I have this pup in the bridge of my Mexi Strat and I love it! I play through Marshall tube amps and from clean to light overdrive to full rock gain they respond beautifully and sound great.
I've been playing Hot Rails for over 20 years. Love them. They may not have the 100% authentic single-coil sound to please all the audiosnobs, but they please me. As a clean Dire Straits strat, it sounds great. As an over-driven Metal Monster, it sounds great.
The pickup being a humbucker has two coils. The wire from the pickup gives you the possibility of wiring the coils in different configurations. For normal simple humbucker operation the coils should be in series. This means a certain two of the wires should be soldered together and taped up. One wire goes to the pickup selector and the other along with the earth is soldered to the back of the volume pot. Exact colours of the wires are shown in the leaflet that comes in the pickup box!
Oh, I understand. Yes H at the bridge and S at the neck. Right now I can get a good snappy sound in the middle position as both are in parallel, but I wanted a fatter sound with no hum at the neck when using it alone while still getting that snap from the middle position.
The Hot Rails really ROARS !!! Our guitarist has a Fender Strat with this little monster at the bridge and the sound is really powerful. Take a look at our RUclips Channel to ear this pickup playing in the mix.
Nice. I just received a strat body guitar as a gift and I'm seriously considering the Seymour Hot Rails pick ups to replace the stock pups. And I'm installing the Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalt strings.
Yes it should sound less bright with a stronger mid focus than the average fender single coil. Did you set the pickup height as suggested in the leaflet ? Try measuring the output resistance of the guitar. Switch to bridge, all knobs on 10, plug in a lead and measure from the other end of the lead. You should be getting 16k or thereabouts if the coils are in series and half that if only one coil or they are wired in parallel !
Just checked out the cyclone HS. With the HR in the neck and a five way switch and if your existing bridge humbucker has 5 wires you could do the PRS wiring and have the best of everything! OR with your existing pups considering the Tele 4 way switch mod.If I remeber that would give you an extra out of phase position sounding like the inbetween position on a strat.
This and the Lil '59 will both sound like humbuckers. I have considered but not yet tried wiring the pickup coils in parrallel. A normal humbucker and the hot rail and little '59 are wired so that the two coils are in series with each other. If you put then in parrallel you get a sound similar to a single coil and you still get hum cancelling. Whether you like that sound is another question. They do this with the noisless single coil looking pups and that may be the sound you didn't like!
might wanna try out lace sensor pickups.....they're a lil bit quieter than regular strat pickups.....more low end and vocal midrange but not very bright.
watch it again. he starts off on the bridge. and switches to the half bridge at like 22 seconds. he's trying to demo how the pickup sounds in both positions.
You might have misinterpreted what I said. I was talking about making the hot rail which is a humbucker sound more like a single coil by wiring it's two coils in parrallel rather than in series. That said it should give you the sound you want in the mid position. The Cyclone is H at the bridge and S in neck I presume ? so you'd put the HR in the neck or is it the other way round ?
yeh original pickups were almost painful often found myself playing with the tone controls turned down. It could be tempered in the studio but playing live with it was just useless so that's when I looked at replacement pickups.
Dam they are strong pups! Almost humbuckerish. Do you know the outputs? Sounds great.I own a 91' strat plus. It's not my go to guitar. I do play it much. It sounds good. But your strat sounds wicked.. I want a 2012 tele. They are sick. I was thinking about a pup swap. But I don't want to take away the integrity of it. I'm gonna save and get a tele! Rock on!
From your demo I know that the pups sound hotter but I could still tell that it was a strat I was hearing. Here is my concern. I wanted the ability to swap out my single coils for a strat-sized humbucker but I wanted to maintain the range of the single coil and not have it sound like a hot humbucker. Would you recommend this pickup or maybe the lil '59? (I want the hum cancelling more than anything and I don't like the sound of the noisless single coils that I have heard)
Ok. I have a Cyclone with an H/S configuration and a 3 way toggle. The middle position is running the two parallel so I get that tele like sound. I wanted to beef up the bridge a bit for some more fat blues like tones but I just didn't want to lose the single coil like sound of the middle position. You sre saying that with 2 humbuckers that I could still get a single coil sound in the middle if they are wired parallel?
I'm excited, can't wait to get mine back from the shop. Mine's a 91, our guitars look like carbon copies minus the charred marks and "beauty" scars on my baby from cigarettes and drunk animal house behavior. Anyways, I'm not sure about you, but I hated the original pickups on that, just never sounded right. This is probably why I was using 11 gauge strings on it because the damn p/u's made my strat sound like a telecaster. The original pickups were too bright!!
Thanks! I had it rewired. But same output issue. Is the hot rails meant to be obviously louder and pack more punch than the standard Strat single coils? That's what I'm expecting but it doesn't sound that way!
I just installed the SD Hot Rails into my Mex strat and Im very happy with the fat sound, but haven't got the coil split setup yet for bridge+middle (I have stock singles still in middle and neck). Have you split the bridge coils when you run bridge+middle with the hot rails?
No split coils on the HR. My middle pickup is the ex-bridge pickup, however. As I have the Little 59 in the neck I would have otherwise probably have put the ex-Bridge in the Neck position.
Hi, put a Hot Rail bridge pickup in my Strat and it doesn't seem to be as high output as one would expect and lacks bass, a friend of mine did the soldering for me. Any advice?
Matt, you know, i love your videos, but here you killed the Strat with these pickups, sorry ! i would like, to see a normal Strat with your skills ! i miss Fender-Videos with you ! LES
They sound humbuckerish, because they are humbuckers. The hot rails is a strat sized humbucker for people who don't want to Dremel their pickguard or order a new one.
I have this pup in the bridge of my Mexi Strat and I love it! I play through Marshall tube amps and from clean to light overdrive to full rock gain they respond beautifully and sound great.
I've been playing Hot Rails for over 20 years. Love them. They may not have the 100% authentic single-coil sound to please all the audiosnobs, but they please me. As a clean Dire Straits strat, it sounds great. As an over-driven Metal Monster, it sounds great.
Seymour Duncan hotrails is the best pickup to use! Great playing for all types of music!!
Its very nice that mix between single coil and humbucker !! Great sound and playing.
The pickup being a humbucker has two coils. The wire from the pickup gives you the possibility of wiring the coils in different configurations. For normal simple humbucker operation the coils should be in series. This means a certain two of the wires should be soldered together and taped up. One wire goes to the pickup selector and the other along with the earth is soldered to the back of the volume pot. Exact colours of the wires are shown in the leaflet that comes in the pickup box!
congrats sir you have a very beautiful guitar and excellent choice on pickups as well
Oh, I understand. Yes H at the bridge and S at the neck. Right now I can get a good snappy sound in the middle position as both are in parallel, but I wanted a fatter sound with no hum at the neck when using it alone while still getting that snap from the middle position.
best hot rail review on youtube by far
The Hot Rails really ROARS !!! Our guitarist has a Fender Strat with this little monster at the bridge and the sound is really powerful. Take a look at our RUclips Channel to ear this pickup playing in the mix.
Seymour Duncan pickups are the best pickup ever
Nice. I just received a strat body guitar as a gift and I'm seriously considering the Seymour Hot Rails pick ups to replace the stock pups. And I'm installing the Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalt strings.
nice choice on the bridge..the neck i could live without
Yes it should sound less bright with a stronger mid focus than the average fender single coil. Did you set the pickup height as suggested in the leaflet ? Try measuring the output resistance of the guitar. Switch to bridge, all knobs on 10, plug in a lead and measure from the other end of the lead. You should be getting 16k or thereabouts if the coils are in series and half that if only one coil or they are wired in parallel !
Just checked out the cyclone HS. With the HR in the neck and a five way switch and if your existing bridge humbucker has 5 wires you could do the PRS wiring and have the best of everything! OR with your existing pups considering the Tele 4 way switch mod.If I remeber that would give you an extra out of phase position sounding like the inbetween position on a strat.
Sounds like a valve amp when on its own. When combined with a valve amp it sounds even more peculiar.
As always very nice playing. I still like the sound of the Les Paul (and their copies) and Hagstrom guitars.
sounds awesome! great guitar!
This and the Lil '59 will both sound like humbuckers. I have considered but not yet tried wiring the pickup coils in parrallel. A normal humbucker and the hot rail and little '59 are wired so that the two coils are in series with each other. If you put then in parrallel you get a sound similar to a single coil and you still get hum cancelling. Whether you like that sound is another question. They do this with the noisless single coil looking pups and that may be the sound you didn't like!
awesome ! thanks for your greatness
cool! pretty nice tone.
Its the Seymour Little '59 in the neck position.
yes it is
Matt great video! What other pickups are you using in that guitar? Do you like them? Also wondering for the in-between tone demo was it autosplit?
might wanna try out lace sensor pickups.....they're a lil bit quieter than regular strat pickups.....more low end and vocal midrange but not very bright.
watch it again. he starts off on the bridge. and switches to the half bridge at like 22 seconds. he's trying to demo how the pickup sounds in both positions.
You might have misinterpreted what I said. I was talking about making the hot rail which is a humbucker sound more like a single coil by wiring it's two coils in parrallel rather than in series. That said it should give you the sound you want in the mid position. The Cyclone is H at the bridge and S in neck I presume ? so you'd put the HR in the neck or is it the other way round ?
yeh original pickups were almost painful often found myself playing with the tone controls turned down. It could be tempered in the studio but playing live with it was just useless so that's when I looked at replacement pickups.
yes it is a USA Standard
Dam they are strong pups! Almost humbuckerish. Do you know the outputs? Sounds great.I own a 91' strat plus. It's not my go to guitar. I do play it much. It sounds good. But your strat sounds wicked.. I want a 2012 tele. They are sick. I was thinking about a pup swap. But I don't want to take away the integrity of it. I'm gonna save and get a tele! Rock on!
Hey I love the tone man!! Can you tell me exactly what the name of this model is?? I'm at Bangalore,India.... would love to put one in my strat!!
From your demo I know that the pups sound hotter but I could still tell that it was a strat I was hearing. Here is my concern. I wanted the ability to swap out my single coils for a strat-sized humbucker but I wanted to maintain the range of the single coil and not have it sound like a hot humbucker. Would you recommend this pickup or maybe the lil '59? (I want the hum cancelling more than anything and I don't like the sound of the noisless single coils that I have heard)
Ok. I have a Cyclone with an H/S configuration and a 3 way toggle. The middle position is running the two parallel so I get that tele like sound. I wanted to beef up the bridge a bit for some more fat blues like tones but I just didn't want to lose the single coil like sound of the middle position. You sre saying that with 2 humbuckers that I could still get a single coil sound in the middle if they are wired parallel?
I'm excited, can't wait to get mine back from the shop. Mine's a 91, our guitars look like carbon copies minus the charred marks and "beauty" scars on my baby from cigarettes and drunk animal house behavior. Anyways, I'm not sure about you, but I hated the original pickups on that, just never sounded right. This is probably why I was using 11 gauge strings on it because the damn p/u's made my strat sound like a telecaster. The original pickups were too bright!!
Thanks! I had it rewired. But same output issue. Is the hot rails meant to be obviously louder and pack more punch than the standard Strat single coils? That's what I'm expecting but it doesn't sound that way!
please no gain whatsoever. I would just like to hear them clean and pure.
they sound crap pure they are meant for hard rock :)
I just installed the SD Hot Rails into my Mex strat and Im very happy with the fat sound, but haven't got the coil split setup yet for bridge+middle (I have stock singles still in middle and neck). Have you split the bridge coils when you run bridge+middle with the hot rails?
No split coils on the HR. My middle pickup is the ex-bridge pickup, however. As I have the Little 59 in the neck I would have otherwise probably have put the ex-Bridge in the Neck position.
Matt Thrope,
What pickup config is best for a strat in your opinion? for verstality
Hi, put a Hot Rail bridge pickup in my Strat and it doesn't seem to be as high output as one would expect and lacks bass, a friend of mine did the soldering for me. Any advice?
It looks like your not playing the bridge pickup but instead playing the bridge and middle as from what I can see from your toggle switch.
is it in series?? or parellel..
OOPS! Meant to say I don't play it much. Rock on!
Dont know if you were already asked this, but what's your neck pickup
Matt what's your middle pick up???
I put the ex-Bridge stock pickup in the middle position with a Little 59 in the neck.
Hi there, may I know what pots did you have on them? are there all 500k or mix with 250k pots? thanks dude!
What is your middle pickup?
is this a usa strat?
Matt, you know, i love your videos, but here you killed the Strat with these pickups, sorry ! i would like, to see a normal Strat with your skills ! i miss Fender-Videos with you ! LES
They sound humbuckerish, because they are humbuckers. The hot rails is a strat sized humbucker for people who don't want to Dremel their pickguard or order a new one.
"cleaner" than what?? Great playing though...
Já que você vai usar um som quase limpo,
ERA MELHOR TER DEIXADO O CAPTADOR ORIGINAL.
Nice playing, but that Strat sounds horrible.