Fender Vintage Noiseless Pickups

[jpfeifer]

I have an Eric Clapton Strat that I've owned for several years. It plays great, stays in tune, as is a very solid guitar overall. The only thing that I've not liked about it is the Lace Sensor pickups that it came with. The Lace Sensors do have their good points, in that they seem to have an overall higher output than normal pickups. But they are definitely not the most quiet pickups that I've ever had, and they don't sound exactly like traditional Strat pickups. Whenever I turn up loud with this guitar the hum is pretty bad.

I decided to make the switch to some of the new Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups, since the current Eric Clapton model uses those now. I just finished installing the new pickups this weekend.

Man, I'm really enjoying these pickups. They are extremely quiet and are delivering a much more traditional Strat tone as compared to the Lace Sensors. I didn't realize how much I missed the more traditional Strat tone until I installed these.

I also l found out how to make the strat even more quiet by attaching some aluminum foil to the back of the entire pickguard with rubber cement. I learned this tip from one of my other friends. Since I had the pickguard off I did this foil treatment to make it as quiet as possible. (note: just make sure that this foil is connected to the guitar ground) This foil sheilds it from any static noise that comes from your hands rubbing against the pickguard. My guitar developed this problem recently and this foil treatment cleared that up.

Now I have a super quiet guitar that plays as great as it ever did. I'm really happy with the sound!

-- Jim

[duhvoodooman***]

My '89 Strat Plus came with the Lace Sensors and I stuck with them for several years. Good pickups, excellent for high gain leads, but somewhat lacking in that true vintage clean tone. I switched to Texas Specials a couple of months ago, and even though they're still a fairly "hot" pickup, the vintage character is much stronger. The Vintage Noiseless would be even further in that direction, I would expect. Good to hear you're so satisfied with the switch!

[jpfeifer]

Yeah, the Lace Sensors aren't entirely bad. Mine had the gold Lace Sensors which were extremely hot pickups, almost too hot. If you turned them up all the way they would overdrive almost any amp you plugged into. They actually sounded nice cranked up. But the hum was so bad that I had a hard time dealing with it for high gain stuff unless you were constantly playing.

So far I'm happy with the switch.

-- Jim

[Nelskie]

I decided to make the switch to some of the new Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups, since the current Eric Clapton model uses those now. I just finished installing the new pickups this weekend.

Man, I'm really enjoying these pickups. They are extremely quiet and are delivering a much more traditional Strat tone as compared to the Lace Sensors. I didn't realize how much I missed the more traditional Strat tone until I installed these.

I've often wondered why the VN p'ups aren't more popular (not that they aren't liked) - - they have fantastic vintage Fenber tone, and ZERO noise! I had a set of VN in my old Squier Telecaster, and they sounded dynamite. Glad to hear there's another player that's as taken by them as I was.

I also l found out how to make the strat even more quiet by attaching some aluminum foil to the back of the entire pickguard with rubber cement. I learned this tip from one of my other friends. Since I had the pickguard off I did this foil treatment to make it as quiet as possible. (note: just make sure that this foil is connected to the guitar ground) This foil sheilds it from any static noise that comes from your hands rubbing against the pickguard. My guitar developed this problem recently and this foil treatment cleared that up.

Now I have a super quiet guitar that plays as great as it ever did. I'm really happy with the sound!

Jim, you may have just solved a major issue I was having with my MIM Classic 60's Strat. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why I always heard these little "ticking" sounds when I was playing. If you wouldn't mind, I'd sure like to know more about this little "trick" - - perhaps a *new* thread w/ some photos . . . ? I'd almost bet there are other Fretters who'd like to employ this fix on their own Strats.

[Robert****]

Just chiming in a little late.... I have these pickups in my Fender Deluxe Players Strat, and they are fine indeed!

I still would like to try the Area 51 or 68 from DiMarzio to compare. I've always thought of DiMarzio's noiseless as sounding better than Fender's, but this is just in my head, I don't really know if this is true.

Regardless, the Vintage Noiseless work good for me. No noise, sweet blues tone can be had.

I have found the neck pickup can be a little bit "bassy", compared to the other pickups. On the other hand, sometimes that is really cool when playing blues.

I'm content at this point. :

[sumitomo]

I'm eating this stuff up I have a 89 strat plus with the orginal lace there good and all just want to try something different.I like the sound of the Lindy Fralins but I image they are noisy for me.keep the inputs comming.Sumi :

[Robert****]

Kinmans are very good too.

[M29]

Hello,

I am installing a pair of Area 61's in my Jazzmaster tonight and I am curious what capacitors you are using with these noiseless pickups. I would think other noiseless pickups are a humbucker of some sort which would probably use a different capacitor. Any thoughts?

M

[Robert****]

1 meg pots from what I can see -
http://img3.musiciansfriend.com/dbas...pec/301632.pdf

[Spudman***]

I still would like to try the Area 51 or 68 from DiMarzio to compare. I've always thought of DiMarzio's noiseless as sounding better than Fender's, but this is just in my head, I don't really know if this is true.

I think you are correct. Once you try the Dimarzios you will see how much better they are.

[M29]

Thanks a million Robert, I looked all over for a schematic like this but never thought to look there. Now I have to scrounge up some 1 megers.



M

[marnold***]

In the interest of being AR, the Dimarzio pups are 58 and 61, not 51 and 68. There's a 67 too. I can't comment on caps because my Floyd only has a 500K volume pot with no tone pot. However, I know that all three of the Area pups were designed to be used with standard Strat controls.

[jamiej]

My first Strat was a budget Squire version, made in Korea and had reverse polarity ceramic pickups which were really good, but I sold it for a Japanese made Strat (1992), as an upgrade, which, I think, was made to vintage specs. However, I was disappointed in the sound, which was inferior. The middle pickup was not reverse wound, and pickups had a lot of hum and seemed weak; it did not "quack" like a Strat should in the bridge-middle pup position. Eventually, I replaced the pickups with second hand vintage noiseless Strat pups, that were being sold in a guitar shop, and it made all the difference in the world. No hum and it quacks like a duck!

[ZMAN]

Does your Eric Clapton Strat have the Mid boost circuit in it? I was wondering how the new pickups work with it? (If so equipped)

[Matt]

I think you are correct. Once you try the Dimarzios you will see how much better they are.

I've recently swapped back to the original pickups in my strat. I had the standard Dimarzio 58/58/61 combination, but there just wasn't something right about the sound. They sounded great with gain, but clean they were pretty lifeless. I tried adjusting the height etc as they are very responsive to the distance to the strings, but they still did not have the 'right' sound. After going back to my original p'ups, I realised I had forgotten how good a strat can sound. I do now have to put up with 50Hz hum again, but it's something I'm willing to put up with. IMO, no noiseless p'ups have got it quite right yet, although the new Fender N3 p'ups look pretty tasty. I also point blank refuse to pay the huge amount of money for the Suhr SSC system when all it is is a glorified dummy coil which, despite the claims, does impact your tone slightly.

Having said this, I do quite like the sound of the Fender noiseless vintage p'ups, they sound so much better than lace sensors

[Bloozcat]

The main problem with noiseless pickups always seems to be the compressed sound. That tone like when you have a compressor stomp box set way too high. Even if the manufacturer can get the pickups to sound close to actual single coils sooner or later - usually after the "honeymoon" period associated with new pickups - you start hearing that compression. All the Lace pickups have it. I think that sometimes we'll give noiseless pickups a little leeway when evaluating them. We listen for them to sound "as close to" or "almost" like single coils, but sooner or later you realize that they just plain do not sound like single coils.

I have a love/hate relationship with a set of Lace Holy Grails that I own. Quiet, yes. Sound good overdriven, yes. Sound "almost" like vintage single coils...yes and no. They can only fool my ears for so long before the compression starts to bug me.

I've been listening to sound clips on You Tube of the new Bill Lawrence/Wilde L-45 dual blade pickups. They're low output pickups with an inductance of 2.0 Henries (2.5 is standard for low output vintage single coils). They sound the "closest" to real vintage single coils of any I've yet heard. So far I've only been able to find sound files of them played clean, but that's usually where the compression bugs me.

I'm trying to rationalize the decision to purchse a set. I'm telling myself that even if it turns out that they don't really sound like true single coils, they'd be a "specialty" set in a guitar set aside for their unique (and noiseless) tone. After all, I tell myself, Coco Montoya uses Bill Lawrence L-250's and OBL's in his guitars and his tone is great.

I feel like Odysseys listening to the song of the Sirens while lashed to the mast of my ship. Listen, yes, but keep my hands bound so that I can't get to my wallet and credit card, lest I find myself up on the rocks of compressed tone once again...