Noiseless pickups in a Strat, yay or nay?

TonyR

As Amos Brearly used to say "Nay, nay, nay Mr Wilkes" - I'm not a fan of noiseless pickups personally.

Veganic

 I doubt you can tell the difference

No 2 noiseless?

ToneControl

Ancient_Mariner said:

Noiseless tend to sound a little lacking in character clean, and will often take drive well. If you normally mostly play with drive or most stages you're on are noisy then go noiseless, but if absolute tone is important then stick with true singles.

Often people say that noiseless have less character. They sound different, sometimes in a way that will suit me, sometimes not. Some normal SCs sound crap to me. Some noiseless ones sound very similar or better than SCs

I thought that the Fender SCNs I put on my USA strat sounded much better than the stock US pickups it came with

fretmeister

I had Kinman Trads and liked them a lot.
and I've had Dimarzio HS3 set which I like with drive and clean, but they don't clean up well on the volume control.

bluechargeboy

I have had Lace sensors, SCN, N3 in various strats. None of them sound as good as proper single coils, but close enough to be the better choice for live crunch/drive use I reckon.

vairish

I've tried a few sets over the years....

Fender: Generally not a fan of their SCN pickups, but the new ones in the Elite series are a fair bit better than their previous attempts.

Dimarzio: I had a set of Area 58 pickups. Not bad at all, but missing some spank and chime.

Kinman:  I had the Mayer set and these were really really good. Not cheap though.

Suhr: My favourite noiseless pickups are the Suhr ML pickups I have in my Classic Pro Antique. The pickups themselves are not noiseless, but there is like a second coil or something installed under the pickup cavity which cancels out the noise. It works spectacularly well.

fretmeister

I'd like to try the new EMG retroactives.

http://www.emgpickups.com/guitar/single-coil/strat/ra-5.html

Ancient_Mariner

olafgarten said:

Ancient_Mariner said:

Noiseless tend to sound a little lacking in character clean, and will often take drive well. If you normally mostly play with drive or most stages you're on are noisy then go noiseless, but if absolute tone is important then stick with true singles.

I'm not sure they are lacking in character, one of these tracks is with a Noiseless and one with a True Single, I doubt you can tell the difference.

If I were to try to guess which was which then I'd say track 1 was singles and track 2 hum-cancelling I used the expression characterless, which was probably wrong - balanced and even, neutral and smooth might be closer.

simonk

vairish said:

Suhr: My favourite noiseless pickups are the Suhr ML pickups I have in my Classic Pro Antique. The pickups themselves are not noiseless, but there is like a second coil or something installed under the pickup cavity which cancels out the noise. It works spectacularly well.

Actually, that's a very good point, the Suhr and Ernie Ball noise cancelling systems are very good.

Philly_Q

vairish said:

Suhr: My favourite noiseless pickups are the Suhr ML pickups I have in my Classic Pro Antique. The pickups themselves are not noiseless, but there is like a second coil or something installed under the pickup cavity which cancels out the noise. It works spectacularly well.

Didn't it used to be fitted under an oversized backplate?  Or is that only when you buy it as an aftermarket addition for an existing guitar?

vairish

Philly_Q said:

vairish said:

Suhr: My favourite noiseless pickups are the Suhr ML pickups I have in my Classic Pro Antique. The pickups themselves are not noiseless, but there is like a second coil or something installed under the pickup cavity which cancels out the noise. It works spectacularly well.

Didn't it used to be fitted under an oversized backplate?  Or is that only when you buy it as an aftermarket addition for an existing guitar?

Yup. The original Suhr SSC system was available in two different configurations, backplate (which could be bought separately for a non Suhr guitar) or built in (which was only available with a Suhr guitar). The internal system was supposed to be better at reducing noise.

richardhomer

Philly_Q said:Didn't it used to be fitted under an oversized backplate?  Or is that only when you buy it as an aftermarket addition for an existing guitar?

That was the after-market version. IIRC Suhr had the exclusive rights to distribute them (they were developed by a third party) but don't hold them anymore.

I had one on a CS Strat I used to own - it wasn't exactly 'elegant' - but it worked very well. There may have been a slight tonal change but not as dramatic as with  most noiseless Strat pick ups.

JCA2550

This is interesting...



Although I can detect a slight difference to the quality of the sound

TimmyO

I had Kinman AvN Blues set in an otherwise inexpensive Strat some years back and it sounded fantastic 

JCA2550

Philly_Q said:

JCA2550 said:

I have a couple of Strats. A beaten up 90s MIJ Squier with Fender Hot Noiseless pickups in and my rather special SVL 61 which sports a tasty set of Amalfitano single coil jobbies. The Fender pups sound pretty good when playing through a cranked setup not quite as shimmery clean . The Amalfitanos sound gorgeous clean but do my head in cranked if it's a hummy stage. So which should I go for,pros and cons?

When you say which should you go for, haven't you got both already?  So you can pick whichever suits a particular situation.  Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding.

 

I agree that I have the choice already, I guess I'm being greedy, wanting to have the cake and eat it, or thrifty, consolidate the best of the best, jack of all trades, master of all trades? I suppose I want all the benefits of a humless set up but in the SVL-61?

siraxeman

Lace Sensor Golds sound great, are true single coils and are very quiet, although not 100% noiseless. The hotter ones like the Red and Blue sound great dirty but less good clean, but then Golds (or any vintage sounding Strat pup never sound quite as good clean) always a compromise to be made somewhere.

victorludorum

siraxeman said:

Lace Sensor Golds sound great, are true single coils and are very quiet, although not 100% noiseless. The hotter ones like the Red and Blue sound great dirty but less good clean, but then Golds (or any vintage sounding Strat pup never sound quite as good clean) always a compromise to be made somewhere.

I use a Hot Gold in the neck position of my tele and couldn't agree more. There have been times when I've convinced myself that I need a 'true' Strat pickup, but then I play the Hot Gold again and love it.

olafgarten

Ancient_Mariner said:

olafgarten said:

Ancient_Mariner said:

Noiseless tend to sound a little lacking in character clean, and will often take drive well. If you normally mostly play with drive or most stages you're on are noisy then go noiseless, but if absolute tone is important then stick with true singles.

I'm not sure they are lacking in character, one of these tracks is with a Noiseless and one with a True Single, I doubt you can tell the difference.

If I were to try to guess which was which then I'd say track 1 was singles and track 2 hum-cancelling I used the expression characterless, which was probably wrong - balanced and even, neutral and smooth might be closer.

Unfortunately both you and @Veganic are wrong. 

Both of those are the same track with Noiseless Pickups except with the second I added more noise artificially.  

Veganic

olafgarten said:

Ancient_Mariner said:

olafgarten said:

Unfortunately both you and @Veganic are wrong. 

Both of those are the same track with Noiseless Pickups except with the second I added more noise artificially.  

Technically I said 2 was noiseless

I just guessed - I couldn't tell any diffrence other than 2 seemed to has less 'noise.'

normula1

glad it wasn't just my ears not hearing any real difference