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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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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...

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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..

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.

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

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

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

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.

Here is a diagram bud. Gives you coil tap and phase reversal.