Welcome to Seymour Duncan P-Rails Review.
If you are a gigging musician, you need a guitar that could sound like as many guitars as possible.
You need a humbucker tone, a P-90 tone ( those big fat single coils used by Gibson), and a Strat tone. How can this be achievable?
Enter Seymour Duncan P-Rails.
I have been modifying and repairing electric guitars for more than 17 years, and this is one of the most requested modifications among my customers.
In this review, I will be sharing my knowledge and experience with this modification.
What is a Seymour Duncan P-Rails Pickup?
In the past, three guitars are needed to have all of this tone. Now Seymour Duncan made life easier for the gigging guitarist and made it possible to have all of this tone on one guitar.
As pickup coil splitting is essential to produce a variety of tone from a single guitar, this pickup is heaven sent to a gigging guitarist.
A P-Rails has two coils, just like a regular humbucker. What is different about these pickups is that it has a P-90 single-coil and a Rail single-coil.
Seymour Duncan P-Rails Reveiw
Summary
Product: Seymour Duncan P-Rails Pickups
Manufacturer: Seymour Duncan
Country of Manufacture: USA
Price: $195
Summary: Best pickup for a gigging musician as it provides a lot of tonal options.
Star Rating. 4.5/5
What is the Difference between a Single Rail pickup than a Humbucker double rail?
A single rail like in the P-Rail pickup is a single rail pickup designed to replace a single-coil pickup. It has a single coil.
A double rail pickup is a small-sized humbucker meaning two coils in a rail configuration, designed to replace a single-coil pickup.
What is a P-90 pickup?
A P-90 pickup is a fat single-coil pickup that is used by vintage Gibson guitars, and it has distinctive fat sound.
Even though a P-90 has a fat-sounding single-coil and being loved by many guitarists, it gave way to the humbucker pickup because of the hum issue.
Gibson decided to change their pickups later into a humbucker to eliminate the hum.
There are so many players who still like the sound of that pickup if they could just cancel the hum.
The Rail pickups are humbucker pickups with a single-coil size. This pickup is designed to replace the single-coil pickups on a strat while preserving the look. As this is a humbucker, it has two coils.
Now one coil or a rail is paired with the P-90, making it the P-Rails pickup. The P-Rails pickup is a drop-in replacement for a guitar with a regular humbucker slot.
Using any three-way on-off-on mini switches, you can have three sounds on one pickup.
You will have a big fat sounding humbucker if both coils are used, a fat-sounding P-90 single-coil or a single coil rail for a strat tone.
Seymour Duncan P-Rails Reveiw
Summary
Product: Seymour Duncan P-Rails Pickups
Manufacturer: Seymour Duncan
Country of Manufacture: USA
Price: $195
Summary: Best pickup for a gigging musician as it provides a lot of tonal options.
Star Rating. 4.5/5
The neck pickup is Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity to avoid hum when using the single coil selection.
That means if you are using the bridge P-90 and the neck P-90 together, you will not get the hum. This method will also apply when using both rails together.
This pickup is hand-built in Santa Barbara, CA, each P-Rails humbucker utilizes a pair of alnico five bar magnets.
It comes with a 4-conductor lead wire for all of the wiring options, and they are vacuum wax potted for squeal-free operation.
Installation
Installing these pickups is easier with the Seymour Duncan TS1 Triple Shot Mounting Ring for flat top guitars and TS2 for carved top guitars.
It has a three-way switch, which is mounted on the mounting ring to give you all the switching options of the pickup.
I installed mine using five mini switches, and believe me, your guitar tech will hate you if you want to install it like mine.
The triple shot was not available when I did my project. It was a bugger to wire the P-rails using those mini switches.
Conclusion
Can you replace your favorite boutique pickups with these pickups? My honest answer is no.
I will not swap my favorite DiMarzio Crunchlab, and DiMarzio LiqueFire set with these pickups.
There are points to consider, though I can produce a Strat tone with my DiMarzios by coil splitting, but I cannot get that P-90 sound.
I have a Standard Stratocaster fitted with a P-Rails set, and it really helps the Strat to produce a vintage Gibson tone while keeping the Stratocaster’s character tone plus a fat humbucker tone.
Now that guitar is perfect for a gigging musician who has to cover a lot of guitar tones.
Please feel free to ask questions or post comments or subscribe to my email list to be the first one to get updates and offers.
At a Glance
Seymour Duncan P-Rails Reveiw
Summary
Product: Seymour Duncan P-Rails Pickups
Manufacturer: Seymour Duncan
Country of Manufacture: USA
Price: $195
Summary: Best pickup for a gigging musician as it provides a lot of tonal options.
Star Rating. 4.5/5
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Hello Everyone,
I am Belden but friends call me Den, and I am the owner of this Website.
I have finally quit my job in Aviation as my online business is giving me financial freedom.
I love doing this online business as I love to help people quit their day job and do things they really love.
You will mostly find me hanging out at the coolest site to learn anything about online business.
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Hey good article.
I recently bought these pickups but I haven’t installed them yet. I’m looking up wiring diagrams etc. I have thought about getting some Triple shots but it’s more money. I wonder is it possible to get all four sounds from some kind of switch. So single coil, P90, series humbucker and parallel humbucker – I understand that array is what the triple shot offers.
Cheers,
JP
Hi JP,
I have installed P-Rails on one one of my Mexican Strats using five miniswitches to get the series, parallel, P90 and rail pickup options.
Believe me, the triple shot is heaven sent than having to wire those five switches. Another advantage with the triple shot is that you keep the knife pickup selector switch.
We are used to that switch, so no problem but selecting a pickup using a miniswitch is a little odd, so to speak.
So I do recomend that you use the triple shot. It will save you a lot of headache and time.
Thank you for the comments,
Den
I have a Mexican strat that I added a loaded pickguard with P-rails on the bridge and neck and a SD single coil in the middle. The problem I have is that the single coil sounds are too thin and I’m not getting the “quack” that I’d prefer in the 4th position. Do you have any advice for that?
Hi Mike,
Can you switch between the rail single coil and the P90 coil? If so you can always switch it to the P90 coil if you find the rail coil too thin.
Thanks for the comments,
Den
In Neck Position, What SeyDunc Two-Space Pickup Is Like A SD ‘Cool Rails For Strat’?
— [1] In Neck Position, What Seymour Duncans Two-Space Pickup Is Like A SeyDunc ‘Cool Rails For Strat’?
— [2] About two years ago on my Hohner G3T (HSS), I changed out the pickups with Seymour Duncans was follows: Bridge, SH-11 Custom Custom Humbucker; Middle, SVR-1n ‘Vintage Rails for Strat’; Neck, SCR-1n ‘Cool Rails for Strat’. I like & am quite satisfied with these SD PUs.
— [3] I want to replace the pickups on one of my Steinberger Spirit GT-Pro Deluxe (HSH) with the same PUs as my G3T. The choice of Bridge & Middle PUs will be the same as for my G3T.
— [4] The only problem is the Neck PU. The Neck ‘Cool Rails’ is a single-space PU, which is fine for my G3T, which has a single-space at the neck. The Steinberger Spirit has a two-space at the neck.
— [5] What two-space SeyDunc PU in the neck position sounds like a ‘Cool Rails’ in the [U]neck position[/U]?
— [6] Thanks for the help. Richard
Hi Richard,
Sorry but there is no full-sized humbucker pickup that will sound like a Seymour Duncan Cool Rails Pickup. A Seymour Duncan Cool Rail is a small-sized humbucker, but it is designed to sound like a single-coil pickup.
You can install a full-sized humbucker and split the coils. The best pickup in my opinion for coil splitting is the Seymour Duncan P-Rails pickup.
Any decent full humbucker pickup can be split coiled with a good result but the P-Rails is designed to give a gigging musician a lot of tonal options. The first advantage is that the Rail pickup of the P-Rails pickup is designed to sound like a single-coil when split.
The second advantage is that the P-90 single coil of the P-Rail pickup cannot be found on any full-sized humbucker pickup configuration. I usually do the installation using five microswitches to get all the option. Single coil rail, Single coil P90, Series Humbucker, and Parallel Humbucker.
Now, a Seymour Duncan TS-1 Triple Shot Pickup Mounting Ring for this purpose and it will make your guitar tech’s life much easier. If you have a carved top guitar you have to use the Seymour Duncan TS-2 Triple Shot Pickup Mounting Ring.
The sound variations of the P-Rail are way much better than what you can get from a Cool Rail pickup in my opinion.
Thanks for the comments,
Den
Hi Den,
Looks like these pickup set is very suitable for guitar players who’s doing band covers. A P-90 tone, a strat tone and a humbucker all in one pickup. Wow! Gotta tell my band mates about these impressive pickup set. Thanks for this new information which I am sure would be helpful to me and to them.
Sincerely,
Utdam
Hi Utdam,
P-rails pickup set is the answer to a lot guitar players out there that needs a lot of different tones on their guitars.
Thanks for the comments,
Den
I like the sounds of this as I’m thinking of swapping out pickups in one of the guitars I have. It’s an SG style guitar but the electronics are not what I consider topnotch.
It has three pickups in it now not sure how it all works electronically but maybe a couple of these would be a good addition?
Hi Steve,
These pickups would surely bring that SG Style guitar back to life. Seymour Duncan makes top notch pickups. You can install this pair in the bridge and neck position with no problem. Just have a technician wire it so you can have all the three sounds.
Thanks for the comments,
Den