Seymour Duncan SCR-1B Cool Rails Strat Bridge

Now I've got your attention, I'd like to share a story with all those out there about to spend hundreds of pounds on new pickups. I've got a Yam Pacifica 312H (review on this site) and I was going to upgrade the pickups. I spent hours looking at all the choices and got really quite confused. Everything Seymour Duncan seems to come in at 90 quid or so, so that's not a problem, but I don't know anything about pickups and was unprepared for the vastness of the choice. After some reading I was told by Yamaha that the only difference between a 312H which is available only in Japan and the 412, which is for the rest of the world, is a slight difference in body shape, colour choices and the pickups, which are ceramic in Japan and Alnico V in UK. I also found out that ceramics are the brightest and most powerful pickups and that covers tend to be used to mellow the sound. So I took the covers off the single coils. The difference in tone is significant and definitely for the better, with increased woodiness, attack, pick sensitivity and power is up about 40%. It basically sounds like I put new pickups in, for no money and 30 mins fiddling. I also snipped the wire from one of the coils on my bridge humbucker and totally messed it up, but I got a Yamaha specialist to permanently tap the bridge-most coil with the adjustable pins, then reverse the pickup seating so the active coil is further away from the bridge. This has meant the balance from pickup-pickup is much nicer, with no big change in the last two positions. I got the tip from another website I can't remember, but a tapped 'bucker in the bridge-most position apparently is far too harsh and doesn't sound like a strat. Now I have added lucidity and fluidity twith the overdriven sounds. I'm not in a hurry to change my pickups anymore, tho obviously if I did spend 270 quid on a balanced set of cool rails or soemthing it would sound better than it does now. There's just no need, cos it already sound more than good enough and a lot better than many strats out there.

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This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Seymour Duncan Cool Rails is a unique take on single coil sized humbuckers. The main goal was to create a lower output single coil humbucker in contrast to the Hot Rails which was blazing hot. It features two blade rails like many of these single coil humbuckers have, four conductor wiring and a ceramic magnet.

While the Cool Rails called is a lower output single coil humbucker, but it’s still got some output going on. It can work in any position, but I find it best to be suited for the middle position – and I’ll get to that in a bit. It is a bit brighter and clearer than the Hot Rails, which can be a good thing for some and a bad thing for others.

Here’s the issue I have with this pickup. It sounds like a mix between a single coil and a humbucker. It can’t decide how it wants to sound, so it’s trying to sound like bot.h at the same time. Consequently, I feel it fails in both sounds. It’s not fat enough to be a humbucker, and it doesn’t have the awesome grind like single coils do. It just sounds kinda bland to me. Split sounds and parallel sounds aren’t really anything special, either. In the neck, it’s bright and kinda okay. In the bridge, it’s too bright and lacks output. That’s why I put it in the position I use the least – the middle position. The lower output allows it to be somewhat useful in the middle position for some clean tones.

If you’re looking for a single coil sized humbucker, there are better ones out there. I tend to recommend the Hot Rails the most if you’re looking for a single coil sized humbucker in the Seymour Duncan line. Some people dig this pickup, but no matter what wood I tried it in, it was the same result every time.

I use it for 5 years now, to replace the bridge mic with a copy of scrap unknown brand strat-shaped flame by my uncle (www.yves-roulleau.com)

Before the acqurir I had not test masses, actually I wanted a hotrails as Maiden, but I was afraid that was too saturated.
He has a good sound, similar to Hotrails actually less powerful of course, well-typed "Start with big balls", but I find using the clean sounds (note, I do not care I do not like the sounds clear), but his record remains the crunch and saturation (Maiden style).

I think it's a very good mic, well worth its price, but with experience, I would take a more Hotrails because I have corresponded more.