P-Rails plus Hot Rails in Telecaster - Wiring Question

[deltarider99]

Hey Everyone -

I am planning an ambitious project for my Telecaster. I have decided that I am going to have the bridge routed for a P-Rails Hot, and then replace the neck pickup with a Hot Rails.

I have looked at the various wiring diagrams extensively, and think I have come up with a solution for everything, but wanted to run it by you all first (yes - I searched but couldn't find an exact answer!)

Here's what I want to do: I would keep the standard 3-way switch to go between the two pickups, and then I'd have a on-off-on DPDT installed in my control plate to switch between HB Series/P-90/Rails on the bridge pickup. Finally....I would then have a push-pull pot on the tone knob to switch between series/parallel mode on the bridge pickup. I am just going to run the Hot Rails in Series Humbucker mode all the time, so no need for splitting or tapping there.

In all of this, am I missing anything? Will this even work? Thanks very much in advance!!!

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: P-Rails plus Hot Rails in Telecaster - Wiring Question

The only problem I see is using the P-Rail hot. The hotter wind plus two A8 magnets is just too much, IMHO. When it first came out I did a lot of magnet swapping with it to find a decent compromise in tone and output. I forget what I ended up with, possibly A5/UOA5. You can do a search and dig up my old thread and see. It turned out ok, but still a bit too much output for good sounding pure clean tones (at least in hummer series mode).

My recommendation would be to use the original P-Rails. If you want it a bit hotter and warmer then you could replace one of the A5 mags with an A8, but the Standard P-Rails sounds pretty awesome stock. One more thing...it sounds best when mounted with the Rail next to the bridge. This gives a twangier Rail sound and a beefier P-90 sound and makes them sound more distinct (when mounted with the P-90 next to the bridge there is very little difference between all of the P-Rail options.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: P-Rails plus Hot Rails in Telecaster - Wiring Question

Here's a link to the earlier thread...

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=195816&highlight=P-Rails+hot



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