Re: newbie. Combining different SD pickups
a hot rails is a very high output bridge pup while the alnico II is a lower, vintage output pup. if you used the neck pup for clean and the bridge pup for dirty tones it is a good match. the alnico has a great warm clean sound and a smooth overdriven tone, the hot rails doesnt have the best clean sound but the distorted tones suit lots of people.
what are you trying to achieve with this guitar?