Seymour Duncan rail pickups are bold. Even with a cursory glance, the magnetic bars cutting across their face jump out at you. It’s striking when compared to the pole pieces or screws in most pickups. And these rail humbuckers are a fast track to inject your guitar with that same attitude.

But rail pickups are much more than an aesthetic choice. This construction method ensures the pickup’s magnetic field is more consistent across all strings. Rails also eliminate signal dropouts when bending strings and inconsistencies from string to string.

But most of our rail pickups also share one fundamental trait: their sound. Though they’re all passive pickups, they are take-no-prisoners, high-output hard rock and metal machines. Their stock-in-trade drives the front end of high-gain amps and your favorite dirt pedals. And, of course, they add that aggressive look that’s perfect for players with savage tones and pummeling riffs.

Here are a few of our most popular rail humbucker pickups.

Jupiter Rails

The Jupiter dual rail humbucker pickup was developed as the signature pickups for guitarist Wes Hauch. Widely considered one of the best players in the modern metal scene, Wes Hauch’s reputation precedes him. Whether playing with Alluvial, Devin Townsend, Thy Art Is Murder, The Faceless, or most recently with The Black Dahlia Murder, Wes’s ferociously aggressive and immaculately clean playing cuts like a knife through the mix.

Hauch, a long-time Seymour Duncan artist, has used many of our high-output pickups to achieve his sound. He’s even responsible for some of our most popular metal pickup demos on YouTube. So there’s no question that, when it comes to tone, Hauch knows what he wants and knows how to get it.

So, we teamed up with Hauch over a two-year process to create his signature Jupiter Rails. The directives were to make them fast, aggressive, clear on extended chord voicings, and exceptionally precise in the low end. Being a fan of rail pickups and the way they managed both the high end and bass response of the frequency spectrum, Wes worked with the engineering team to develop the perfect combination of a ceramic magnet and high output wind in a rails design. Once we landed on the perfect recipe, we all knew it. The resulting Seymour Duncan Jupiter is the ideal rail pickup for Wes and fans of his precise tone.

El Diablo

When humbucker pickups have a name like the El Diablo, subtlety isn’t an option. Crafted in association with Anthrax’s Scott Ian, we set out to make one of the most powerful, hard-driving, and aggressive passive humbucking pickups out there. To do that, we knew we needed to use rail magnets. And we were right. The El Diablo humbuckers—formerly a made-to-order Custom Shop exclusive that is now available everywhere—became a mainstay in Ian’s signature guitars.

Not only are El Diablo’s rail magnets remarkably powerful, but their large size gives the pickup a look as wicked as its sound. That sound is fat, punchy, and perfect for the gut-punching rhythms Ian made famous. While some may ask how the El Diablo sounds clean, we would ask, “Why you would play the El Diablo clean…?”

No question, the Seymour Duncan El Diablo isn’t for everyone. But it continues to inspire legions of metal-minded followers. They clamor for its massive output and punch, waiting to add a new level of power to your electric guitar.

Slug

If the El Diablo is perfect for over-the-top ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s metal, the Slug is a close cousin aimed squarely at the doom and stoner scene. At first glance, it looks a lot like the El Diablo. You have two similar oversized ceramic magnet rails, overwound coils, and slightly larger housing. But the Slug is a very different animal.

At 48K DCR, Seymour Duncan Slug has to be one of the most powerful passive guitar pickups ever. Heck, it even gives active pickups a run for their money. Its one mission is to destroy whatever comes after it in the signal path. Whether you prefer gated fuzz pedals, vintage tube amps, or the precision of high-gain modeling devices, none of them stand a chance against the Slug. The rails themselves are as large as the ceramic magnets found in other humbuckers.

Classic rock tone junkies, Blues purists, and Nashville studio types need not apply.

Dimebucker

What can be said about Dimebag Darrell’s guitar tone that hasn’t already been said? You can discuss its aggression, thick harmonics, tight low end, and how it wrote the book for heavy metal guitar tone ever since. But we think the most fascinating thing about Dime’s tone is its uniqueness.

When Dimebag began hunting for a new pickup to achieve this sound, he came to Seymour Duncan. The pickup had to be perfect. It had to deliver an insane amount of low-end. The treble had to cut like a scalpel. And its metal-approved scoop still had to punch through a mix. It would use the dual rail humbucker pickup design to do it.

The pickup became the popular Seymour Duncan Dimebucker. It gave nearly all of Dime’s future signature Dean and Washburn guitars their searing tone. Drop one in your guitar’s bridge position, and you get a metal tone as unique as the man who designed it. It’s loud, it’s massive, and it cuts like a razor.

Adding to Dime’s unique sound, he was famous for pairing the Dimebucker with one of our bridge-position ’59 humbuckers in the neck position. This is still an extremely popular pairing, and we offer it as a set. The Dimebucker also pairs well with many other humbuckers, depending on the tones you’re going for. They just have to be metal.

Duncan Hot Rails and Cool Rails

Our most famous rail pickup might come as a surprise. While many others on this list are full-sized (or oversized) humbuckers, the Hot Rails come neatly outfitted in a compact, single-coil-sized housing. But don’t let their diminutive size fool you. Hot Rails are, in every way, a high-output humbucker ready for hard rock and heavy metal guitar tones. Meanwhile, Cool Rails deliver medium-output vintage-inspired tone that gives chords that thick humbucker crunch and single notes the right amount of sizzle without being harsh.

When the guitar modding craze kicked into full steam, many Strat-style players wanted to add a humbucker bridge pickup to their guitar. But a full-size humbucker required routing out the guitar’s body and/or finding a replacement pickguard to house it. Not wanting to make permanent changes to their instruments, they needed a different way, and Hot Rails and Cool Rails answered the call.

Easily fitting into the standard Stratocaster single coil route, Hot Rails and Cool Rails place humbucker tones within easy reach of Strat devotees. Players like Iron Maiden’s Dave Murray continue to swear by them for live performances and recordings. And the pickups even boast 4-conductor wiring so you can split the coils, giving your Strat both the bell-like tones of traditional single coil pickups and full-on humbucker tones at the flip of a switch—or push/pull of a knob.

It’s like turning your Strat into two completely different instruments.

The Rail Series

So far, we’ve focused on pickups originally designed as dual rail humbuckers. But in 2024, we unveiled something new yet familiar: the Rail Series.

With the Rail Series, we’ve taken some of our most popular, hardest-hitting pickups and given them the rails treatment. With these pickups, guitarists can enjoy our most classic tones with the clarity, tightness, and sustain only rails can provide. They’re perfect for high-gain applications and modern playing styles, and the response has been enormous. Here’s a look at what the Rail Series has in its lineup…so far.

JB Rails, Jazz Rails, and the Hot Rodded Rails Set

Our JB Model has been one of our most iconic pickups since its release. It’s our original high-output humbucker and is beloved by players across genres. Blues, country, fusion, punk, hard rock, grunge, thrash—the JB has always sounded just right.

With the introduction of the JB Rails humbucker,  it’s even more well-suited for modern high-gain playing styles. You still get the classic character of the JB—its powerful low-end, intense highs, and upper midrange bump—with enhanced string-to-string balance.

Similarly known for its versatility, our Jazz Model humbucker boasts a glassy treble response and full, tight bass, while scooped mids help each note sing clearly even under extreme high gain. The Jazz Rails humbucker takes those attributes to another level—increased clarity, greater sustain, and even performance under high gain.

JB Rails and Jazz Rails can shine independently, but something special happens when you combine the two into our Hot Rodded Rails Set. In its original form, this classic combo has been wildly popular since the 1970s. The rails treatment takes the wild versatility of our Hot Rodded Humbucker Set and makes it even better for players who favor screaming distortion, filthy amps, and modern playing styles.

Nazgûl Rails and Sentient Rails

Our Nazgûl humbucker has long offered the perfect blend of note articulation, saturation, and one of the most brutal chugs you’ll ever hear. It’s beloved by those who rock lower tunings in heavy genres for its tight bass and incredible harmonic content.

Nazgûl Rails combines the original’s unrelenting articulation and saturation with the clarity, tightness, and sustain of rail design, delivering focused low-end that is both vicious and controllable.

The Sentient neck humbucker is another longtime favorite among high-gain players. It delivers pristine cleans for intricate chordal and single-note runs with fluid leads under high gain. As you may have guessed, Sentient Rails retains the original’s clarity and tightness, with an incredibly expressive, modern response in lower tunings. It can be purchased independently or with Nazgûl Rails as part of the Nazgûl Sentient Rails Set.

Black Winter Rails

Featuring three large ceramic magnets to ensure maximum output and sustain in high-gain situations, the original Black Winter pickup is a savagely high-output passive humbucker built for and beloved by extreme metal guitarists.

Black Winter Rails brings a ferocious new edge to our already legendary Black Winter humbucker set. This evolution delivers the crushing aggression of the original Black Winter with even greater performance for modern music styles. With the unparalleled balance of the rails design, Black Winter Rails boasts an even tighter low end for focused power, extended sustain for screaming leads, and pristine note definition.