Noiseless strat pickups: What's good these days?

OilCityPickups

LionAquaLooper said:

OilCityPickups said:

LionAquaLooper said:

I've got Fender SCN (Samarium Cobalt) noiseless singles in my strat and I love them.  Better than the subsequent iterations that Fender released after this one.  Got enough pop and twang for my needs, and I've compared them to my Suhr V60LP and Suhr ML Classics singles and they're on par with them.

Fender SCN (Samarium Cobalt) noiseless singles are stacks ... so you have the parasitic coil issue. 

A little while ago I built a noiseless prototype that I thought was pretty close ... then I A/B tested it with one of my Pre-BS 62 Strat pickups wound with NOS Heavy formvar wire (early 70s).
I put the noiseless prototype in the bin. The subtlety, harmonic content and general strattyness of the real thing convinced me to stop reinventing the wheel. 

Pardon my ignorance but what's parasitic coil issue? 

Okay ... all noiseless Strat pickups are actually humbuckers. It's just that the placement of the hum cancelling coil that Varies.
When you wind say a PAF you have two coils of wire, around 5000 turns on each, each of reverse electrical and magnetic polarity so hum is cancelled out. In a Humbucker like a PAF both coils provide electrical resistance and are subject to both distributed capacitance and 'skin effect' which tends to 'muddy a pickup up. The load of the wire is counterbalanced however by both coils playing a part in the output of the pickup. 
In a 'Stack' design the horseshoe shape made by the pole pieces of a conventional humbucker and it's magnet are straightened out so that one coil sits on top of the other one being south and one being north polarity.  The problem is that the lower coil is so far from the strings that it plays virtually no point in creating any sound - yet its wire is still a load on the pickup ... it's a parasite that kills hum but also adds nothing to the overall sound. Thus you have to wind 10k worth of wire to get the output normally provided by 5k worth of wire. That's 5k extra treble bite and snap lost ... 

ToneControl

there is always that trick where you put a big coil in the guitar body
Suhr use it



I'm surprised I haven't seen the idea on sale cheaper elsewhere 

Funkfingers

Jetsam1 said: 

I have the Seymour Duncan Yngwie Malmsteen Strat set of pickups in a Strat (came with the guitar) and I was under the impression these were noiseless in the way described above? Or are these something else?

Clue in the name. Duncan STK-10 Malmsteen signature pickups are Stacks. (As were his DiMarzio signature pickups.) I have an STK-10B in the bridge position of my AVRI '62 Stratocaster. I like its noise reduction and meatier-than-vintage tone. The polepiece magnet length "stagger" helps with this, I tell myself.

The guitar has previously sported a Duncan Twangbanger. Again, meatier than vintage correct but not entirely convincing. 

What I probably ought to install is the Antiquity II Surfer Custom, Bridge model.

Seziertisch

ToneControl said:

there is always that trick where you put a big coil in the guitar body
Suhr use it



I'm surprised I haven't seen the idea on sale cheaper elsewhere 

That is/was the Illitch system, which seems to work quite well but is spendy.

Dr_Necessiter

Philly_Q said:

fretmeister said:

So..... just buy a Zuul noisegate then?

Is that an actual thing, or a Ghostbusters reference that I'm not understanding?

Are you the Gatekeeper? 

Lewy

You’re using his strings, now take the next step and use his pickups…. SD YJM Fury set

Philly_Q

Dr_Necessiter said:

Philly_Q said:

fretmeister said:

So..... just buy a Zuul noisegate then?

Is that an actual thing, or a Ghostbusters reference that I'm not understanding?

Are you the Gatekeeper? 

No, I am the Keymaster.

Schnozz

Proper squared off Leo Fender MFDs...

https://i.imgur.com/XERS3zK.jpg

OilCityPickups

Not cheap ... about the price of a good set of humbuckers ... but very good indeed. 

https://youtu.be/gpfYW7ItRCs?si=nW0W6QUmqoBqeDKg

Seziertisch

OilCityPickups said:

Not cheap ... about the price of a good set of humbuckers ... but very good indeed. 

https://youtu.be/gpfYW7ItRCs?si=nW0W6QUmqoBqeDKg

I remember reading somewhere that it is a clone of the gate in the Marshall Kerry King amp

Jeremiah

Has anyone tried the Fishman Fluence strat pickups? They are active, and presumably some kind of stacked coil.

Their humbucker sized pickups seem to have become very popular with manufacturers of metal guitars, but I haven't heard so much about the Strat pickups.

Voxman

OilCityPickups said:

LionAquaLooper said:

OilCityPickups said:

LionAquaLooper said:

I've got Fender SCN (Samarium Cobalt) noiseless singles in my strat and I love them.  Better than the subsequent iterations that Fender released after this one.  Got enough pop and twang for my needs, and I've compared them to my Suhr V60LP and Suhr ML Classics singles and they're on par with them.

Fender SCN (Samarium Cobalt) noiseless singles are stacks ... so you have the parasitic coil issue. 

A little while ago I built a noiseless prototype that I thought was pretty close ... then I A/B tested it with one of my Pre-BS 62 Strat pickups wound with NOS Heavy formvar wire (early 70s).
I put the noiseless prototype in the bin. The subtlety, harmonic content and general strattyness of the real thing convinced me to stop reinventing the wheel. 

Pardon my ignorance but what's parasitic coil issue? 

Okay ... all noiseless Strat pickups are actually humbuckers. It's just that the placement of the hum cancelling coil that Varies.
When you wind say a PAF you have two coils of wire, around 5000 turns on each, each of reverse electrical and magnetic polarity so hum is cancelled out. In a Humbucker like a PAF both coils provide electrical resistance and are subject to both distributed capacitance and 'skin effect' which tends to 'muddy a pickup up. The load of the wire is counterbalanced however by both coils playing a part in the output of the pickup. 
In a 'Stack' design the horseshoe shape made by the pole pieces of a conventional humbucker and it's magnet are straightened out so that one coil sits on top of the other one being south and one being north polarity.  The problem is that the lower coil is so far from the strings that it plays virtually no point in creating any sound - yet its wire is still a load on the pickup ... it's a parasite that kills hum but also adds nothing to the overall sound. Thus you have to wind 10k worth of wire to get the output normally provided by 5k worth of wire. That's 5k extra treble bite and snap lost ... 

That's really interesting and not something I understood before. I've played some Strats with noiseless pickups that were lack lustre but others have sounded really good.  The Bill Lawrence SCNs in my 50th anniversary Strat with the S1 switching seem really good.

I also liked Lace Sensor Golds - these are certainly quiet although I'm not sure if they are truly noiseless and I don't know if these are stacked.  I don't know much about them but IIRC allegedly they work by 'sensing' string vibrations in a different way.  I'm just a player not a tech so maybe that's just marketing. I think they do different versions with different colour codes for hotter or jazzier sounds too.  I'm not even sure if these are still made as I don't recall seeing these being used by anyone for some time. 

ToneControl

OilCityPickups said:

Not cheap ... about the price of a good set of humbuckers ... but very good indeed. 

https://youtu.be/gpfYW7ItRCs?si=nW0W6QUmqoBqeDKg

I used to use that setup 25+ years ago with a Boss NS50


could use it with 2 amps at once


Nowadays for the metal sounds, I just use an AxeFx

I like to have good clean-crunch amp sounds on my real amps now, with a lot of texture and feel, so don't really need a noise gate on those so much

Jeremiah

Voxman said:

I also liked Lace Sensor Golds - these are certainly quiet although I'm not sure if they are truly noiseless and I don't know if these are stacked.  I don't know much about them but IIRC allegedly they work by 'sensing' string vibrations in a different way.  I'm just a player not a tech so maybe that's just marketing. I think they do different versions with different colour codes for hotter or jazzier sounds too.  I'm not even sure if these are still made as I don't recall seeing these being used by anyone for some time. 

I think Lace Sensors use some kind of shielding to reduce hum, rather than using extra coils to cancel it.

Philly_Q

allen

Jeremiah said:

Has anyone tried the Fishman Fluence strat pickups? They are active, and presumably some kind of stacked coil.

Their humbucker sized pickups seem to have become very popular with manufacturers of metal guitars, but I haven't heard so much about the Strat pickups.

Yes. Not stacked at all. Just active. 

https://youtu.be/VNsgepRJpvU?si=TM5OLBzei9NtyMem

fretmeister

Lewy said:

You’re using his strings, now take the next step and use his pickups…. SD YJM Fury set

I had Dimarzio HS3 many years ago and they were great for high gain I didn’t like them for cleans . 

Are the SD version better?

OilCityPickups

Philly_Q said:

It's super clever actually - but is basically a flattened out single coil mostly sat in a stonking great Faraday cage with weak-arsed fridge magnet style rubberised magnets glued on three sides when you take away all the trade marked gobbledygook. Not technically hum cancelling ... hum reducing.  

I love the 'Low Energy Particle Magnets™"  ... fridge magnets dude, fridge magnets. 

LionAquaLooper

I've never had any experience with lace sensors but I read too many people complaining about them in the past that it was enough to not risk splashing money on them. 

Philly_Q

^^  I had a Strat Plus Deluxe 35 years ago and I remember that Lace Sensor leaflet being included.  I loved the sound at the time - nothing like vintage single-coils, but it sounded great.  Especially with blue at the bridge and silver at the neck.  I later changed it to red bridge, blue neck, which was the updated spec, but I didn't like that so much.