Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

[Liko]

I asked this question almost two years back but didn't get much, probably too wordy. In short, I'm spec'ing an HSH Strat build based on P-Rails, keeping the traditional style of a Strat with the tonal options and switch-freak goodness of the P-Rails. However, I'm stuck on finding a middle pickup to complete the set.

I know I won't get everything, you're just never going to find one Strat-size pickup that will match with everything a P-Rail can do, so here are my priorities:

* Good classic Strat middle toanz. I like the middle position on Strats (unlike some) and want to keep that sound in this guitar.
* Decent quacky interaction between neck and middle (position 4). I plan to flip the P-Rails, which other players have done in their Strats to emphasize the quack and twang of the rail coils. Mid-bridge is less important to me, I don't like that tone as much.

I definitely don't want to have to split/tap a hum-cancelling middle pickup to get it to do what I want in various combinations; the P-Rails present enough switching challenges on their own.

That basically means I'm looking for a North coil single (to hum-cancel with the South rail coil of the neck P-rail) or a humbucker with a vintage voicing, and single-coil DC resistance somewhere around 6kohms. Contenders on my shortlist include the Vintage Flat, Classic Stack and Classic Stack Plus, maybe a Vintage Rails (though this pickup in demos often sounds quacky all by itself which I don't want from a single pickup). Other suggestions are welcome.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

The 2 I like are the Classic Stack Plus, and yeah, the Vintage Rails. I like the Stack better, although I don't hear the VR sounding quacky by itself- I just think the Stack sounds more like a single coil. It will balance well with the P-Rails too.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

I believe forum bro Securb has an HSH setup with P-Rails, hopefully he will chime in on his setup.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

Are the rails side of the neck and bridge opposite polarity?

 

[Liko]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

Are the rails side of the neck and bridge opposite polarity?

Yes they are. The rail coil of the neck pickup is a "South" coil, the rail in the bridge is "North". The basic idea of this set is to put it in an HH setup like an LP, so that coil splitting to use just rails or just P-90s still gives you hum-cancelling combinations. I want to keep that ability to have hum-cancelling Tele and P-90 LP type sounds out of this guitar, but the obvious tradeoff is that I won't get hum-cancelling operation in both of the "notch" positions on the 5-way. My priority is the 4 position (neck+mid), which would call for a North coil Strat pickup (either a neck or non-RWRP middle winding). if I really want mid+bridge SC tones with less hum I'll flip the bridge pickup over to P-90, but I don't use that position much on the single-coil Strats I have anyway.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

My mad scientist idea is to use a Hot Rails or Cool Rails and Super Switch to auto split to either cool for positions 2/4.

 

[Liko]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

My mad scientist idea is to use a Hot Rails or Cool Rails and Super Switch to auto split to either cool for positions 2/4.

Not a bad idea; the Cool Rails Bridge winding would probably work well against the P-Rails, just going by DC resistance and tone profile.

The problem is that an automatic coil split in the 2 and 4 positions assumes I'll only ever want to use the rail coil in those positions, which is not correct. You're also probably assuming I'm using the Triple Shots, also not correct; I've got my own mad scientist designs, and I have a wiring scheme with a DP3T and DPDT that is more complex to wire, but more intuitive to use. The DP3T controls coil selection (Rail-HB-P90), the DPDT chooses series-parallel, and other than the S/P switch having no effect on a single coil the behavior of each switch doesn't change based on the other, so there's no need to memorize the four combinations of Triple-Shot switch positions.

Adding in a superswitch is going to further complicate things while at the same time limiting options; if the switch automatically splits the middle when in a notch position, it'll either match the rail coil only (doubling noise if I want to play with P-90/middle combos), or if it somehow correctly selects the proper coil (and/or S/P HB mode) based on the pickup it's combined with, the wiring would be any electrical engineering major's nightmare senior project. There's probably a way to figure it out with enough poles on enough switches (I could for instance go with an on-off for each pickup instead of the five-way, then a coil select and S/P switch pair for all three pickups), but I'm trying to stay as faithful to the classic Strat look as I can and not end up with a pickguard that looks like:

So, all that said, I think if I end up with a noiseless middle, rail or stack, I'll just keep it in noiseless mode all the time and deal with the noise in the notch positions. Shouldn't be any more than soloing the rail coil in the 1 or 5 positions anyway.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat



In my mental exercise I was thinking of combining the Super Switch with an S-1. But I was also basically giving up on some options in my mind.

Sounds like you've got a plan, good luck!

 

[Securb]

Re: Middle pickup to pair with P-Rails in HSH Strat

I went through a few middle pickups on my HSH P-Rails build. I must premise this by saying I am a humbucker guy through and through. I had the stock Fender in there for a while and I was underwhelmed. I then put a Seymour Duncan SSL-3 in there and it still was not the vibe I wanted. I ended up getting a Lawrence L250 from Trey and it really opened up the possibilities with the guitar. I get my Strat/P90 tones with the P-rails bridge. I also have 3 humbuckers to cycle through for a variety of tones. I ended up putting black plastic covers on the Pearly Gates and P-Rails to pull everything together. The three way toggle under the volume is for the P-Rails rail/hum/P90