Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

[rustinpeace91]

I play in a band that does pretty rapid genre shifting stuff. We do a lot of metal so I need that, but then we also incorporate some Parliament style funk sounds, so I need something snappy and bright as well. My main pickup for the job for the past 2 years has been the P-Rail system. However I've never been satisfied completely with it's overdriven tone, it's a bit muddy and doesn't handle palm mutes as well as I'd like. I need something that can handle both heavy metal and funk. I'd like to utilize a switching system (probably replace the 3 way switch with a 2 way) because on recording I love having a bridge single coil for all my clean parts, but live I would pretty much use the bucker exclusively.

I've been looking at the '59, JB, SH-5, SH-11, and SH14. It's really hard to decide because I can't find any videos or demos that do what I will be doing with it, let alone in a strat.

I will say that I like a punchy mid range and my tone consists mostly of mids.

What would you recommend?

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

Your tone consists mostly of kids? As in juvenile humans? Or young goats? (I am just messing with you)

I would suggest checking out a BW. Metal and a fairly bright, snappy clean tone.

 

[StoRMiE]

Re: Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

59/Custom Hybrid

It fits what you're describing pretty well in my experience, It goes from bright and snappy to full on chunk fairly easily.
As an added bonus if you split the 59 coil it gets back the stratty sound for the most part.

 

[rustinpeace91]

Re: Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

goddamn auto correct. I meant mids

 

[rustinpeace91]

Re: Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

59/Custom Hybrid

It fits what you're describing pretty well in my experience, It goes from bright and snappy to full on chunk fairly easily.
As an added bonus if you split the 59 coil it gets back the stratty sound for the most part.

That's cool. Will it provide adequate beefiness to my strat though? Right now I'm between this one and a JB. The JB will definitely get the distorted tone I want, but i wonder how the clean tone will fare.

 

[StoRMiE]

Re: Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

That's cool. Will it provide adequate beefiness to my strat though? Right now I'm between this one and a JB. The JB will definitely get the distorted tone I want, but i wonder how the clean tone will fare.

In some instances I can get a very thick sound out of the 59/custom but the bass end get kinda thin at times, But the JB is similar in that regard but aimed towards the highs instead of the bass end. Sometimes the loose spongy bass of the JB gets a little muddy for some people, But if you're thinking of the 80's sound, 90's grunge, Late 90's metal the JB is the thing to have. I can't really say much about the cleans because I never really use the JB for clean tones.

The 59/custom I use for 80's Metal, Punk, Grunge, Industrial, Pop, Rock, ect. But I also use it for classical, 50's stuff, and country with a phenomenal clean sound. The ability to turn down the volume knob and cut it from super heavy to a nice crunch or even a really good clean is pretty nice too.

But that's just my opinion, Go with what you see fit. You don't want to get something based on just my opinion and end up with something you end up hating and don't know what to do with.

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: Pickup to replace my P-Rail in my strat

One free test, if you haven't done it already-try flipping the P-Rails around. The rail close to the bridge will tighten up the palm mutes and reduce the bass a bit.