Hot-rail recommendation?

[JF Omalycat]

I recently put a Duncan hot-rail in my G&L Legacy, and simply put, I hate it. I'm not sure if it's just a bad match for that particular guitar, but it's not leaving me with that warm and fuzzy feeling, you know? Seems fizzy, brittle, kind of squeal'ish. Almost overcompressed or something????
I've never had a problem with Duncan pups before, so I don't mean to sound like I'm trashing the company. Nor am I an expert on pickups in general, I just wanted to have at least one guitar for the humbucker sound.

Any recommendations on a hot-rail type of pup? There are so many choices out there, I don't even know where to begin. My playing style goes from garage blues to occasional chunking and I tend to play with more mid's than most.

Any input from you most knowledgeable folks would be very appreciated.

 

[fishyfishfish]

Had the same problem with one of my Strats and it almost drove me crazy! If is the plain old "Hot Rails", to me it exaggerates the sound of the guitar. If your guitar is on thee bright side, it will make it really bright. Not a bad thing if you can knock it back with the EQ on the amp. I liked the "Little 59" for an all around middle of the road pickup. I have more than enough distortion from my amp, and it gave me the PAF sound that I was looking for. Good Luck!

 

[moltar]

I have a couple dimarzio fast tracks 1 and 2 which I would imagine to be very similar. There are plenty of possibilities why they can't produce full humbucker sound. IMO they don't come close. My strat already had slots for two humbuckers, so picking up the pickguard to fit was the only issue. Even the very frugal Korean sweat shop invader (detonator) just blows the tracks out of the water. That includes humbucking, coil split, and in between using my spin-split wiring. I honestly think the tracks just sound like thin humbuckers and prefer keeping stock single coils over the intermediate.
My vote lies with scrapping the rails, but I have no real advice on what will do the job you're looking for.

 

[JF Omalycat]

Well, thanks for the input. Maybe I'll look into routing. Or just use this as an excuse for another guitar??? Hmmmmm..........

Thanks, guys.

 

[CGM]

I recently traded for my 2nd G&L ASAT. It was used ( a '97) and has a hotrails in the bridge. I don't care for it either. I've just struck a deal w/a guitar techie friend of mine. He's gona buy me a stock pup & do the work. Mine also has some hum to itwhich bothers me. Coud be the pup or grounding. anyway the stock on G&L's does great by me.

 

[6L6C]

You might want to try an experiment since you now own the pickup. If the Hotrail has 4 conductor wiring (which I believe it does) rewire it, instead of using series rewire to parallel. It will knock down the power a bit and “might” soften it up a bit.

 

[bigg40]

The hotrails are hot and rock a strat...trial and error.you'll never know If untill you install wether you'll like.