P-Rails ... Hypothetical

[skyydogg01]

Let's assume you have a 25.5 scale length, dual humbucker, 22 fret guitar you have P-Rails in. What are your favorite settings? Bridge humbucker? Neck P90? Middle Rails?

What say you?

I guess scale length doesn't matter, but definitely no 24 fret guitars. Also, pickups are mounted in the traditional manner - P90s on the outer coils, Rails on the inners.

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[GuitarStv]

I would want the rail in the neck closer to the neck, rather than towards the bridge if you're interested in authentic single coil neck tone. It has a smaller magnetic field and I suspect that it would be more sensitive to positioning. The P-90 has a bigger coil/magnetic field so should care a little bit less about positioning.

I figure the most versatile setup with P-Rails would provide the following sounds:
- neck single
- neck and bridge single
- neck p90
- bridge p90
- bridge humbucker

 

[dystrust]

I would want the rail in the neck closer to the neck, rather than towards the bridge if you're interested in authentic single coil neck tone. It has a smaller magnetic field and I suspect that it would be more sensitive to positioning. The P-90 has a bigger coil/magnetic field so should care a little bit less about positioning.

I figure the most versatile setup with P-Rails would provide the following sounds:
- neck single
- neck and bridge single
- neck p90
- bridge p90
- bridge humbucker

You're right about the rail coil being much more sensitive to position; the P90 doesn't seem to care. As far as which orientation you pick, it's a trade-off. Rails on the outside yields a 'better' neck position Strat tone, at the expense of a very weak and bright bridge rail. Rails on the inside OTOH yields a decent approximation of the Strat notch tone when using both rails, and the bridge rail is more usable, though the neck position rail sounds more like a Strat middle pickup. I'm not a huge Strat player, so I opted for rails inside on my SG. In terms of most used sounds, my default setting is both P-Rails in parallel and I use it about 2/3 of the time. The only sound I really don't use is the neck P-Rail in series because it's far too loud and fat to play clean and it doesn't do anything a boost pedal won't do better when playing overdriven.

 

[GuitarStv]

You're right about the rail coil being much more sensitive to position; the P90 doesn't seem to care. As far as which orientation you pick, it's a trade-off. Rails on the outside yields a 'better' neck position Strat tone, at the expense of a very weak and bright bridge rail. Rails on the inside OTOH yields a decent approximation of the Strat notch tone when using both rails, and the bridge rail is more usable, though the neck position rail sounds more like a Strat middle pickup. I'm not a huge Strat player, so I opted for rails inside on my SG. In terms of most used sounds, my default setting is both P-Rails in parallel and I use it about 2/3 of the time. The only sound I really don't use is the neck P-Rail in series because it's far too loud and fat to play clean and it doesn't do anything a boost pedal won't do better when playing overdriven.

I'd figure if you put both pickups so that the rails are closest to the neck you would get a decent neck single coil sound and a passable strat in-between position without impacting the other P-Rails sounds too much.

 

[dystrust]

I'd figure if you put both pickups so that the rails are closest to the neck you would get a decent neck single coil sound and a passable strat in-between position without impacting the other P-Rails sounds too much.

I haven't tried that, but I seem to remember there being a reason not to. I may not be remembering correctly, and I'd love to hear from anyone that's tried it.

 

[Securb]

I never use the rail on the P-Rails so the next time I install one I am putting the P-90 on the outside.

 

[jeremy]

i have a set of prails with triple shots, but i wired the neck pup reverse so the rail is next to the fingerboard. i tried it both ways and the p90 sound didnt change much but the rail was warmer and had a bit more output flipped close to the neck. both p90 sounds were great. i really liked both parallel settings. series in the neck was too much, though a bass roll off control might have fixed that. series in the bridge was usable, but i liked the p90 tone so much, i used that most of the time. the combined rails setting was good for clean rhythm. the individual rails settings werent bad but i didnt use em all that much

 

[Artie]

Stereo output jack.
P-90's wired to the 3-way, and then to upper Vol/Tone, and then to tip of output jack.
Rails wired to lower Vol/Tone, through tone push-pull for series/parallel modes, and then to ring of output jack.
Stereo-to-dual mono cable to Mackie 402VLZ4 mixer to whatever I want after that point.

If I plug in a standard mono guitar cable, I have a standard dual P-90 LP.

Project in work as we speak.

 

[GuitarDoc]

I found that with the bridge P-Rail, having the rail coil next to the bridge gave more tonal differences (with the P-90 next to the bridge there wasn't much difference in tone between the P-90 and rail coils played separately). And, yes, the rail coil is pretty weak next to the bridge but an A8 mag next to the rail coil helped a lot. Didn't really change the sound of the P-90 for reasons already mentioned earlier in this thread.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Stereo output jack.
P-90's wired to the 3-way, and then to upper Vol/Tone, and then to tip of output jack.
Rails wired to lower Vol/Tone, through tone push-pull for series/parallel modes, and then to ring of output jack.
Stereo-to-dual mono cable to Mackie 402VLZ4 mixer to whatever I want after that point.

If I plug in a standard mono guitar cable, I have a standard dual P-90 LP.

Project in work as we speak.

Cool. Sounds very interesting/intriguing.

So the rails are not controlled by the 3-way. Both rail coils are on all the time (when using a stereo cable)?

 

[Artie]

Cool. Sounds very interesting/intriguing.

So the rails are not controlled by the 3-way. Both rail coils are on all the time (when using a stereo cable)?

Yes. Although, I'm also considering making the upper tone knob a push-pull, so that I can add the rails to the tip connection.

But also remember, the rails would only be on if I had its volume pot up. The volumes and tones are completely independent.

And one more thing . . . I can run my dual outputs into a pair of Yamaha THR10's that I snagged a few years ago. I got two for less than the price of one. :banana:

 

[piblock]

Stereo output jack.
P-90's wired to the 3-way, and then to upper Vol/Tone, and then to tip of output jack.
Rails wired to lower Vol/Tone, through tone push-pull for series/parallel modes, and then to ring of output jack.
Stereo-to-dual mono cable to Mackie 402VLZ4 mixer to whatever I want after that point.

If I plug in a standard mono guitar cable, I have a standard dual P-90 LP.

Project in work as we speak.

Hell yes! I love it. Keep us posted.

I'm debating routing my Hamer Echotone for a middle humbucker. It's in a million pieces at the moment, but right now I have a Wolfetone Meanest 90 and Harmonic Design Z90 neck. I'm kind of daydreaming here and may or may not do it. But I'm thinking an a2 C59 hybrid in the middle with a volume knob only on the 59coil (spin a split). Then a 3 way switch for mono circuit, off (to ground), or stereo. When in mono, I could have only the custom coil on for Strat type single coil options, or just run it direct into a second amp. I just love to tinker and don't have a practical need to do this.

First I need to finish this Epi339 to sell. I bought the husk and am wiring it for stereo (it has 2 jacks already, it started life as an Ultra model) with phase switching. I have a Bigsby copy (which I bought for the Hamer a long time ago but I'm not feeling it) for it and roller bridge.

​​​​​​​Endless projects are fun... haha...

 

[Artie]

First I need to finish this Epi339 to sell. I bought the husk and am wiring it for stereo (it has 2 jacks already, it started life as an Ultra model) with phase switching. I have a Bigsby copy (which I bought for the Hamer a long time ago but I'm not feeling it) for it and roller bridge.

​​​​​​​Endless projects are fun... haha...

Sounds like cool projects also. We can keep each other posted.

 

[skyydogg01]

So, the reason I asked this is: while there are 24 possible tones you can extract out of these with triple-shots, I suspected people only used a handful. Get it down to 5 and you can get that done with a super switch. I'm contemplating a build for this guitar and trying to decide if I want to go triple-shots and a 3 way, 2 mini-switches and a 3 way or a 5 way super switch.

Thanks for your input.

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[bigcupholder]

So, the reason I asked this is: while there are 24 possible tones you can extract out of these with triple-shots, I suspected people only used a handful. Get it down to 5 and you can get that done with a super switch. I'm contemplating a build for this guitar and trying to decide if I want to go triple-shots and a 3 way, 2 mini-switches and a 3 way or a 5 way super switch.

Thanks for your input.

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You could also do something like the new Ibanez have where there's a 5 way switch and an "alter" switch that changes what the 5 way switch does. That gives you 10 possible tones, or 9 for the Ibanez because they duplicate one.

It requires at least a 4-pole super switch. Then the alter switch chooses which output it's taking from the 5 way. You still have to be careful to leave yourself enough poles for each, but it gives you a lot of options.

For example, you could do:
Set A:
Bridge series
Bridge P90
Both P90s (in parallel)
Neck P90
Neck series

Set B:
Bridge parallel
Bridge rail
Both rails (in parallel)
Neck rail
Neck parallel


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[piblock]

So, the reason I asked this is: while there are 24 possible tones you can extract out of these with triple-shots, I suspected people only used a handful. Get it down to 5 and you can get that done with a super switch. I'm contemplating a build for this guitar and trying to decide if I want to go triple-shots and a 3 way, 2 mini-switches and a 3 way or a 5 way super switch.

Thanks for your input.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

The Triple shots are overkill for a lot of pickup combos. With Pearly gates for example, I didn't even really use them. Having either one coil or a parallel option would be fine for PAF style pickups in most cases. I doubt that I'll bother using them again for vintage output pickups

It's much better with the Custom Custom and C59 hybrid, although being able to split to either coil isn't really necessary either.

I love the Triple Shots, but again, they're overkill for most situations. HOWEVER... If I were installing P-Tails, TS rings or another switching system allowing all 4 sounds for each pickup would be mandatory.

 

[Mincer]

For both neck and bridge, the P90 and both coils in parallel were the best sounding of the bunch.

 

[GuitarDoc]

If I had to rate the options of a P-Rail that I actually use, it would be thus;
P-90 = 80%
Parallel = 15%
Rail = 4%
Series = 1%

 

[Mincer]

If I had to rate the options of a P-Rail that I actually use, it would be thus;
P-90 = 80%
Parallel = 15%
Rail = 4%
Series = 1%

That's about right. I haven't tried the hotter version, though.

 

[GuitarDoc]

That's about right. I haven't tried the hotter version, though.

And it depends on how it's wound. If most of the increased winds are on the rail coil, its use may increase a bit...maybe even to 7 or 8% or more.