Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

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Brucifer85

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Hey everyone.

Seymour Duncan...

1. Little '59.
2. Cool Rails.
3. Lil Screamin' Demon.

Thinking of swopping out the single coil in the bridge of my Strat for one of these.

I've narrowed it down to these as I don't want to have a very high output pup as I'd still like to do some clean work with the bridge pup.

Other options are also welcome. SD pups are just easiest to obtain where I live.

Thanks.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

personally i like the cool rails clean tone the best of those three
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Lil'59 is a well rounded pup.
If you plan on coil splitting you might want to consider a hotter pup so that in split mode it balances better with the neck and middle coils.

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Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

I second the Cool Rails. I run them as set in my strat and love it. In the bridge I roll the the tone to about seven and it sounds great.


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Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Cool Rails
Little 59
Screamin Demon in that order (to me).
However, I like the Little 59 the best for slightly overdriven, and the Demon the best for Marshall-type overdrive.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Some of the rails pickups are quite surprising. Even a cheapie generic rails I bought to complete a Carvin guitar produced great neck tones clean. Although I've not tried the CR, I'd guess that would be even better and give good bridge clean.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

As a long-time fan of the Hot Rails, I really need to try Cool Rails soon.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Cool rails are pretty dandy....
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

I've had little demons in one of my strats for years and clean tone is probably the weakest point of the bridge model. The neck doesn't sound that bad.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Mincer said:
Cool Rails
Little 59
Screamin Demon in that order (to me).
However, I like the Little 59 the best for slightly overdriven, and the Demon the best for Marshall-type overdrive.
Click to expand...

Hello.

How does the Cool Rails compare to a SD Stack pickup for example say the STK-6? They seem kinda similar.

Thanks.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

The Cool Rails is clearer and more open. It was designed as sort of the single coil-sized version of the Jazz humbucker (I don't believe the EQ graph on this pickup). It doesn't really sound like a single coil to me. The S6, though, has more lows and low mids, but it does still sound & react like a single coil.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Single-sized side-by-side humbucking pickups that sound most like stacks (which sound most like single coils)?

To my limited knowledge and experience, Duncan has only two production models: the vintage rails and the duck bucker. Neither of these sound like an overwound single coil, which is what the S6 was intended to sound like.

You'll likely have to look to other manufacturers for such animals. DiMarzio's Fast Track and then Cruiser bridge immediately come to mind, though some will argue that they still have some distinct side-by-side humbucking qualities. I wouldn't argue against this since that is what these pickups are, except to say that some people have a more purist, all-or-nothing opinion on the matter than others.

What you can do with a side-by-side design, is split them or pull the pole pieces where practicable. This may get you closer to a useable single coil sound. With this in mind, I'm curious how the three pickups in question, the lil 59, lil SD and cool rails would fare. For their big brothers, I'm of the opinion that it's far and away the SD.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Another vote for the Cool Rails. It's a truly unique pup, with a distinct "snap" and "punch".
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Cool rail neck in the bridge with paralell wiring.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

teddybear said:
Cool rail neck in the bridge with paralell wiring.
Click to expand...

My main stage guitar includes the opposite solution: a Cool Rails bridge in neck position, with a series/parallel switch.

In series, it has an inductance of about 6 Henries, making the sound reminiscent of a P90. Good for warm tones and high gain. In parallel, the inductance falls a bit below 2H, giving something which recalls a Fender single coil pickup (IOW: a clean tone, for sure).

The bridge pickup is a Hot Rails with the same switching features and it helps this guitar to be a real Swiss army knife...

FWIW.
 
Re: Which one of these Single Coil Sized Humbuckers have the best cleans?

Lil 59 in the bridge & Cool Rails in the neck. I haven't tried the Lil Screamin Demon.
 
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