle so that's why I'm wondering if I wire my middle CR for parallel if I'll get that same sound.
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

I've done both, the Cool Rails in parallel and the Vintage Rails. I've got two VR's in a guitar right now. The parallel CR was quite some time ago and in a different guitar, so its hard to compare directly, but I'd say the tone was in the same ballpark. The CR seemed to still have a bit more output though. That could be because its polepieces go all the way across the pup, whereas the VR's only go halfway.

Edit: Just remembered - the CR I did was a bridge model installed in the middle position. (In parallel.) That might account for the higher output.
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

The half rails in the VR (not really half rails, just severely lowered on the side with the filler strip) also narrow the aperture. So there's a sharper attack, regardless of the wiring scheme. The CR has about 1/4" of magnetic distance between the coils, so it "hears" that much more of the string. It's an output variable, but also a tonal one. The wider the aperture, the softer the attack and mellower the tone. That's why VR's can be accused of sounding thin, when Duncan was actually trying to go for the super-vintage low output single coil tone. But they're all Ceramics, too. So they're a little harsh in the attack when split or run parallel, in a "white noise" kind of way.
 
Re: Is the Vintage Rails just a Cool Rails in parallel?

Butch Snyder said:
How would you describe the tone of the CR?
Click to expand...

Punchy with bite. I used a bridge model in a strat that really gave the the bridge pup meat without losing all of the single coil nature in that position. I put a neck model in the beck of a mahogany Warmoth VW body with a maple neck.RW board and with some dirt was Back and Roller's dream tone IMO. Plenty of clarity and enough umph to not sound thin/shrill
 
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