Wiring Tips for Duncan Hotrails?

[J_Gordon]

Hey guys

I have a Seymour Duncan Hotrail bridge pickup that I'm thinking of installing. I was wondering if there are any wiring "secrets" to make this pickup sound powerful yet "jangly", "crystally", or bell-like...a nice crisp but clean/clear tone.
When I used the pickup before it had a pretty good power to it but was definitely more rock and humbuckerish than what I wanted.

Also, how different are the Hotrails from Barden's? I really like the power and crispness (but plenty of twang) that Gatton had with his Barden's. That's the sound I kind of want. Maybe I need to get Barden's to achieve it :?

[Fandango]

You can split your hotrail with a push pull

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website...atics/hr2.html

[TheGoodTexan]

In my experience, the Hotrails sound fairly poor when split to single-coil. I do like the full-on tone, but it really got brittle when split.

I also had it wired with a five way switch, that would auto split and combine it with a split Little '59 in the neck position. My hope was that this would get me in the ball park of traditional Tele middle position tones. It did not. In fact it sounded quite poor. But the full-on tones where pure rock!

The only things it has in common with a Barden pickup is the appearance, and they both use ceramic magnets. They don't sound anything alike.

[frakenstrat]

make sure you use a 500k pot for the vol. this will let the pup "breathe" and not sound choked or muddy. and yeah, they sound awesome full on. split, not so hot.

[Ben Harmless]

I'd try wiring the thing in parallel. There are some decent schematics at the Duncan website that have some suggestions. In parallel, you'll still be humbucking, and using both coils, but you won't have quite the output, which should reduce the gain a little, but remain higher than splitting the pickup.

[supa_scoopa]

Originally Posted by frakenstrat

make sure you use a 500k pot for the vol.

tone too?

[frakenstrat]

i feel that the tone pot value is not as critical as the vol pot value being right. i do think the cap value is important though. some people may disagree with me, but this is only my feelings on this.

what the deal is is that most humbucker wiring calls for a 500k vol pot, 500k tone pot, and a .0223 cap. while single coils usually call for a 250k vol pot, 250k tone pot and either a .05 or .0223 cap. the .05 in vintage cases and the .0223 for newer applications.

but this is when the fun begins. because unless you have a "no load" pot for the tone, you will always be putting a load on the pups even when the tone is on 10. but you can always try swapping out to a bigger pot, and smaller caps. or a combination thereof. it is really up to you and your ears. what sounds right and works for you may not work for others.

so experiment and see how it goes. some people are afraid to swap out parts, and i would too if i owned priceless vintage guitars. but not many of us do. and you are probably putting this in a new production line guitar. so mod away. vol and tone pots, caps, output jacks, and the like i think can be swapped on new guitars. is it really gonna make that big of a difference if your 97 MIA strat has an aftermarket pot in it? not really.

anyways, i've rambled enough. hope that answered your query.