Best humbucker in single-coil shape?

[adoxtater]

Ok so I've had my chance to check out the Cool Rails and Vintage rails in my zebra Kramer project and the verdict is the Cool Rails is my favorite of the two. It's warm and bluesy. Very very nice tone. The Vintage Rails is nice too, but brighter and lacks body IMO. Cool Rails for me all the way!

[JACKSONFREAK]

Fair warning about hot rails: the hum is ungodly. If you buy one, buy a noise gate with it. Also (and maybe it was just the one I played) I played an 80's Kramer with a Hot Rail pup that someone had put in, and when I divebombed on the trem it made a horrible, loud, "*POP** sound (like what you get when you have you're pickups up setting up high, but ten times worse.) So keep in mind that if you think the strings may touch it during tremolo antics, either set it really low or get a Cool Rails insted

Its a humbucker. If it hums its wired wrong. There is no hum in the hot rails when wired properly. Its a high output distortion class pup. Basically the single coil sized version of the duncan distortion. If you like the duncan distortion tone and output use the hotrails. If you want smoother less output and still clear toned the JBJR. If you want clear moderate output with great articulation get the Lil Screamin demon. If you want vintage output with a hum sound lil59. If you want a true single sound without the hum Vintage staggered stack. My personaly favorite in a Single.
Gil

[Chad]

Ok so I've had my chance to check out the Cool Rails and Vintage rails in my zebra Kramer project and the verdict is the Cool Rails is my favorite of the two. It's warm and bluesy. Very very nice tone. The Vintage Rails is nice too, but brighter and lacks body IMO. Cool Rails for me all the way!

Do the Cool & Vintage rails sound like a HB or more like a humless SC?

[toejam]

Do the Cool & Vintage rails sound like a HB or more like a humless SC?

I know the Cool Rails sounds like a humbucker. Don't know about the Vintage Rails, though.

[adoxtater]

Do the Cool & Vintage rails sound like a HB or more like a humless SC?

Toe is right, the CR sounds kinda humbuckerish, but still has a single kinda feel to it. The VR is definitely more of a single sound. To me, it has that Fender Strat "quack" to it. Very bright pickup.

[jcm800x]

HS-3 is low output, I have a Virtual Solo Pro as well, little hotter.

[Twisteramps]

Fair warning about hot rails: the hum is ungodly. If you buy one, buy a noise gate with it. Also (and maybe it was just the one I played) I played an 80's Kramer with a Hot Rail pup that someone had put in, and when I divebombed on the trem it made a horrible, loud, "*POP** sound (like what you get when you have you're pickups up setting up high, but ten times worse.) So keep in mind that if you think the strings may touch it during tremolo antics, either set it really low or get a Cool Rails insted

I've had zero hum with mine (3 different guitars with them - EJ sig strat, '95 USA charvel strat, '62 Fender japan RI), might be how yours was installed. Also, you can drop a hot rails very low to cut the output... I think they sound great, but it's just my opinion.

Pete

[jgcable]

Fair warning about hot rails: the hum is ungodly. If you buy one, buy a noise gate with it. Also (and maybe it was just the one I played) I played an 80's Kramer with a Hot Rail pup that someone had put in, and when I divebombed on the trem it made a horrible, loud, "*POP** sound (like what you get when you have you're pickups up setting up high, but ten times worse.) So keep in mind that if you think the strings may touch it during tremolo antics, either set it really low or get a Cool Rails insted

My Hot Rails is dead quiet too.
If you are experiencing a loud hum you probably have the pickup wired in single coil mode or just wired wrong.
The pop you experienced was one of the loose strings (when you divebombed) hitting the rails and sticking to them on the pickup. You need to lower the pickup down so the strings can't hit the pickup during a divebomb.

[Chad]

Well, I finally decided on a pickup. To recap, my guitar is a 1996 Hamer USA Daytona. For those that don't know, that's basically a vintage Strat style, but with modern improvements.....14.5" fingerboard radius, jumbo frets, staggered Sperzel locking tuners, Lubritrack nut, etc. It has an ash body and maple neck/fingerboard. 3 SD Alnico Pro SC pickups. Wilkinson Vintage tremolo. Sweet guitar! Anyway, what I was looking for:

-bridge pickup
-mid-output, so it will blend well with the stock SC pickups
-versatile pickup that will play well both clean and dirty

I went with a....

Seymour Duncan Li'l Screamin' Demon

Hope it works out okay!

[Chad]

On a more technical note, I have a 5-way SuperSwitch and will be wiring the guitar as follows:

1: B
2: B+M
3: B+N
4: M+N
5: N

That's basically a standard 5-way wiring job, however, position 3 is different. I almost never use the middle SC pickup alone on Strat-like guitars. But I have a couple bridge HB/neck SC guitars and love the combination of those two pickups together. So this setup will give me that sound.

I don't like the pot closest to the bridge on Strats because it is TOO close and I bump it while playing. So I bought a new pickguard with just the bottom two pot cutouts, which will be used for a master volume and master tone. I will be leaving the stock 250K tone pot in the lowest position. For the other pot cutout, I will be installing a push/pull volume pot, which will be used to split the Screamin' Demon coils when desired. For the volume pot value, I dug through my parts and have a 400K p/p pot, which I think is perfect as 500K is generally used for HBs and 250K for SCs.....this is almost right in the middle. I holpe this all results in a great sounding, extremely versatile guitar!

What value volume pot do most of you generally use for a bridge HB when a guitar also has SCs in the neck and middle?