Brand new MIM std telecaster - which noisless pickups

[Duffy]

I am considering having some noisless tele pickups installed in my new arctic white maple board Fender tele that comes with hot ceramic pickups. The hot ceramic pickups hum like a swamp full of mosquitoes in Minnesota during the peak of summer on a hot and humid summer night. Loud like TV static when no channel is tuned.

This outrageous hum is ONLY present thru a ULTRA high gain amp like my new Egnater Tweaker maxed out to full heavy metal gain. Humbucker guitars sing and squeal very plesantly at these settings, exhibiting all sorts of odd harmonics and distortion that sounds super cool for a lot of uses. Imagine a Marshal dual super lead cranked out to full distortion or another super high gain amp. The Tweaker is cool.

Well the Tweaker, after reading the manual, does a real good clean and quiet job with the telecaster when set up to USA and the gain turned all the way back. This, naturally takes away from some of the real fun of the Tweaker I must say. A strat fends fairly well in the noise cancelling positions and is definitely livable but not as awesome as a humbucker guitar like an Agile 3100 or a Michael Kelley Patriot Custom with Rockfield direct mount humbuckers. These babies produce pure heavenly tones that will transport you into dream land without hesitation.

So plugging the tele into the Tweaker set up for Cloud Nine resulted in a totally garbabe sound and was a bit disappointing. I should have known: single coils. To further worsen the scenario, the middle switch position isn'tnoise cancelling or it isn't noticeable at this level of overdrive.

This makes me want to put some real good noise cancelling pickups into my tele that will still retain the classic tele tone, within reasonable expectations.

The first to come to mind is the Fender Vintage Noisless Telecaster pickups set. These would satisfy me completely as far as I can tell on paper, but since I have only played a Fender Deluxe Stratocaster with Vintage Noisless pickups, which sounded super great, and I haven't played or heard a tele with the pickups in it, and have no idea how they would sound on a high gain amp.

The Fender Vintage Noisless pickups are single coils, I believe, just noise cancelling, not humbuckers as per dual magnets, side by side or stacked.


Another definite option for me is the Seymour Duncan Hot Tele Stack bridge pickup with one blade that pairs up with the nickel plated covered stacked humbucker neck tele pickup. These pickups are true humbuckers and probably sound great. They probably do not sound as much like a telecaster traditional pickups as the Fender Vintage Noisless though.

So, my quandrum:

Do any of you guys have any suggestions or ideas as to how I should solve this pickup selection problem? I won't be able to hear a live Seymour Duncan rig and probably won't be able to find an old Fender tele with the Vintage Noisless pickups to listen to.
So I'm hoping that some of you guys have had some experience with one or the other of these, maybe both and might be able to suggest a great sounding noisless telecaster pickup set that retains some of the tele traditional sound.

I have more than one tele so I don't have to worry about being without the real telecaster sound. I can always plug in one of my real tele's.

What do you guys think would be a real good noisless tele pickup rig?

Do I need to get 1 meg potentiometers for the Vintage Noisless - I have been told no, that they are direct drop ins for the 250Kohm standard tone pots. Also for the SD Hot Stack and nickel covered stacked humbucker tele pickup kit - do I need to get potentiometers at a different value than 250Kohm? Also, what about capacitors or resistors?

Any help on this immediately upcoming project is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Commodore 64]

I can't offer any advice on the PuPs, as I've never used them. But the hum thing sorta relates to something I recently did. I can only offer anecdotal experience, because I'm not well versed in the technical reasons for some of this.

I recently replaced the bridge and all of the electronics (except the ceramic PUPs, vintage wound, I would guess) on my 1994 MiM Tele Squier series. Stock, it had 500k pots, so I used new 500k pots. I put in a new switch, and also a new tone cap...a Mallory 150, .022uF. After this reworking, I had a lot more 60hz hum, and a lot more continual hum/buzz in general, especially with distortion pedals. The guitar also was much more trebly, in fact I really only used the neck pickup, as string noise, even with the tone turned down, was like nails on a chalkboard.

Last weekend, I was waiting for some spackle to dry prior to sanding. I fired up the soldering iron, and replaced the Mallory, with an Orange Drop 0.047uF. As expected it rolled off some of the highs nicely, but it also drastically reduced the hum issues. So I'm not convinced it was simply the change in capacitance. Which leaves:

1. Shoddy soldering on the Mallory (totally possible).
2. Mallory was grounding or shorting on something?
3. Mallory tone cap was faulty
4. Mallory tone cap sucked

I really don't know. But I guess my main point is, that on a tele, because you don't have to remove the PG like on a strat, it's ridiculously easy to change out a tone cap...so you could give it a try when you are waiting for paint to dry or something.

I even have an assortment of Mallory 150s and Orange Drops ranging from 0.010, 0.022. 0.033. and 0.047 uF. If you want one, LMK, I can drop it in an envelope, as I have done for others here and save you the pain of paying 6 bucks for shipping a $1.50 part. :)

[Duffy]

What amp were you getting all this loud hum out of?

I don't get a lot of hum from my tele unless I have the gain and level turned up on my OD pedal and my amp gain turned up.

The Egnater Tweaker is capable of Ultra high gain and that is where it was set when I plugged my tele into my cranked up OD pedal. Worked like angels from heaven playing my LP but sounded like total garbage with the tele.

After checking it out from people who know I set the Tweaker for a tele and it sounds great, but doesn't have the awesome screaming solo capability of a humbucker guitar cranked up with ultra gain thru the 4 X 12 cabinet. That is a heavenly sound to behold, much less mess around with. Totally gets your attention.

Those Tweakers are awesome amps. But don't hide your mistakes on the clean settings.

[MAXIFUNK]

Fender noiseless will be just find for your needs.
also might consider some pups from Guitar fetish
http://www.guitarfetish.com/Neovin-Noise-Free-Pickups-for-Telecaster-Guitars_c_121.html

[Commodore 64]

Fender Blues Jr. is my amp.

[Bloozcat]

Duffy,

Check out the Bill Lawrence (Wilde) L48-T and L45-S Tele pickups. There are a few YouTube videos of them as well as a few in the forums at TDPRI.com.

They sound like very traditional Tele pickups without the hum. They respond well to OD too.

[Duffy]

How do the Fender Vintage Noiseless respond to overdrive and ultra distortion? Any body use Fender Vintage Noisless thru a ultra high gain rig with any success?

[deeaa]

Have you considered actives...they should really be quite noiseless.

[Perfect Stranger]

My wife gave me a set of these Fender Jeff Beck pickups last year for our anniversary and I just flatout love them!
http://www.fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0992105000

I also have a set of Bill & Becky Lawrence Strat pups in a blackie strat and love them too.
http://www.wildepickups.com/Home_Page.html

Two different sets, to be sure....but both are GREAT sets! IMHO