Noise-less Strat style pups???

[Geezer]

I know, not "traditional", but I need them. The band I play in does alot of "noisey" rooms (dirty electrical supply) that NOTHING (no amount of filtering) seems to help.
Plus, we are a fairly low volume group, so any buzzzzzz is usually audible.

What I have tried:
**Kinman.....great for the noise-free feature, not a bit of buzz, absolutely silent. Not so good for tone....kinda sterile.
**Fender SCN Noiseless....same as above.

What I like:
My '97 Ibanez Strat has a H/S/H config. The single in the middle is OK (I've never liked any pickup in that position), but the humbuckers are fantastic! Nice fat tone like a HB should have when cranked, but retains a nice clarity with plenty of highs (never gets muddy), and clean up like a single coil when the volume control on the guitar is backed off.

So, I want a single coil set for a S/S/S Strat that gives me this same type of response......almost HB when cranked, plenty of highs, but still clear & strat-like when volume rolled back.

AND NOISE-LESS!

Am I asking too much??

[tubesornothing]

I had texas noiseless pickups for a while.  I liked them.  But I am a big fan of boutique pickups now.  Send a note to Lollar or Sheptone, see what they recommend.

ToN

[Megachunk]

Geez.

A blue Lace Sensor with 2 golds would be great for what you're describing. Maybe a bit sterile for some, but I think they have a TON of character. The Golds give you the tone without the noise, and the blue is a hotter, 50's style PAF when cranked, and rolled off it goes back to strat-0-land. If you need a bit hotter, A Red in the bridge (Hot as a humbucker!) and blue in the neck would rock. We sell a pre-loaded pickguard with the red, silver in the middle, and blue in the neck. Quiet as all get out and still the bell tone.

Mega.

[Geezer]

Thanks Megha!
What's the Silver like?
What about "Blue/Gold/Blue"?
I think I'll go to the Lace website & look around a bit.
Thx agin, G

[jjasilli]

Am I asking too much??  Yes you are but what the heck.

I just put a set of lindy fralin Unbuckers in my Greco LP project and they are great. The coils in each section are unbalanced:  about 5K and 3K for a total of about 8K in humbucker mode.  This imbalance gives them a touch of single coil tone and quack when in humbucker mode. But if you get the coil tap option (I did not), you can switch the 3K coils out of the circuit, and then have 5K single coil operation.  You can have Fralin's shop wind them to any imbalance that you specify. Like 6K + 2K -- stronger single coil operation, but less noise cancellation in humbucking mode. Anyway, Unbuckers enable you to have reasonably strong single coils with little vol drop-off when switching to single coil mode.  If you're getting too much noise in a venue, you can always switch back into humbucker mode.  I vouch that you will love the tone.  This is not a compromise in tone!

[G._Hoffman]

Seymour Duncan has a new stack, the Classic Stack Plus, for a strat which I've got in my new(ish) strat I threw together last year.  I've been extremely happy with them, and I heartily recommend them.  One thing to do with them is use a 4p5t "Super Switch".  The middle pickup comes reverse wound/reverse polarity, so with the Super Switch you can wire them up to tap on the "in-between" and they will still be quiet.  Personally, I almost always use those in-between positions, so this is a great boon to me.  I've got mine wired up so, in addition to the automatic taps, I can pull up the second tone control (which doesn't do anything else) and it turns on the neck pickup no matter the position of the switch.  I've always been a two humbucker guy, but since I finished this thing it has been my hands down favorite guitar, and the pickups have been a big part of that.  They don't sound anything like humbuckers, and it's been nice having something new to play.



Gabriel

[jjasilli]

The Duncan Classic Stack Plus sound interesting.  The Fralin Unbuckers do look and sound like PAF's and I haven't hard them live in single coil mode.

[G._Hoffman]

Lindy Fralin also makes something called the Twangmaster, which is a split single coil (same idea as a split P-bass pickup), but in a humbucker sized package.  Unfortunately, they only come in a standard Gibson spacing, but they sound killer (I've got a pair of them in my surf guitar). 

The two guitars in question (I finished them at about the same time, and put a picture on my Flickr at the time):






Gabriel

[Rich]

http://www.wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_NF_Singles.html

[jjasilli]

Choices, choices, choices.  The plot thickens!  Twangmasters, and somehow I didn't realize that Bill Laurence was producing pickups under another name. What happened there, legal issues?  I think he makes great pickups.

AND:  http://www.fralinpickups.com/bpssc.asp  Suhr makes a tremolo cover plate device which kills hum in standard single coils.  The mid PU must NOT be reverse wound.

[G._Hoffman]

AND:  http://www.fralinpickups.com/bpssc.asp  Suhr makes a tremolo cover plate device which kills hum in standard single coils.  The mid PU must NOT be reverse wound.

Dummy coils like this tend to kind of damp the quack, so to speak.  We've put one or two of these in, and I'm not wild about them. 


Gabriel

[Megachunk]

The one all the guys use (Winwood, Beck, Clapton, Townsend) are our Lace Sensor Golds.

Recently, we made a stealth pickup (under pickguard -like the old Marauder but one that actually works) for a Fender Custom shop Tele that auctioned for big $$ at the NAMM show. It's based on our Alumitone, which is a super low noise current-driven, low-resistance design. Full bandwidth and hi output. All of our pickups are really quiet.

Joe Walsh uses Fralin pickups, I think. I've never tied them, but he has him some amazing tone. I'm an active guy -I still play EMG's! But I own one electric guitar; until the tool I use to make money breaks, I use the hell out of it! If I had a couple, they'd have Lace's and Fralin's and all that!

[jjasilli]

Thanks Gabe. I was wonddering how the Surh thing works; just another dummy coil approach.  Unfortunately, I have no experience with Lace.

Hey Megachunk, maybe you can get your Company to provide a sample to our esteemed Moderator!

[G._Hoffman]

The one all the guys use (Winwood, Beck, Clapton, Townsend) are our Lace Sensor Golds.

Except, of course, Clapton isn't using Lace Sensors anymore - he's using Fender's noiseless pickups.  But really, I don't much care what he uses, because he sounds pretty much the same no matter what he uses.  Heck, George Gruhn tells me that the pickups in Blackie were stock seventies Strat pickups - and he sold Clapton all the parts, so he should know.  His sound is not in his gear.

Personally, I can't stand the sound of Lace Sensors.  They don't have the attack I like - they always seem to go around the note to me.  (I know that doesn't make much sense - it's something I heard Steve Martin say, "talking about sound is kind of like dancing about archtecture.")


Gabriel

[jjasilli]

I heard Steve Martin say, "talking about sound is kind of like dancing about archtecture."
I always thought that was from Frank Zappa, but who knows?:  http://snurb.info/files/27-02-03%20fineArtforum.pdf

It further appears that Emmanuel Kant stated that writing about love is like dancing about architecture.  Vive la difference.  Now back to the arhitecture of single coil pick-ups. . .

[Justa]

I have three Strats with different pickups, one of them is a Deluxe with noiseless SCN's.  I was surprised at how good the SCN's sound and have not been disappointed in the quack or attack.  I expected to be using the SCN's only when noise was an issue but wound up playing this one all the time.  These are my first noiseless singles to own however.

[G._Hoffman]

I heard Steve Martin say, "talking about sound is kind of like dancing about archtecture."
I always thought that was from Frank Zappa, but who knows?:  http://snurb.info/files/27-02-03%20fineArtforum.pdf

It further appears that Emmanuel Kant stated that writing about love is like dancing about architecture.  Vive la difference.  Now back to the arhitecture of single coil pick-ups. . .

I don't know who said or wrote it first, but I heard it from Steve Martin.  Whoever it was, true words.


Gabriel

[macula56]

AND:  http://www.fralinpickups.com/bpssc.asp  Suhr makes a tremolo cover plate device which kills hum in standard single coils.  The mid PU must NOT be reverse wound.

Dummy coils like this tend to kind of damp the quack, so to speak.  We've put one or two of these in, and I'm not wild about them. 


Gabriel

I disagree. I have one Strat with Suhr V60 LP's and the BPSSC back plate and they sound fantastic. Just as good as the Lollars my friend has in his Strat.