Quarter Pound neck/Hot Rails bridge - good or bad idea?

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 10:49 pm

I've got a Musicmaster II that I've been putting together and I've pretty much decided to go ahead and make it a Duo-Sonic. I'm also thinking about having some hotter pickups in it since I already have a Mustang and a Jaguar that can handle the standard single coil stuff, so I'm thinking about putting a Quarter Pound strat pickup in the neck and a Hot Rails in the bridge. Is this a good or bad idea? Are there any problems that I might run into by having a single coil in the neck and a humbucker in the bridge? I'm also not 100% sure about the Hot Rails. My other choice would be the Little 59, but I can't decide between the two. Thoughts and/or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks.

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:10 pm

I had this exact setup in the frankensonic and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Believe it or not, the hot rails actually split fairly nicely as well.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:38 pm

endsjustifymeans wrote:I had this exact setup in the frankensonic and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Believe it or not, the hot rails actually split fairly nicely as well.

Cool. Yeah, that was another thing I was thinking about doing - splitting the hot rails, although I'm not exactly sure how this would work. Would I need a push-pull pot for that or could I just use the 3-way switch for that? The quarter pound can be tapped, too, so theoretically, I could have four separate sounds, I think.

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:59 pm

dren68 wrote:
endsjustifymeans wrote:I had this exact setup in the frankensonic and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Believe it or not, the hot rails actually split fairly nicely as well.
Cool. Yeah, that was another thing I was thinking about doing - splitting the hot rails, although I'm not exactly sure how this would work. Would I need a push-pull pot for that or could I just use the 3-way switch for that? The quarter pound can be tapped, too, so theoretically, I could have four separate sounds, I think.

Push-pull would be the way to go.

I wouldn't bother with a coil tap on the quarter pounder, if you really want to maximize your pickup options I'd install either a strangle switch or phase reversal.

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:21 am

Honestly, HS > HH anyway. Go single coil neck!

(tho QP is way hotter than anything I'd ever use for a single coil. I mean, at 14.7k, it has a chance of being too loud for many humbuckers)

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:45 am

honeyiscool wrote:Honestly, HS > HH anyway. Go single coil neck!

(tho QP is way hotter than anything I'd ever use for a single coil. I mean, at 14.7k, it has a chance of being too loud for many humbuckers)

It's pretty well balance with the hot rails from memory...

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:55 am

I should've specified it's the SSL-4, which is the quarter pound flat. SD website says its 13.3k, and hot rails bridge is 16.9k, so that seems like they would be balanced, right?

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:22 am

Depends. What some people consider well balanced, I might consider extremely uneven. I have never liked a neck pickup above 8-9k, although I've used bridge pickups as hot as 16-17k. But that's just me. It depends on what you want your guitar to do. If you want the neck to be sizzling, then a hot neck pickup makes sense. If you want it to stay relatively clean when the bridge is gainy, 13.3k is way too hot.

moore65 · Post by **moore65** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:40 am

I think it's a great idea. My dream Strat has a QP in the neck and middle, and a JB humbucker in the bridge. Neck pickups are meant to be single coil! Plus you can't go wrong with a Seymour Duncan.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:46 am

endsjustifymeans wrote:It's pretty well balance with the hot rails from memory...

Great, thanks. I'm hoping that will be the case.

honeyiscool wrote:Depends. What some people consider well balanced, I might consider extremely uneven. I have never liked a neck pickup above 8-9k, although I've used bridge pickups as hot as 16-17k. But that's just me. It depends on what you want your guitar to do. If you want the neck to be sizzling, then a hot neck pickup makes sense. If you want it to stay relatively clean when the bridge is gainy, 13.3k is way too hot.

By balanced, I mean not having a big volume difference between each individual pickup. And yes, I definitely want this guitar to be "hot" compared to my other guitars. I guess if I find the QP is too hot, I can always take advantage of Seymour Duncan's 21-day exchange policy. That's one of the main reasons I was going to try their pickups. It's hard to know what pickups are going to sound like until you can actually play them, though. I did have a CP Jaguar for a while, which has a neck pickup around 12k and bridge around 14k, and I like the way it sounded. I didn't think the neck overpowered the bridge. That's the only thing I can compare it to.

B-dubbs · Post by **B-dubbs** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:19 am

Hot rails are freaking sweet. I think they would look sweet in a duo-sonic-y guitar.

singlepup · Post by **singlepup** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:46 am

This thread is making me think about turning my MusicMaster II into a Duo-Sonic... with a hotrail in the bridge, of course. Would be interested to hear a demo of yours once it's done.

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:34 pm

Well, I just ordered a hot rails and quarter pound, so I guess I'll find out how it sounds soon enough. I may try to record a demo once I get everything sorted out.

One thing I was wondering - is there a way I can set up the switches to split/tap each pickup without using a push/pull pot? Since I'll probably be using each pickup separately, can I just wire it to where the 3-way switch is off/tapped or split/full? Not sure if that's possible, but I'm hoping I can do that.

B-dubbs · Post by **B-dubbs** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 3:47 pm

I think you could do a 5 way switching like that, full, split, both, split, full. But I am not sure about a three way toggle..

dren68 · Post by **dren68** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 4:04 pm

B-dubbs wrote:I think you could do a 5 way switching like that, full, split, both, split, full. But I am not sure about a three way toggle..

I actually meant using each 3-way switch for each pickup - just like the traditional Mustang wiring, except splitting them instead of the phase options.

B-dubbs · Post by **B-dubbs** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 5:13 pm

OH! yeah I am almost positive you can do that. It probably wouldn't be too hard to wire either..

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:19 pm

You can definitely do that.

I'd do the 1/4 pounder as

in phase/off/out of phase

and the hotrail as:

full-on/off/split-on

Rox · Post by **Rox** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 6:33 pm

A pair of lil 59's I think is the best set up . However I love quarter pounders . Either way you go is good .

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:52 pm

How I had my Cobain set up was I had the bridge 3-way as Split Neck Coil-Humbucker-Split Bridge Coil and the neck 3-way was just a simple Neck-N+B-Bridge selector.

HNB · Post by **HNB** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 3:48 am

Here is a diagram bud.

Gives you coil tap and phase reversal.