Strat noiseless pickups

Corvus

I did some selling & got me a Strat for Xmas, second hand USA Standard from about 2002 I think. Got the factory pickups which are hard to dial in - when you hit at all hard there's a horrible overtone like a ring mod thing, if they're too far away. And when you raise them up the mag pull brings on that pulsing thing especially on the D.

So that plus the noise in the room where I play mostly, I'm thinking to go noiseless. I wondered about the usual suspects Hot Noiseless, Dimarzio Areas and Kinmans. I'm not after ultimate vintage chime or whatever, but I like full cleans as well as drive/fuzz. Have you had these, any good/bad things about them? Any words of wisdom appreciated.

victorludorum

Lace sensors. Cheap and readily available second hand. The Golds or Hot Golds seem to be a perennial favourite for most people.

Funkfingers

The Seymour Duncan STK-10 YJM Fury does a pretty good Rawk Stratocaster sound. Ditto, the DiMarzio Injector model. This should come as little surprise, considering whose signature pickups they are.

victorludorum

These will be good too I reckon:

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/119389/fs-ft-wilde-keystone-strat-pickups-99#latest

sixwheeltyrrel

I have these in my Strat and am really happy with them.

http://www.emgpickups.com/vg20-vince-gill-black.html

They do sound a little different though. 

veldt666

I installed a set of, Barden, (JBE) S Deluxe Strat pick ups, in my 56 NOS Strat.

Totally silent + piano like chime & dynamics,...Amazing. (Not cheap, though).

siraxeman

I'll second the Lace Sensors.  They're very quiet but not strictly noiseless. The Golds sound great at vintage stratty sounds....the red/silver/blue set I have in one of my Strats sound great but are a lot darker and more middy/fat..still sounds like a Strat espesh in 2 and 4 positions but more darker n grunty in the bridge and neck. The blue is a lovely fat p90 ish sound...but always a trade off - the better sounding rawk pups will always be less good at the sparkly cleans. A trade off you can't really avoid IMO. I fancy getting some Golds to drop in another Strat at some point...I keep looking on ebay but I want cream not white and don't wanna be paying near new price for used...

The Fender noiseless pups seem to have mixed reviews, some love 'em. (I like the sound of the hot noiseless on the Jeff Beck sig) but the same old story - what you win on the one side you lose on the other....can't have beef and true sparky vintage toanz in the same pups. That trade off thing is unavoidable....tell me someone I'm wrong then I can get excited about a cure!

guitarfishbay

My favourite noiseless set so far are the EMG SA set, or the SA neck and bridge with an SLV in the middle.  I'm not sure it'll work so well with fuzz pedals due to impedance, and they don’t sound strictly like a regular single coil (they’re flatter and fatter sounding) but they do sound good IMO.

Headphones

Are you sure there's not a more fundamental set up problem?

USA pickups from most eras (certainly post the eighties re start) are pretty good and you can get a good tone from them - "ring mod sounds" is not a description I've heard before for pup beaviour!  A good bit of checking is in order, and I'd suggest starting from "factory setup specs", if you can't get it sounding at least OK there you'll need to look closely for faults.

I'd offer a few pup thoughts anyway; most noisless are a little different to traditional strat tones, not necessarily better or worse, just a tad different.  Lace sensors paticularly so in my experience.  I'd also suggest that Lace Sensors don't do well for quiet and clean, particularly the high E string at which these are notoriously weak.

It's hard to go really wrong with after market "name" pups, so long as you can work out what you want them to sound like and can interprate the blurb accordingly.

ToneControl

I prefer EMG SAs, with the bass active EQ preamp

For passives, the fender SCN set I put on my USA strat sounded very close to the original set I removed
Kinmans sound great too

I tried seymour Stacks, and disliked them all. Many stacked humbucker designs lose the clarity

TheBigDipper

I've got Kinmans on my Silhouette. Much quieter (noise wise) than the original DMarzios which were fitted in the factory - slightly less "country" and a little more "rock"- but still sounds like a Strat. 

Funkfingers

Headphones said:

Are you sure there's not a more fundamental set up problem?

Nope.

The plastic bobbin pickups found in the American Standard Stratocasters always sound underwhelming. There is a layer of plastic between each rod magnet and the copper coil. Some builders consider this gap at the centre of the coil to make a difference to how the finished pickup sounds. I am inclined to agree.

Pete24v

I've had loads of noiseless strat pickups, the best overall for me were emg sa's. Sounded great clean and with drive. Bill Lawrence L280's were the next, they sounded very strat like clean, but lost something when drive was added.

Currently have a Dimarzio injector in the bridge position, I like it. It's missing a lot of high end like traditional strat bridge pickups, which i like for driven sounds, but the sparkle has gone when played clean

Corvus

Thanks a lot all, good stuff, tons to check out and think about.

A left-field idea was to ask Alex Pribora for a set all same wind/polarity and add a switchable dummy coil. I liked the set I had a lot. Might work as a compromise and keep that sparkle & chime for clean.

The odd sound thing isn't a general tone issue, it's to do with height, treble and dirt. I've had it with lipsticks too, same with my lad's Strat. On my base dirt pedal (La Grange) I normally have the tone down a little bit and presence on. Works great with the others (buckers, minihums, Filtertrons, lipsticks) but with the Strat when you dig in, usually top 3 strings or higher-ish notes, you can cause a nasty overtone.
I heard the same thing on some demo today as well. Praps there's a common word for it that I don't know.

Changing pedal settings and pickup heights gets it all but gone, but the D pole can get close and start to warble that string. Probably there's a balance to be found but a pickup change is on the cards anyway.

CasperCaster

As a temporary measure (until you find some pickups you like) you could lower the 'D' pole. One thing with these plastic bobbin pickups is that you can change the magnet stagger. You will likely need to remove the pickups, keep their covers on (so your fingers/nails don't dig into the coil) and push hard against the corner of something very solid (the corner of a filing cabinet at chez CasperCaster). It will take some effort to start with, but once it starts to move it's easy to move backwards/forwards at will. My TexMex pickups now have a flat stagger as it suits me/my guitar better.

Oh, and don't try this with regular Strat pickups as you WILL destroy them.

Corvus

Nice one, thanks, I'll do that next string change for sure.

ToneControl

btw, in case I wasn't clear, I think that EMG SAs sound better than any passive pickups I have tried
Dave Gilmour used SAs for about 20 years, although he has now gone back to passive

SAs + active EQ are a different league to passives with a tone pot

Funkfingers

Of the EMG replacement pickups for Stratocaster, my favourite is the SLV. The SA pre-amp subtly fills out the midrange. The rod magnet polepieces improve the dynamic response over the models with a blade polepiece.

PhilKing

I just fitted Mojotone quiet coils to 2 strats (one thinline, made by @wezv and one I put together from Warmoth and StewMac parts).  When a coupe of friends tried them they couldn't believe that they weren't real strat pickups, other than the lack of hum.  I would recommend then as a choice, though you do have to use 500k pots, rather than 250k.

http://www.mojotone.com/Pickups_x?search=quiet+coil

Voxman

I'd recommend Bill Lawrence Somarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups. Imho these are superb and compatible with an S1 switching system to give you 10 tonal options. 

axisus

I'm not a fan of anything that doesn't look stratty (no poles), so personally not a fan of Lace sensor, EMG, Barden etc. I did try EMG and Lace but for me they both looked wrong so I got rid of them. My personal fave strat pickups are Kinsman's which thus far have seen off all other strat pickups that I've tried.