Seymour Duncan P-Rails in a Gibson SG 

Nice! Dude if you do decide to put a video together stop back by here and drop the link so we can check it out.

Please make a video!

Thanks! I used the SG premium push/pull wiring kit from Stewmac. www.stewmac.com/electronics/components-and-parts/wiring-kits/premium-wiring-kit-for-gibsonreg-sgreg-with-push-pull-pots That's where I tend to get most of my parts. As far as the wiring diagram there is one on the Seymore Duncan website that I went by. www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/2PRail_3G_2V_2TppSPL.jpg

Dude, your comment got me researching the hyperswitch. That's a fricken cool piece of kit right there. Now I'm starting to get a whole new set of ideas lol.

Thanks for mentioning. Never knew about the Hyperswitch. Now I know how I’ll set up my P-Rails.

Noice! Yeah the wiring for push-pulls is kinda complicated comparatively, but still doable. Using something like the SD Triple Shots simplifies everything to the point where it's just like installing any other pickup. I couldn't use them with my SG because the pup mounting was in the pickguard, but if yours uses mounting rings you might look at that. They worked great on my Ibanez HSH that I put PIA's in.

@@AudioMuttStudios unfortunately my sg does not have pick up rings. Does that mean I cannot use the triple shot?

@@davidkonopka662 well not without some serious adjustments. The triple shots are basically replacement pickup mounting rings with switches built in. Wire your 4 wire pup to the triple shot and then just have 2 wires to your controls. It's especially handy for Seymour duncan pickups since it's from the same manufacturer they use the same wire colors. So even if you don't have a lot of experience with wiring it's pretty easy to match green to green, red to red, white to white, etc. But if your guitar doesn't use pickup rings you have to drill holes for the triple shots and if it uses pickguard mounting either completely remove the pickuard or widen the holes for the pups in the pickguard so that it can fit around the triple shots. It can be done, but you'd likely be better off just using push/pull pots. If ya haven't seen vid on my Ibanez where I installed them check that out. The thing is a beast.

@@AudioMuttStudios Appreciate the feedback. I was afraid of that. The thought of making any mods to the SG scares the heck out of me. I will check out your video of the Ibanez. It is likely how I have my Epiphone set up. Ironically I could have used the kit on my Epiphone because it has pick up rings but Guitar Center used push pull volume knobs.

I got prails installed on a custom guitar 15 months ago. Because of the carved top I couldn’t use the triple shots. The luthier is a brilliant craftsman but said he didn’t know how to wire them to allow for the parallel/series switching, which I was disappointed about. Seeing that it is possible makes me want to get the schematic to take back to him to get it done.

You're onto something with the selector switch for different values.. Didn't Hagstom do something like that on the Swede or Super Swede??

No problemo, rexsolomon. I too picked up an EC-1000, but specifically for the EMGs. I love the single cutaway body style, but already had a Les Paul with passive alnico pups and needed something with that active ceramic bite. P90's can have a lot of growl and some good depth of tone for a single coil, but they are still single coils. I'd be curious to hear how the pot change experiment goes. I tried putting 250K's in the Ibanez at one point, and that was a mistake. Let us know what your results were!

It is a harsh sounding pickup and it's variety of tones are basically unusable great concept tho

After a year, my EC1000 has SD 59 on the Neck and Pearly Gates on the Bridge. It is likely that the P90 sound I am after can only be had from the Full Size P90 and not the SD 'Humbucker'-size PRail P90. The problem I believe is that SD did not 'Voice' the P90 to sound like a full P90. I did try to change the magnets to 3's as recommended by Throbak for P90, but it still did not sound the way I expected from a real P90. I also used two On-On-On DPDT mini switches each position with a different paper in oil, orange, or ceramic capacitor of different values - still did not enhance the PRails sound. For all its supposed flexibility, the PRails is not selling well or you won't find it as popular as the SD 59's, I say simply because the PRails does not sound like a P90. My EC1000 has a JST to JST connector so I can quickly replace pickups without any soldering, so trust me, I have listened to the differences. I might just sell the PRails.

Yo Frank, Idk off the top of my head and I'm not where I can get to the sg to check. I can tell you I didn't set individual pole pieces just the pickup height screws. If I get a chance I'll see about taking some measurements and letting you know.

Thanks for the recommendation! I've got a strat and a tele for those sounds. My wife actually made our telecaster herself from a kit. I've got a video on it coming out Friday. But if I decide to get back under the hood of the SG I'll keep your suggestion in mind.

It's been a while since I did this project, but I'm pretty sure I used 500k pots since they are humbucking pickups in total. Your logic makes total sense, though. It makes me want to do a bit of research and see if Seymour Duncan addressed this in the pups design, considering switching between the two is part of the primary purpose of the design.

Alright, I had to go plug it in and jam a bit cause its been a while since I used the SG. It does have a bit of a hum. At least more than the humbucker mode, but that's to be expected with only a single coil engaged. I would say it isn't any worse than my other single coil guitars, like the strat or tele, and it's really only that noticeable at high gain.

The diagram I used for reference was this one from Seymore Duncan. www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/2PRail_3G_2V_2TppSPL.jpg

Thanks, Chris. Lol, yeah, this was one of my first videos, and it has its issues. But it's one of the best performing ones aside from my rants about Avid. Sometimes stuff happens, and ya just gotta learn and move on. Those pickups are actually in a different guitar now that I plan on doing a different video about. Hopefully, it shows in your feed once published, and we can see what ya think about the new home of the p-rails.