HSH with SD Vintage Rails

Andyjr1515

Hi

Something I've been meaning to do for over a year!

Both of my first 'home-designs' have been a HSH configuration, with mixed results.

With the solid mahogany 'Swift II' it was 2 SD P Rails plus a SD Vintage Rails in the middle:

  Pretty good but, to be honest, the P-Rails combination options were so good, I rarely used the settings that brought in the middle p/up

The second design, the mahogany-backed Yew-topped 'Swift III' went all Bareknuckle:

This had two BK Crawler humbuckers with a BK Irish Tour single in the middle.  The humbuckers have the full Triple Shot options, standard 3 way switch and kick in of the middle p/up in any position using a push push on the single tone knob. 

The sound when you kicked in the middle coil was OK-ish but, predictably, the volume drop when kicking it in with the crawlers in humbucker mode was dramatic, and the tone with them in split coil was a little bit light.

The mahogany build became the donor for the SD P-rails I used in the 2014 Summer Challenge, so I had the SD Vintage Rails kicking around in a drawer.  What I have wanted to get the time to try for AGES, is whether the Vintage Rails (albeit classed as a low output p/up) made any difference.

I did it the other day:

 

It is a blinking revelation!

I'll post later the result and also try to get some sound clips to illustrate - albeit, my previous view that I probably wouldn't bother in future builds with HSH is now COMPLETELY changed, and I now wonder if splitting the coils is worth it!!!!  

entee

That Yew is B E Autiful!!!  Stunning looking beast.

Andyjr1515

entee said:

That Yew is B E Autiful!!!  Stunning looking beast.

Thanks, @entee   I was always pleased how this one came out  

Been trying out the various permutations and combinations of sounds - should be able to post some soundclips this pm

Andyjr1515

The first sound clip is here.

The 3-way is set to bridge humbucker.  First sound is humbucker, then the second sound is with the engagement of the middle single coil (picked then strummed in both cases).

What I think is happening is that the resistance of the single  is so low, that the bulk of the signal is going through the single coil?  How it is working is not clear, but what surprises me is the very small change in volume but with fundamental change in tone...

I'll post some other clips when I've worked out the logic of the sound changes.

Andy

Adam_MD

Hi Andy I use resistors on my coil splits now it makes a big difference so they don't sound all thin and mega quiet. Still quieter than full humbucker but not as bad.

Andyjr1515

Adam_MD said:

Hi Andy I use resistors on my coil splits now it makes a big difference so they don't sound all thin and mega quiet. Still quieter than full humbucker but not as bad.

Hi, @Adam_MD. Funnily enough, I thought about using a resistor to experiment on the original BK single coil but thought I'd try with a straight swop first. I'm the first to admit I don't fully understand the nuances of pickup balance and volume from a design point of view. The thing that has surprised me, based on that certainly the quoted resistance values for the Vintage Rails are so low, is that the volume is almost unchanged paired against some very meaty humbuckers, and yet the tone is totally different so it is clearly kicking in. I'm delighted with the result - I will post some sound clips of it operation in split coil mode also later today - but I'd like to work out what's going on to make sure I can replicate it