« Seymour Duncan Cool Rails »

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