question for Hot Rails users

[don't feed the bears]

I just bought a US Strat that has no pickups, just a wired up pickguard for a slanted single coil at the bridge and a single coil at the neck (no middle slot). I was thinking of trying a set of Hot Rails. I had a few questions...

- Could a single Hot Rail at the bridge do NWOBHM like Mercyful Fate, Venom, and Iron Maiden? (Doesn't Dave Murray use Hot Rails in his Strat?)

- Can the Hot Rail do both chunky crunch for rhythm AND smooth leads?

- Are artificial harmonics easily to pull-off?

- If I wanted a good clean tone, should I get a Cool Rail in the neck? Would this be a good matched set?

- This pickguard only has 1 volume control and no tone. Would this simple layout work okay for a Hot Rail/Cool Rail set? Would there be any volume balance problems?

- Do these pickups sound equally good in alder, swamp ash, and mahogany? (I'm really curious about mahogany; I have a Warmoth mahogany Strat body lying around.)

- Does the Hot Rail at the bridge put out enough juice to clip the front-end of a Marshall 100w Plexi? or would a booster pedal be in order? (I currently overdrive the head with a THD Hot Plate.)

Okay I'll shut-up now
Thanks!

 

[wasteofo2]

Re: question for Hot Rails users

I listen to Slayer and Maiden, and the hotrails was a bit more extreme than Maiden (even though they use it...), did Slayer well.

The hotrails does everything crunchy chunky and agressive. The lead was more cutting than smoothe.

Don't know about a cool rails, pinch harmonics or different woods, I used it in an Alder strat.

I don't know directly about a Plexi, but the hotrails was distorting my SS amps clean channel on 4.

 

[jeremy]

Re: question for Hot Rails users

i think a hot rails/cool rails combo is a good one.
hot rails is like the oxygen waster said. for smooth leads the cool rails would work but you may want a little bit of a boost.

was the guitar a richie blackmore model?

 

[strat_master]

Re: question for Hot Rails users

I have a hot rial in the bridge of my strat and lemme tell you it is one aggresive pick up. It has that chunk and edge your looking for. But for smoother vintage tones it will not do, id say go with a cool rail for that. I personally love the hot rail pick up but it is fairly limited in the type of tone your gonna get.I am actually looking into buying a les paul for more vintage type sounds while my strat can handle anything mroe edgy. which is what you might have witht he cool rail and hot rail combo so you should be ok.

 

[blake da teleman]

Re: question for Hot Rails users

what kinda tele pickup would give a great semi fat 70's, 80's rock tones and also do blues?

 

[RACER X]

Re: question for Hot Rails users

Have you thought about a DiMarzio Fast Track 2, its compairable to the Super Distortion, lots of mids and bass.