Single coil sized humbuckers - educate me!

cm01

I'm having a re-think on with regards to routing my old SG / Melody Maker for humbuckers and considering putting some single coil sized 'buckers in... the Seymour Little 59's look good, anyone have any experience or other recommendations?

bandmaster188

had a seymour jb junior in a strat which was always pretty versatile or for some extra balls try the hotrails! not tried the little 59's though.

you could try combining say the jb junior in the bridge and a lil 59 in the neck

Bucket

My dad has a Little 59 in the bridge of his Strat and it's great.

I think DiMarzio do a couple as well, maybe give them a look.

richardhomer

Don't route it! I have a JB Junior on a Strat I use for slide and it's very good. Some people find them too 'middly' - personally I like my HBs to sound that way.

I'm firmly of the view that you should never make irreversible mods to old guitars.

ThePrettyDamned

Lil screaming demons are good, too, and more versatile than the name would suggest.

ICBM

I hate the Li'l 59. Toneless, flat and lacking in dynamics, and sounds nothing at all like a real '59. (This might be why I hate it so much to be honest, since the full-size '59 is one of my favourite pickups ever.)

The Li'l Screamin' Demon and JB Jr are much, much better. The LSD actually works well in the neck position too, although the JBJ doesn't - so you could try both.

There's also the Rail series, which some people like and some really don't. It's not just the Hot Rails now (which is pretty brutal, to be fair), there's the Cool Rails and Vintage Rails too.

martinw

I quite like the Cool Rails, but my Favourite is the Dimarzio Chopper.

Bron_Yr_Aur

martinw said:

I quite like the Cool Rails, but my Favourite is the Dimarzio Chopper.

This. The Cruiser is also really nice.

bertie

I haz JB-Jr in a start,  it is the goodz

thatbliss

What's the consensus on dimarzio rail pickups like the super distortion or tone zone? Thinking tone zone for my strat as it's quite close to the billy corgan sig that's hard to find cheaply.

grungebob

I'd love a corgan strat, I think those pickups sound great!

monquixote

The thing to be aware of is that they don't sound anything like a full size humbucker and that calling them things like a "lil 59"  is disingenuous because they are all ceramic rather than alnico so nothing like a 59 PAF. 

I have one in the bridge of a strat. It does the job, but it's not my favourite pickup of all time.

ToneControl

I had hot rails. I hated them in the end. Very overwound mid-heavy sound, with no detail

cool rails, vintage rails and little 59 are all worth trying, but I guess none will sound just like a PAF, but personal taste is the key thing of course. SD also do this mixed set: http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/electric/sets/everything_axe/

fretmeister

I've just bought a Chopper to put in my Strat. I will let you know how it goes

drwiddly

I'm not over fond of the SD rails pickups but I was impressed by the Irongear Jailhouse Rail I put in the bridge position of my Eggle Los Angeles. Fairly dark sounding but lots of depth. A mate has a JB Junior in his Strat and it sounds great. Not tried the DiMarzios but they sound interesting.

fretmeister

I had a Hot Rails.

It was great for metal, and actually pretty damn good for driving rack FX units, but totally overpowered for clean valve amp stuff.

ThePrettyDamned

fretmeister;135530" said:

I had a Hot Rails.

Wow. It's been an age since I had one, so I can only remember not liking it much, but is it really that hot?! That's insane!

Kinda cool though.