Hi guys, im building one of my dream guitars and its a strat with a twist. Do you guys know what P-rails are? its basically a humbucker consisting of a strat like tone single coil and a P-90 pick up. The pick up can produce 3 different sounds, a strat like tone, a P-90 and a mean Humbucker. So i thought, why not make a strat with 3 of these pickups from seymour? 3 P-rails with 6 individual toggle switches. From using 1 pickup, to 6 pickups. there is no limit with those 3 P-rails.

What do you think?

Hi miko_lorenzo: and if you give each pickup an individual on-off switch instead of the selector switch then you can have seven pickup combinations, instead of the usual five. And if you make them three-way switches then you can choose between in-phase and out-of-phase too.

Hot diggity: combined with your three-sound P-rails I just can't even count how many options that'll give you. You'll need to tape a big diagram to your monitor just so's you can remember them all!

- C

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as Ceri regarding the switching complexity. Maybe you could add three 3-position micro switches? Each switch would switch between P90/ Hum/ SC for each of the three pickups. That coincided with even a standard 5-position switching scheme would give a ridiculous (in a good way) amount of tonal options, and would be simple to manage. Just a very modest thought... There a zillions of other ways to skin this cat (maybe using push/pull's would be a cleaner way to go?). How do you think you will wire this thing up?

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

http://store.guitarfetish.com/whmoofpesuki.html

Here ya go...

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'95 Custom Warmoth Soloist Solid Flame Koa Body/Neck, Duncan Classic Livewire SSH, Sperzel locking tuners, Wilkinson VS100 bridge, all black chrome.
2008 MIM Lonestar Strat Black/White Pearl
2008 Taylor 114 CE

I was thinking about the same thing...three p-rails. But I have yet to hear the p-rails. Some of the reports I've read say you don't get a true P-90 sound. But what the hell, if you get a pretty good p90 sound AND a good single coil sound, AND a decent full humbucker sound, that ain't all bad.

Even two p-rails would be very versatile. Three is just plain greedy....but in a good way.

I've also been thinking about building an ash strat with three p-90s (brand to be determined).

But yeah, I like the idea of the 3 p-rails, so let us know if you do it, k?

the thing is, how good are the sounds. And how expensive are they. Will you end up with a guitar that does a mediocre job at 3 different sounds for the same, or more money than 3 guitars that each do a great job at their own unique sound?

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

A friend of mine had all sorts of pickups and all sorts of switches and pots in a guitar he had years ago. He was constantly flipping switches and turning knobs throughout any song he ever played. He looked quite foolish and was thoroughly pissing off the rest of his band. Ultimately, he finally narrowed down his, "endlessly versatile" guitar to about 5 settings which were genuinely useful for him. And even after all his efforts, he still used multiple guitars to achieve all that he required.

What I'm getting at is this, simplicity is always best. Rather than going nuts installing all sorts of pickups and creating a complex wiring system to go with them, decide which sounds you require beforehand and how to efficiently and realistically achieve them to the extent possible from a given guitar. Remember, there's a reason why Strats sound like Strats and Les Pauls sound like Les Pauls where neither will truly sound like each other, regardless of all the on-board electronics on the planet.

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You dig?

I agree with this. In a recording environment, I can see having such options as a good thing. But in a live setting, most usually a club where people are pounding back the pints, they aren't really going to notice such intricacies. The only ones who are really going to notice the subtle changes in such an environment are going to be the other guitar geeks (me included lol) in the crowd.

Add to that, the subtleties of all the switching would be best heard through a clean amp setting. If you're running loads of distortion, once again, the changes will barely be audible to the non-musicians ear.

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The mind is like a parachute; it doesn't work unless its open-FZ

I'm thinking that if he strapped on two solid fuel rocket boosters he could launch himself into a totally new sphere of guitar endeavor.

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"Another day in paradise!"

Thanks for all the replies guys! well i was thinkin of usin that guitar for studio work and i think thats the guitar to help me find my sweet tone, in all those combinations, i might get my signature tone out of it. you guys are right simple is still the best thing on live settings. still cant beat a nice clean tone in honesty. =D thank you guys for your thoughts =D

iT IS GREAT TO HAVE A FEW OPTIONS BUT THERE COMES A POINT OF OVER KILL.