Fender Noiseless, bit gutless?

ROOG

For my foray back into the 'world of guitars' a year ago I bought a fender telecaster, it is a 'Player' FSR model and apart from the nice finish it came with fender 'Noiseless' pick ups. Now, I can say that I haven't had any problems with noise, but the pick ups do seem a bit gutless. 

Is this just me, are all single coils like this or is this a known side effect of these pick ups? 

 

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2865/9661553971_650189079d_z.jpg

 

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2872/9661549697_0dc6dd942c_z.jpg

 Yes I know it's taken me a year to ask!

octatonic

I don't like the Fender noiseless myself- yes I find them a bit gutless.

Bung some Bareknuckle/Lollar/Fralins in it.

failed_astronaut

Any experience with Fender Noiseless pups has been a bit disappointing for me. I was really surprised to find a deluxe Strat I played sounded thin and weak.

 

Nice tele though!

VimFuego

what the others said, played a deluxe strat once with noiseless, mildly insipid.

ROOG

octatonic said:

I don't like the Fender noiseless myself- yes I find them a bit gutless.

Bung some Bareknuckle/Lollar/Fralins in it.

Ah, assuming that it was affirmative, (that they are gutless) that was going to be my next question, should I fit something else?

Apart from the output are these likely to change the tone much?

 

 

failed_astronaut said:

Any experience with Fender Noiseless pups has been a bit disappointing for me. I was really surprised to find a deluxe Strat I played sounded thin and weak.

 

Nice tele though!

Ta, failed_astronaut, I was taken by the semi transparent blonde body, the 'Marmite' green scratch plate has grown on me over time. 

monquixote

I shall echo the comments of others that the noiseless stuff is a bit gutless.

ICBM

And me too...

It's not single coils that are the problem, it's noiseless single coils.

One of the best attempts were the old Lace Sensors that came in the Plus and Deluxe series Fenders in the 80s and 90s, and even those didn't quite have the punch of real single coils.

BenSirAmos

Not all noiseless are gutless. I'm sure my Strat Kinmans are noiseless and they is great,

Adam_MD

I had a strat with vintage noiseless pickups in it and thought that in their quest to cut the noise they also removed frequencies that I want. I'm not sure how to describe it, I always felt they were doing an impression of a single coil but not quite getting it right.

ROOG

Hi Chaps,

Just visited Bare knuckle site, they seem to do "Vintage" and Hi-output "Vintage Hot" and the demos of both 'Blackguard' and 'The Boss' sounded good to me, do you need the 'extra' oomph from the "Hot" pick-ups?  

Adam_MD I agree, there seems to be something missing, they feel a bit lifeless.

John_P

Sorry to go against the majority view but I've got the vintage noiseless p/ups in one of my strats and I think they sound great - but in this case I was looking for a fairly thin sound - something that was very obviously stratty and single coil sounding for clean tones.

Have you got the hot or vintage noiseless - if you prefer the noiseless option I'm sure there will be a beefier sounding set out there, if noise isn't an issue then I'd get something from Oil City or Bulldog (both of the owners contribute here and seem like nice guys that care about guitars).

I'm not sure noiseless p/ups are needed anywhere near as much as they used to be with all the big old crt monitors when recording so you have a better chance of getting away with conventional pickups.

ROOG

Until I bought the tele, my only guitar was an LP copy which had humbuckers, I had feared the prospect of noise in making the switch to tele so I reacted by getting one with noiseless pickups, probably an overreaction in hindsight.

I mostly play at home so noise probably isn't the problem I was led to believe it might be. 

I have nothing to gauge them with other than the humbuckers, (I don't own any other single coil guitar) and they are much thinner sounding than that.

I'm guessing that a 'middle ground flavoured' offering from Bare Knuckle, Oil City or Bulldog would pep things up a bit, Non?

John_P

ROOG said:

Until I bought the tele, my only guitar was an LP copy which had humbuckers, I had feared the prospect of noise in making the switch to tele so I reacted by getting one with noiseless pickups, probably an overreaction in hindsight.

I mostly play at home so noise probably isn't the problem I was led to believe it might be. 

Perhaps - if you get a conventional pickup any noise issues will be obvious - might be worth keeping the noiseless until you can compare some others....

ROOG said:

I'm guessing that a 'middle ground flavoured' offering from Bare Knuckle, Oil City or Bulldog would pep things up a bit, Non?

That sounds like a plan - welcome to the world of  "is it quite as good as the sound in my head?"

jaygtr

That sounds like a plan - welcome to the world of  "is it quite as good as the sound in my head?"



Or the world of " this sounds good but could it be better?"

mike_l

Depends on whether you're used to a thin-sounding pup already. Personally I find all S/C pups thin, and a little weak, but I'm used to higher output 'buckers.

Doesn't mean they're bad, just different to what you know.

FWIW, I believe David Gilmour deliberately uses low-output pups so he can control the sounds coming from the speakers, rather than the pup's dictating what comes from the amp/speakers.

BTW, the pup's in Sarah, my Strat are not noiseless, and are Seymour Duncans and compared to my other guitars they sound thin and weak. In a band situation (Ie when @Bigjon played it) it sounded great

bandmaster188

I had a fender fsr tele a few years back with the noiseless pickups and they were, well a bit plinkety plink. Upgraded them to a bkp yardbird set which really made a difference. The yardbird set use Alnico IV magnets which give a more balanced and sweeter tone than Alnico V in my opinion. But you still get plenty of tele twang on tap.

SidNewton

Firstly, what a great looking Tele. As for the noiseless pickups I would echo the 'insipid' description. I bought an American Deluxe Tele a year or two ago and the first thing I did was replace the N3 noiseless pickups, hated them. I went for a set of Bare Knuckle flat pole 50's and at the same time removed the S1 switching and replaced it with a Callaham control plate with a 4 way switch.

I can't really tell from the pics if your Tele has the S1 switch but if it has I'd consider losing that as well as it has a reputation for 'sucking tone'.

As for the Bare Knuckles, they are great pickups. The only thing I would say about the Flat pole 50's is because the bridge pickup is high output you may find them a little unbalanced. I'm putting my Tele through a Marshall JCM 800 and it sounds huge.

stonevibe

I have a set of Fender Vintage Hot Noiseless pickups in a Strat and they are great.

Pickups wise I have lots to choose from in my guitars and I have not had any issues with them at all. They came in a US Strat I bought a few years back and have been on loads of recordings and gigged. So I have used them for a good few years with no negatives that I can think of. Actually saying that I'm not too keen on the 'noiseless' logo but that is about it.

Live they are great as I play loud and sometimes with a lot of gain, so they come into their own there. Plus in the studio if the wiring or lighting is a bit iffy then it helps as well.

blueskunk

Sterile pickups id say. Think the nicest strat pickups are fender 69s. Had em in my classic player and never got a bad tone from them and for me, thats saying something.

ROOG

John_P said:

ROOG said:

Until I bought the tele, my only guitar was an LP copy which had humbuckers, I had feared the prospect of noise in making the switch to tele so I reacted by getting one with noiseless pickups, probably an overreaction in hindsight.

I mostly play at home so noise probably isn't the problem I was led to believe it might be. 

Perhaps - if you get a conventional pickup any noise issues will be obvious - might be worth keeping the noiseless until you can compare some others....

ROOG said:

I'm guessing that a 'middle ground flavoured' offering from Bare Knuckle, Oil City or Bulldog would pep things up a bit, Non?

That sounds like a plan - welcome to the world of  "is it quite as good as the sound in my head?"

Take your point J_P, I won't be rushing to modify it just yet, just sounding out opinion. The weak link in finding that "good sound" is definitely me, not the instrument. 

ROOG

SidNewton said:

Firstly, what a great looking Tele. As for the noiseless pickups I would echo the 'insipid' description. I bought an American Deluxe Tele a year or two ago and the first thing I did was replace the N3 noiseless pickups, hated them. I went for a set of Bare Knuckle flat pole 50's and at the same time removed the S1 switching and replaced it with a Callaham control plate with a 4 way switch.

I can't really tell from the pics if your Tele has the S1 switch but if it has I'd consider losing that as well as it has a reputation for 'sucking tone'.

As for the Bare Knuckles, they are great pickups. The only thing I would say about the Flat pole 50's is because the bridge pickup is high output you may find them a little unbalanced. I'm putting my Tele through a Marshall JCM 800 and it sounds huge.

Cheers SidNewton, Im not sure how you tell what switch it has, any advice?