What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

Sounds great. Are you using it in series mode? What "mods" did you make to it?
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

Full humbucking phase. Two things but you probably figured out the A4 magnet. The other thing was a shot in the dark and I have no idea what effect it had if any. I spotted a piece of copper shielding tape I had laying around when I was putting the baseplate back on so I cut a piece to fit the baseplate and stuck it on. I can't tell if it made any difference and even the A4 barely makes a difference in this pickup. If anything it sounds a little clearer and less hum in single coil and p90 phase but to what extent I cannot discern. What I take away from this is that the PRails has a very strong sound of its own which no type of magnet will change to any significant degree, and maybe it can be said that the a4 trimmed whatever excess the PRails had before without losing any of the output strength.
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

HeftyMetalGuitar said:
Full humbucking phase.
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Do you mean "series". (Parallel is also humbucking).

I doubt that anything you did will have had an effect on the hum. An A4 may sound "clearer" than the stock A5 due to the reduced bass frequencies from the A4.

The P-Rails certainly has its tone, but actually, magnets do make a big difference. If the only magnets that you have tried in it are the A5 and the A4, then perhaps the only difference that you perceived was a little less bass ("clearer"). But if you try an A2 or an A8 you will notice a more drastic difference in its tone.
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

GuitarDoc said:
Do you mean "series". (Parallel is also humbucking).

I doubt that anything you did will have had an effect on the hum. An A4 may sound "clearer" than the stock A5 due to the reduced bass frequencies from the A4.

The P-Rails certainly has its tone, but actually, magnets do make a big difference. If the only magnets that you have tried in it are the A5 and the A4, then perhaps the only difference that you perceived was a little less bass ("clearer"). But if you try an A2 or an A8 you will notice a more drastic difference in its tone.
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I don't know the technical jargon so forgive my misuse of terms. I figured "in phase" and "out of phase" refers to how you are wiring the pickup, and that using the switch essentially rewires the pickup so that it runs one or both coils or parallel, etc... I don't really care to be honest what the technical stuff is as long as I can wire the pickups and play! Ha ha. The effectiveness of the copper tape is hardly worth mentioning because as I said it was just a shot in the dark with no defined purpose. On that note though is something interesting that came to my attention when I first started experimenting with pickups and that is that there are some kind of production differences among the exact same models of pickups. In the past I bought two JB trembuckers of which one was noisier than the other. Another time I had the same experience with two Custom 5 humbuckers. That too is something I noticed with Fender pickups as well but not so much with Dimarzio. I wonder if there is something more automated in their production methods which makes them so consistent. The a4 has no perceptible loss of bass and I can tell when I look at the EQ of my tracks that nothing has decreased in bass frequency or output and only a faint increase in low mids. That is also what I am hearing so I have to conclude that a4 and a5 is an insignificant change in the PRails.

I think the PRails has some color as it does not seem to be as transparent as other Seymour Duncan pickups. I'm guessing maybe it is not the pickup of choice for the cork sniffers who think they can hear what kind of tone wood is being used through their Dr. Z's and Komets. LOL. I like them though especially in neck position on a gainy rig.

JOLLY said:
Nice playing
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Thank you.
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

HeftyMetalGuitar said:
Here is what my P-Rails sound like after some mods. You will not hear the vintage amp sounding phenomenal or anything because I can not turn it loud where I live. This is my first post of music by the way.

Seymour Duncan P-Rails Test
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This sounds really good. What's your recording set up? I've got to keep it down in my apartment, and I wish I could get tones like that.
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

^^
Have you thought of trying a small watt tube amp? There are quite a few that will give a decent bedroom tone, or may even have a headphone or other recording output (thinking H&K).
To the O.P. Great tone!
 
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Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

I was using a 40w tube amp. If my cellphone was ringing next to it, you could hear my cellphone over it, so it was very low volume. Ha ha ha! In fact that's why I faded out the ending because I was getting a text message that was picked up by the mic! I use a multi-channel tube preamp going directly into the computer device and edit in Sonar. This was not a serious effort because I wanted to solicit honest feedback. If someone's playing is too polished then it would probably lend to the perception that someone has good tone. I think the best demos are done by amateurs because that's probably what the average person is going to sound like when they take the gear home.
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

So you're not using the rail or the P90? Just as humbuckers? If that's the case, you're missing out. It's a good humbucker sound, but the P90 side is where they shine. Last night, I was messing around with my old Fender Frontman, and the rails side (which is usually kind of meh) really brought that thing to life.
 
Re: What do you think of the sound of my P-Rails?

mremic01 said:
So you're not using the rail or the P90? Just as humbuckers? If that's the case, you're missing out. It's a good humbucker sound, but the P90 side is where they shine. Last night, I was messing around with my old Fender Frontman, and the rails side (which is usually kind of meh) really brought that thing to life.
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Actually p90 mode is my least favorite. Parallel humbucking is my favorite. Aside from that I also like single coil and full humbucking. I have tried many pickups that claim to get a good p90 sound but none of them yet sound to me like a real p90. One of the greatest discoveries I ever made in tone was trying out a p90 Les Paul. Les Pauls are synonymous with PAF humbuckers so p90s never struck me as the pickups to go in a Les Paul, but I was very wrong. I still love listening to the tone David Gilmour gets with his p90 Les Paul, like On An Island album. I do not fancy the p90 sound of the PRail personally but I'm not saying it's not a good sound.
 
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