P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

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billlorentzen

New member
Has anyone tried using a resistor or spin-a-split on the P90 coil of a P-Rail, to make the series humbucker mode less dark? I like the P and Strat modes, but the full series humbucker is too dark for me.

(I’ve been playing for 40 years and yesterday was the first time I ever heard of these mods.)
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

Forget series. Like you say, it is very dark and a common complaint about the P-Rail. Try parallel for humbucking mode. It is much lighter and very good sounding. My favorite mode of the P-Rail is the P-90 coil.

I personally have not tried a spin-a-split on the P-90 coil. Why would you want to...it doesn't make any sense. Look at it logically. You say you like the P-90 coil and the Rail coil by themselves, but the series is too dark and not very likable. If you take the Rail coil and gradually "spin" in some of the P-90 coil you at first begin to approach the beefier P-90 tone, but you already have that in the P-90 coil by itself so that tone is redundant. And if you spin in a little more of the P-90 coil you are approaching the series tone which is too dark and unwanted.

So with the P-Rail pup, a spin-a-split will only give you redundant/duplicate tones or dark and unwanted tones. But parallel gives you a totally different tone from the P-90 or the Rail, is humbucking, and is light and airy, and is a very good and useful tone.

The spin-a-split works best on a humbucker with more balanced coils to create unbalanced coils or to give a little more body to the split tone. This is where that mod shines. (But not on the P-Rail).

That's the opinion of a real P-Rail fan.
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

GuitarDoc said:
Forget series. Like you say, it is very dark and a common complaint about the P-Rail. Try parallel for humbucking mode. It is much lighter and very good sounding. My favorite mode of the P-Rail is the P-90 coil.

I personally have not tried a spin-a-split on the P-90 coil. Why would you want to...it doesn't make any sense. Look at it logically. You say you like the P-90 coil and the Rail coil by themselves, but the series is too dark and not very likable. If you take the Rail coil and gradually "spin" in some of the P-90 coil you at first begin to approach the beefier P-90 tone, but you already have that in the P-90 coil by itself so that tone is redundant. And if you spin in a little more of the P-90 coil you are approaching the series tone which is too dark and unwanted.

So with the P-Rail pup, a spin-a-split will only give you redundant/duplicate tones or dark and unwanted tones. But parallel gives you a totally different tone from the P-90 or the Rail, is humbucking, and is light and airy, and is a very good and useful tone.

The spin-a-split works best on a humbucker with more balanced coils to create unbalanced coils or to give a little more body to the split tone. This is where that mod shines. (But not on the P-Rail).

That's the opinion of a real P-Rail fan.
Click to expand...

+1 from another P-Rail fan!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

GuitarDoc said:
Forget series. Like you say, it is very dark and a common complaint about the P-Rail. Try parallel for humbucking mode. It is much lighter and very good sounding. My favorite mode of the P-Rail is the P-90 coil.

I personally have not tried a spin-a-split on the P-90 coil. Why would you want to...it doesn't make any sense. Look at it logically. You say you like the P-90 coil and the Rail coil by themselves, but the series is too dark and not very likable. If you take the Rail coil and gradually "spin" in some of the P-90 coil you at first begin to approach the beefier P-90 tone, but you already have that in the P-90 coil by itself so that tone is redundant. And if you spin in a little more of the P-90 coil you are approaching the series tone which is too dark and unwanted.

So with the P-Rail pup, a spin-a-split will only give you redundant/duplicate tones or dark and unwanted tones. But parallel gives you a totally different tone from the P-90 or the Rail, is humbucking, and is light and airy, and is a very good and useful tone.

The spin-a-split works best on a humbucker with more balanced coils to create unbalanced coils or to give a little more body to the split tone. This is where that mod shines. (But not on the P-Rail).

That's the opinion of a real P-Rail fan.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply and opinion. I was thinking there might be a sweet spot where it gives more of a PAF sound.
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

Mag swaps can get you away from the over thick series tone. An A3 under the P90 and an A5 under the rail will make the neck clearer and I think an A8 under the rail and an A4 under the P90 in the bridge position works rather well. Also orient both pickups so that the rail is closest to the bridge.
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

Chistopher said:
Mag swaps can get you away from the over thick series tone. An A3 under the P90 and an A5 under the rail will make the neck clearer and I think an A8 under the rail and an A4 under the P90 in the bridge position works rather well. Also orient both pickups so that the rail is closest to the bridge.
Click to expand...

I don’t know much about mag swapping, but I assume that would also change the P90 and rail tone itself?
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

Yes, it would change the tone and output of every position. In fact, if you don't rotate the bridge pickup 180 degrees, the rail will over power the P90 with my magnet swap.
 
Re: P-Rail with spin-a-split or resistor on humbucker mode?

Some good recommendations from Christopher. I'd like to add some with a little change here and there.

billorentzen, It sounds like you haven't done any mag swaps before, but you have a good basic understanding of the effect. It is pretty simple to swap mags and can be very rewarding in dialing in the tone and performance of your pups. There are many good youtube vids of the actual process.

When the P-Rails pups first came out I was delighted with the "regular" P-Rail but had some concerns about the dark and overwound tone of the series mode. There wasn't a lot of experience with it since it was fairly new, so I did a lot of experimenting with a set of them. Without going into much detail of every step I took and the results of each of those steps, here is my recommendations for the best tones and the most versatility possible. Keep in mind that everyone hears things a bit differently and they have their own tastes, and the particular guitar they are going into will have a definite affect on tone as well. But my results make for a really good starting point.

What Christopher said about mounting the bridge pup with the rail coil toward the bridge is critical, but orientation is not as dramatic in the neck position.

Let's look at it with a little logic first. The P-90 coil is big and bold and in-your-face. The Rail coil is light and bright and not as powerful. Mounting the pup in the "commonly acceptable" orientation with the P-90 coil next to the bridge tends to diminish the differences between the two coils: with the P-90 next to the bridge it becomes lighter/brighter and weaker; and with the Rail coil further away from the bridge it becomes fuller/darker and more powerful. This make the two coils sound more the same in tone and power, defeating the whole purpose of having a pup with such different coils to begin with. Mounting the pup with the Rail coil next to the bridge accentuates the differences. The drawback? The Rail loses a lot of its power (the P-90 is minimally affect by this rotation due to its size and the location of its pole near the center of the pup). To overcome this loss of power I put in an A8 magnet next to the Rail. You could also put an A4 next to the P-90 coil but I believe I ended up with the original A5 because I liked its tone and bite a little better.

The orientation of the neck pup is not as critical, but mag swaps to your taste can make a big difference. You may want to experiment with A5, A4, and A3, and even UOA5.

In series mode it still sounds a bit dark imo. Hey, this is a pretty high output pup in series. That's what you'd expect, and many people even like it that way. But to get a lighter less overbearing and more PAFish tone, it really works well in parallel.

Try it, you'll like it.

But be aware...you may get hooked on mag swapping.
 
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