Anybody Use Rail Pickups In Your Strat?

[duhvoodooman***]

The other day, I came across a video on YouTube of a John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers performance back when Walter Trout and Coco Montoya were the dual guitarists. Montoya was playing a Strat with 3 of the "rail" style pickups in it. Personally, I didn't like the tone as much as the vintage single coil Strat sound, but it'll give you something to watch/listen to and hear what a 3-rail p'up setup sounds like. I don't have the link handy, but do a search on "Bluesbreakers", and I'm sure you'll find it.

BTW, Montoya certainly has a unique setup. He's a lefty, and he's playing a left-handed Strat, but it's strung upside down, i.e. like a RH Strat. Apparently, he learned on a normally strung RH Strat and he prefers the "big strings down", but he wants the deeper cutaway on the correct side!

[Bloozcat]

Coco Montoya is one of my favorite blues guitarists. His yellowish Strat clone has Bill Lawrence OBL blade pickups in it. These were some of Bill Lawrence's earliest pickups that were made in Germany. I've read that Coco said he was using Bill Lawrence L-250 blade pickups in his guitars - and I believe that he has them in at least one guitar - but I could pick the "OBL" logo off the pickup covers on one of his albums with the yellow guitar on the cover. I like the tone he gets out of these pickups, but they definitely don't have that traditional Strat single coil vibe that we associate with the guitar. I once had an L-150 in the bridge position of an old Strat, but I never liked the tone. That model had a single blade, and it was way too spikey for my tastes.

The Strat clones that Coco uses are made by Toru Nittono. If I remember correctly Toru was working for LA Guitar Works when he made one (or more?) of Coco's earlier guitars. Toru has his own shop now from what I've heard.

[Duff]

Just recently I hot rodded a free Squire affinity strat after talking to the tech man at Seymour Duncan about my goals. With his input I decided on a SD hot rail in the neck, a SD 'lil 59 in the middle, and a SD JB Jr. in the bridge. According to the SD tech this is a favorite pup configuration of a lot of players. He also suggested some other configurations.

You can call them at their corporate number and ask the tech what he thinks.

I chose to mix up the pups instead of getting a rail set because I wanted to get different tones from the different positions and the selection I put in delivers some awesome diversity of tone. These are hum cancelling pups but sound awesome.

I am thinking of getting a set of GFS hot rails for another guitar and I think they will sound really good. I had a hot rail GFS 'lil killer in the bridge of a guitar I sold and it was awesome.

I don't want all of my guitars to sound the same so I like to consider ones with different tones. That's why I got a couple P90 guitars, awesome tone, and some Peavey Generation EX tele type guitars that have distinctly different tele tones from a typical tele, really nice tones and high quality guitars that are being sold inexpensively and the Generation EX line is being discontinued.

Another thing you could do is go to a place that sells Squires and play that version that they have out with hot rails in it. It looks super nice but I didn't play it. I bet it sounds great. That would probably give you an idea of how the GFS pups would sound in a strat.

I really like that hot rail in the neck position on my affinity. It sounds really, really nice. Really drives the amp into a smooth distortion.

Duffy

[Bloozcat]

I think that might be the best way to go, Duffy, although I would have thought (my preference) the rail would have been in the bridge position. The obvious advantage of this is to put the beefier, thicker, rail in what for many, is the most unusable pickup position on a Strat. Additionally, it's a way to get more of a humbucking tone without having to route a S/S/S body for a full size humbucker (as is also true for the other two positions as well).

If one can afford to do so, the ideal situation is to have several Strats, all set up in different configurations. I had a set of Joe Barden S pickups in a Strat once. They sounded great, but not great like single coils should. They had a character all their own. I regret selling them instead of saving them for another Strat set up just for that tone.

[Duff]

I thought of putting the rail in the bridge but decided to try it in the neck and it sounds really great.

The JB Jr sounds great in the bridge too.

I thought about switching them around some day but for now it sounds really good in all three positions, plus 2 and 4. It is a neat combination. I could have went with all rails but I wanted to try something that would give me more variety of tone and still have pups that work well together.

I have a HWY 1 fat strat with stock pups. They sound good. I'm sure I could improve upon them though.

That hot rail sounds surprisingly good in the neck. Because it really beefs up that affinity, could be why.



Duffy

[tot_Ou_tard]

Are rails & blades the same thing?

There are single blade designs like the Charlie Christian type. Not exactly a strat on steroids type of sound though.

[aeolian]

Are rails & blades the same thing?

I think they are. My Godin has blades in the neck and middle. It does a decent job sounding like a Strat. I'm not a purist so sounding exactly like a Strat is not that high a priority.

[Bloozcat]

Are rails & blades the same thing?

There are single blade designs like the Charlie Christian type. Not exactly a strat on steroids type of sound though.

Yeah, blades were what they were called when they first came out. Now, they seem to be called rails most of the time.

When I bought my Bill Lawrence L-150 back in the mid 70's, it was called a blade (single blade), because there were two stacked coils. Later, there were dual blades when some construction went to side-by-side coils.