noiseless strat pickups - opinions?

axisus

OK, so I feel I don't know that much about pickups. I am basing that on the fact that I have only ever played at low/home volume so I don't really know what it is to play loud and really hear them. 

I've had various strat pickups over the years, and I do often like a sound with quite a bit of gain. So far my favourite pickups have been Kinman noiseless, I prefer them to all the other non-noiseless ones I have tried thus far, including BK, fender, diMarzio. It seems to me that quite a lot of 'purists' don't like noiseless pickups and turn their nose up at them, so I was wondering what the general opinion around here is?

I'm veering towards the idea of making a strat, and my gut instinct is to get Kinman pickups again, but I'm wondering if I should ditch that idea and get something that is more of a pure strat sound?

Funkfingers

Duncan STK-10B YJM Fury, bridge position is good but not one hundred per cent true to the Fender sound. Ditto, DiMarzio Injector bridge and neck models.

guitars4you

For obvious reasons noiseless pick-ups are gaining popularity

However, as a traditionalists, I've never heard any that can match the 'organic' voice of a traditional vintage flavoured pick-up - They all sound to pure and somehow 'clinical' to me - Not sure why - As it happens the original Lace Sensor models on a late 80's Strat are my favourite, but they don't sound pure vintage at all, but I do like them - More smooth and less crisp then a pure vintage model

For home use I'd question why you need them - fine if you like the voice, but I don't see any back ground hum as an issue at home - Simply roll down the volume pot when not in use - Hum is less of an issue when you are actually playing, as you don't really hear any back ground noise over the actual note

guitarfishbay

Love EMG SA’s in a Strat with gain. Doesn’t sound like a classic Strat but doesn’t sound like a humbucker either.

Any ‘classic sounding’ noiseless single hasn’t worked for me, on guitar or bass. But I do like EMG single width pickups a lot

victorludorum

Lace Sensors. Cheap and plentiful.

Philly_Q

axisus said:

It seems to me that quite a lot of 'purists' don't like noiseless pickups and turn their nose up at them

I'd say make that all purists, pretty much.

In the past I've tried a lot of the different noiseless pickups - Kinmans, DiMarzio HS and Virtual Vintage, Duncan stacks, EMGs, Lace Sensors, Fender SCNs, Bardens.  Some I liked, some I didn't, none sounded exactly like single-coils - I think partly because of the lack of noise.

I don't know much about the newer products on the market, like Fralin Split Blades or Fishman Fluence.  They seem quite interesting.

guitarmangler

I'd rather do single coils with a noise gate for the gain-y stuff and have them sound awesome on cleans, than meh on cleans and noise-less with gain. And that's only for live. At home, I just change guitars .
I also really like EMG singles in a strat ( I had a DG set), but they're there own thing rather than a noiseless single.

ESBlonde

EC did alright with early noisless pickups,  but for me I tend to use less gain unless for the odd lead break so the dynamics and overall inflection allowed with single coils works. I play mostly live and a gate is used for pedal hiss mostly.

terada

I'm really interested in this myself too. 

For me it is that my rehearsal venue has terrible electricity and so many devices working in a tiny space that the noise even without gain is ridiculous. 

I was thinking that having some option for when it is worst in the bridge (which I don't use really anyway) would at least give me something to use for those occasions.

richardhomer

Another option is the Illitch (formerly Suhr) back plate. I had one on a Relic Strat a while ago - it didn’t sound exactly the same as it did before it was fitted - but it was very close. And very quiet.

Not sure how freely available they are these days - but definitely a good solution.

Corvus

I asked the same here a while back and after advice and much surfing I got a set of Mojotones. To me they're great, the chime is there, the overtones, whatever. They look OK too with dummy poles staggered.

Liked 'em enough to nab another set that came for sale here, though I need to build something to home them. Both sets have the hot bridge option which fattens it up nicely without needing to hit the tone pot.

The live vs home not mattering, doesn't work for me, mostly use bone clean or fuzz and always working the vol pot. The noise of normal pickups really bugged me. So much nicer now for me. Downside is the price.

That said I haven't owned others apart from SDs with the bar mag, so no idea how the Mojotones are vs Kinmans and the others.

PhilKing

As someone who's used the Mojotones for a while, I can recommend them too.  I've had people play my guitar and not realise that they were noiseless pickups, until I pointed that out.  I have both the 50's & 60's sets with hot bridge piuckup.  If I'm pushed, I'd say that I prefer the 60's set.

axisus

PhilKing said:

As someone who's used the Mojotones for a while, I can recommend them too.  I've had people play my guitar and not realise that they were noiseless pickups, until I pointed that out.  I have both the 50's & 60's sets with hot bridge piuckup.  If I'm pushed, I'd say that I prefer the 60's set.

What's the difference between the sets?

PhilKing

The 60's sound more like a really nice clean strat - you can get everything from Mark Knopfler to Jimi Hendrix on them.  The 50's have a little less of the top end clarity - more David Gilmour or Stevie Ray Vaughan.  It's quite subtle though, which is why I said if I was pushed.  These demos are pretty good at the differences

67s
http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w594aBvWhU
58's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO7K1mZl_C0 .

normula1

I've had quite a few sets of noiseless pickups. So, in no particular order:

Kinman Woodstock are great: nice full-fat Strat tone, and match quite well with a bridge humbucker (both PAF-style or hot).

Kinman Traditional Mk 3: I didn't get on with these at all. They were overly bright and thin, certainly in comparison to the Woodstocks and nowhere near as nice as a genuine single coil. I tried them in several guitars with the same results and adjusting the heights etc. didn't help much. Moving the bridge pickup to the neck (with a spare Woodstock in the bridge helped, but not enough to stop me moving them on.

Kinman '48 Tele neck (original version): quite bright, almost Strat type tone.

Kinman P90s: I'm not convinced these truly hit the mark for P90 tone as they seem to venture a little towards the humbucker side of the fence but I guess that would depend on the reference P90 that Kinman based them on. I've only modern Gibson ones fitted to lower-priced Gibsons to reference against. They're by no means a bad tone though.

Duncan Vintage Tele Stack (bridge): Quite possible my favourite pickup. Good fat tone with no hint of Ice-pick. Almost has a hint of P90-ness about it

Duncan Vintage Tele Stack (neck): just simply awful flat flubby tone, did I mention it's awful?

Fender SCN Strat: A bit too polite and smooth for my ears, but not bad.

Bill Lawrence(ish) OBL 450R: dual blade pickup, very smooth and work well with a bridge humbucker.  Not particularly Strat sounding. (I'm on the lookout for another of these but not at the prices on Fleabay )

Bill Lawrence(ish) OBL 450L: As above but quite a bit thinner and lower perceived output than the "R" variant.

Dimarzio Virtual Vintage: I've had a Blues and two '54s in a Japanese Strat for the best part of twenty years. Warm tone but still recognisable as Strat. I use 250k pots as I didn't like the DM recommended 500k and I believe that the VV series started life as Kinman rip-offs. They do seem to have very similar construction to the Kinmans. 

Henrytwang

I’ve not played a huge number of Strats with noiseless pickups but based on my limited experience I much prefer the tone of Leo’s original single coil design. Although they have an inherent noise problem it’s a small price to pay in return for a great Stratocaster tone.

BluesyDave

The only noiseless singles I've ever liked were on my old Suhr Classic Pro.  All the others I've heard have sounded lifeless and sterile by comparrison.  The Fishman Fluence pups look interesting.  Greg Koch makes 'em sound good, but then he would.

Fretwired

I have a set of Kinmans in an old Strat ... quiet as the grave and a great tone.

darthed1981

@alnico put some in his...

Alnico

SD Classic Stack Humbuckers. STK-4

They still sound like single coils because the second coil is underneath but they're perfectly quiet and sound like a really healthy Strat when they're being played.

The whole loaded plate came to £350 after buying all the parts and having it wired up with new pots etc.

Pickups are roughly £90 each.