What happened to the "other" rail pups?

Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

Mincer said:
I am one of those weird people that is ready to throw out the rule book on what guitars should look like and how they work, but I am in an extreme minority here, and I know it.
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I'm in this same camp. But I wonder how "extreme" it really is. Lots of folks like Hot Rails and Dime's. There might be more of us than you think. People like to be "different".
 
What happened to the "other" rail pups?

What happened to the "other" rail pups?

Davii said:
Unless it's me asking for a sidewinder style humbucker :15:
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I make those!

I like pickups with blades instead of round poles. You get a more even tone and less string pull.

I think they look cool too.

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Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

ArtieToo said:
Nice! What does "Sidewinder" refer to?
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A sidewinder is a type of humbucker where the two coils are on their sides, facing a common blade or set of poles.

So the pickup only samples the strings at one point, just like a single coil. Because of that they sound like a real single coil with no hum.

To make it easy to visualize, here’s a bass pickup made to fit the old Gibson “mudbucker” in the EB-3 basses, which was also a sidewinder. Only it had a boatload of wire.

The same thing can be done for P-90s, and I’ve done Strat and Jazz bass pickups like this.

ac1935cee9572f212981fe3142b6362a.jpg



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Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

DavidRavenMoon said:
A sidewinder is a type of humbucker where the two coils are on their sides, facing a common blade or set of poles.

So the pickup only samples the strings at one point, just like a single coil. Because of that they sound like a real single coil with no hum.

To make it easy to visualize, here’s a bass pickup made to fit the old Gibson “mudbucker” in the EB-3 basses, which was also a sidewinder. Only it had a boatload of wire.

The same thing can be done for P-90s, and I’ve done Strat and Jazz bass pickups like this.

ac1935cee9572f212981fe3142b6362a.jpg



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I'd asked for this kind of thing for the center spot in a HHH Les Paul, but was told it wasn't possible, which left me wondering if there might be an issue that means SD couldn't legally make one. I've a design to do one myself, I've just not gotten around to it yet.
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

Davii said:
I'd asked for this kind of thing for the center spot in a HHH Les Paul, but was told it wasn't possible, which left me wondering if there might be an issue that means SD couldn't legally make one. I've a design to do one myself, I've just not gotten around to it yet.
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Interesting...I wonder who owns it, then. I am also curious as to what it sounds like, and how that differs from more conventional designs.
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

DavidRavenMoon said:
Interestingly Seth Lover had a sidewinder with split coils (one coil for three strings) in his original patent for the Gibson humbucker

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Do you have the full picture of that patent?
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

Davii said:
I'd asked for this kind of thing for the center spot in a HHH Les Paul, but was told it wasn't possible, which left me wondering if there might be an issue that means SD couldn't legally make one. I've a design to do one myself, I've just not gotten around to it yet.
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I guess it’s a lack of interest?

Duncan does make Gibson Ripper pickups, and those are sidewinders designed by Bill Lawrence.

And Lindy Fralin makes them.

I’ve been making them for guitar and bass for about 10 years. I make them in standard humbucker and P-90 size and a few soap bars on bass.

No one owns that design.


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Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

Mincer said:
Interesting...I wonder who owns it, then. I am also curious as to what it sounds like, and how that differs from more conventional designs.
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I was just guessing, as I wasn't given any other explanation other than it couldn't be done, and given the "if you can dream it" tag, I'd assumed there must have been something specific behind it. With me being on the other side of the pond, there's both the shop I place the order with, and a UK distributor inbetween, me and the custom shop, so the detail was likely lost along the way.

DavidRavenMoon said:
I guess it’s a lack of interest?

Duncan does make Gibson Ripper pickups, and those are sidewinders designed by Bill Lawrence.

And Lindy Fralin makes them.

I’ve been making them for guitar and bass for about 10 years. I make them in standard humbucker and P-90 size and a few soap bars on bass.

No one owns that design.


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I've a few ideas, but think I'll look into the ones mentioned before trying my hand at it, especially securing them to a baseplate etc.
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

My guess would be they don’t have the tooling for a guitar-sized humbucker to do it and it might be too expensive to set up for one-off.
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

ArtieToo said:
I'm in this same camp. But I wonder how "extreme" it really is. Lots of folks like Hot Rails and Dime's. There might be more of us than you think. People like to be "different".
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Blasphemy, hotrails arent rail pups theyre HOTrails

Its not a be-different thing, it's an "I got an SSS routed guitar with an SSS pickguard and this WORKS, WELL" thing


Also, hotrails are awesome....


PS i miss HS routed superstrats, whatever happened to that???? Other than Lynch's stuff
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

ArtieToo said:
I'm in this same camp. But I wonder how "extreme" it really is. Lots of folks like Hot Rails and Dime's. There might be more of us than you think. People like to be "different".
Click to expand...

Adieu said:
Blasphemy, hotrails arent rail pups theyre HOTrails

Its not a be-different thing, it's an "I got an SSS routed guitar with an SSS pickguard and this WORKS, WELL" thing
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Well, Bill Lawrence was making those Rail Pickups in the 70s.

And go back even before the PAF...The Charlie Christian pickup designed in the like the 30s has a rail...just saying.


Adieu said:
PS i miss HS routed superstrats, whatever happened to that???? Other than Lynch's stuff
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Wayne Charvel made several in the early 2000s but that was more of a custom deal. Charvel has some models out.

I really dig it though I've only used it as HH with the neck being a single coil sized humbucker.
 
Re: What happened to the "other" rail pups?

I spoke to the SD Custom Shop this week about rail pickups. They can do any pickup you want in the Dimebucker-style large rail style - but the caveat is that they come with a special mounting ring because the coils are slightly larger than normal. The end result is that the pickup will work in any guitar that already has a pickup ring, but a guitar with a pickguard or direct mount might require slight modifications.
 
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