Single coil to match L-500XL?

[guitorture]

I need a single coil neck pickup to match my bridge L-500XL... just something so that when I switch pickups the drop in gain isn't too obvious. I know there won't be anything actually equal but just something close. I know of the JB Jr, any other ideas? (guitar is an SL1)

[tomanyjacksons]

Seymour Duncan Hotrails bridge pickup. I use them in the neck position a lot. I use them to keep a JB in the bridge, close to in sync.

[guitorture]

Hmm, so you don't think the "neck version" of the Hot Rails would have enough output?

[tomanyjacksons]

Not for me anyways.

[DonP]

Interesting. I have a Hot Rail neck in my Model 5FX and I thought the output was a little low. The pickup is sort of far from the strings so I had chalked it up to being that.

[Newc]

It's just the inherent nature of singles and single-sized hummers. They cannot match the output level of a high-gain full humbucker, unless you compromise and lower the full 'bucker. While Duncan make great single-sized hums like the JBJr and such, they're no match for a full-sized. Even the 3 Duncan CUstom Shop JRs I have (Dist, Custom, Jazz) are not as powerful as their full-sized counterparts. The tones are a match, but not the volume level. Your best bet is to use a clean boost on the singles.

[straycat]

You can wire it for two vol one master tone too.
I've done that a few times run the singles off a 500k pot and the xl 500 off a 300 to 400k pot that balances out the pick ups really well.
Newsc's idea is a good one too.

[leftykingv2]

The hot rail is actually an extremely hot pick up. The L-500XL is 11.2K and the hot rail is 14.8K

[murkat]

I would contact the man himself.
Bill and Becky are always approachable and inclined to talk your ear off

[leftykingv2]

I would contact the man himself.
Bill and Becky are always approachable and inclined to talk your ear off

Good people! Lawrence music in Pgh.Pa. used to be owned or part owned by him when it was founded/ It's a 100% Fender store now which isn't bad for me because I can order any Jackson or Fender part I want from Brad. Brad owns the store and is a really great guy. I do believe that he bought the store from Bill in 1986 IIRC. These people who work there now were all trained by Bill suposedly. Not pushy at all. The new owner Brad even told me not to buy the first 3 guitars I ever touched in his store. He told me to keep playing them until I found the one I wanted. I can't really do this in any store because I am left handed. Every brand new guitar I have ever bought was based off of playing a right handed model of said guitar. So I sat there for about a day and a half until I decided the first Fender Strat I would ever buy was a 1976 Re-Issue. The right handed version was exactly what I wanted in a Strat. I asked Brad if he could get the same guitar in lefty and he said yes. Then he only charged me twenty five percent of the lefty up charge. It cost me $50.00 bucks instead of $200.00. So in closing what I am saying is the people at Lawrence music Pa. Were and are good people because Bill taught them this. The best part of this story is I put hot rails in the bridge and neck of this guitar and I play it on a 50 watt JCM 800 head and a Marshall cab loaded with 25 watt vintage greenbacks. It still fucking screams like hell to this day and sounds thick as hell in both switching positions.

[j2379]

Funny pretty sure Bill suggests using a 1meg pot w the XL. And the quarter pounders a nice high output singles I like them better than the hot rails. I prefer cool rails but I don't think they are a match with an XL.

[Bert]

As I recall the Hot Rails bridge is much hotter than the hot rails neck. So if you stick a bridge version in there, that's probably as close as you're going to get.

[Axewielder]

+1 to the Hot Rails. I've got two paired with a Duncan Distortion (16.6 K) in a HSS setup, and it's one of my favorite pickup combinations.

[leftykingv2]

+1 to the Hot Rails. I've got two paired with a Duncan Distortion (16.6 K) in a HSS setup, and it's one of my favorite pickup combinations.

That guitar freaking screams I'll bet!!!