A noiseless SC poll/thread

[DrDespair]

Hi everybody.

I would be very curious of all of your opinions about everything that

fits in a SC Equipped guitar / Strat
doesn´t hum.
IS A PICKUP…

I give it a start:

Fender noiseless (cobalt): no hum, plenty of cut, somtime a little thin
Seymour Vintage rails. not really SC-like. no hum. Lame.
Seymour Quarterpounder: Loud fat, hum reduced (strong magnets, less Windings = less hum)

I´m personlly interested in
All Lace sensors (to many options), esp. Chrome Domes
Dimarzio virtual vintage
Bill Lawrence´s creations
Lace ALUMITONES!

come on, tell us all you know
DrDespair

 

[Tone_Terrific]

Bet you have not tried Evans!
Very low noise, low pull, smoothed off top end- "polite" tone.

Or Reflex Reds- active, versatile but slightly unfocussed, low noise but hissy- out of production.


Lace- Golds or Hot Golds- should be on your must try list!

 

[DonW]

After trying many, Kinman. Hands down the best noiseless with the most punch, snark and rolled off smooth I've ever used. Pickup makers have it down to a fine art. Many good choices out there.

 

[HarryJ]

Some clips of Dimarzio Virtual Vintage pups

Neck pickup is DP 410
Middle is DP407 (reverse wound)
Bridge is DP404
​

These are NOT the most standard "strat" like choices in the VV line.

​

The bridge is more of a P-90 meets strat on steroids, which I LOVE!

​

The neck is a warmer tone than a standard strat single.
I switch to the 401 for more of the standard strat tone at times.
​

​

Warmoth Strat
http://www.harryj.net/strat_body.JP


Audio clip into a cranked Sonic Cord class A amp
http://www.harryj.net/strat%20sonic%20wet.mp3

5 Tones
OD tones
Neck, Neck/Middle, Neck/Bridge, Bridge/Middle, Bridge
​

​

​

6 Tones
Clean tones
Bridge, Bridge/Middle, Bridge/Neck, Neck/Middle,Neck, All (All combo's in parallel)

I don't know if you are into wild pickup wiring schemes like I am. If you are, you may want to check out the wiring maps and diagrams that I posted to the "gear" page of my site. Most of them were created by my bud and resident wiring guru Carlos Lorenzo.

Here is a clip showing the parallel combo tones followed by series for 8 very cool 11 tones available.
Combo's
All 3, Bridge/Middle , Bridge/Neck, Neck/Middle


All the clips for this guitar are here: http://www.harryj.net/strat_VV.htm


Here are the wiring and mapping diagrams:

Wiring Diagram Schematic Switching Map
​

Harry Jacobson
www.harryj.net
​

 

[HarryJ]

I previously had the Kinman Woodstocks in that guitar. They were very cool, but far less strat like. Much more pronounced mids.
Cool if thats what 'yer after

HJ

 

[TwinandTwang]

? Bardens?

 

[jzucker]

Barden's out of business. Unless you want to pay $500+ on ebay for a set.

I just installed a set of Dimarzio VV pickups in my SRV strat. VV 2.1 in the neck and middle and Virtual 2 neck in the bridge. They sound amazing. Plenty of twang and they get the jimi tone on the neck pickup and you get all the vintage SRV twangyness in all positions. I couldn't be happier.

I have an american deluxe strat with the SCN pickups but the dimarzio's are a notch better in terms of sound quality and vintage vibe.

I'll probably put a set in my american deluxe strat as well.

 

[pbradt]

My opinion of pickups that don't hum...hmmm...let me think?

Uhh, well, gee, I don't know if I can say anything.

I think this sums up how I feel about noiseless pickups.

 

[rwe333]

Another vote for DiMarzio here - great customer service, lots of choices to really fine tune what you need, very supportive of artists 'in the field'...

Had a set of VirtuAL 2s in for quite a while - great, round tone (bit towards a P90 vibe). Have recently switched to 2.1 in neck/middle w/ a 2.2 in bridge for a bit more traditional Strat vibe - again very pleased.

With all due respect, Kinman have certainly borrowed some of DiMarzio's design concepts...

 

[rwe333]

My opinion of pickups that don't hum...hmmm...let me think?

Uhh, well, gee, I don't know if I can say anything.

I think this sums up how I feel about noiseless pickups.

Positive as usual, I see...

 

[Leonc]

I don't know much about the others though I've played guitars with the Lawrences and Lace picukps in them. They were okay but I'm a fan of the Kinmans, myself. They were very impressive and Chris is absolutely a great guy to deal with. Clip of my strat when it had Kinmans in it.

 

[The_Whale]

I´m personlly interested in
All Lace sensors (to many options), esp. Chrome Domes

Lace ALUMITONES!

I have a Lace Transensor in the middle position in a Jap Strat. It sounds good, I wouldn't mind having a strat with three of them. It doesns't sound "vintage": sort of between a single coil and a humbucker.

It has about the same output as the stock pickups, but is a bit unbalanced: you need to really bring the pickup close the high E string.

 

[Overdriver]

The Lace Holy Grails are the ones for me. Not brittle or harsh. The HG-1000 is like a great classic Strat pickup and the HG-1500 is more like a great P90 without, of course, the noise.

 

[Clorenzo]

I don't know if you're interested in humbucker-voiced ones as well, but here's my 0.02:

- DiMarzio Pro Track: Probably the most versatile pu there is. Series: Warm, mid-output humbucker tone. Parallel: Not exactly sc tone but very close and noiseless. Split: Very convincing in-between tones.

- SD JB Jr: It does what it says on the tin, JB tone in sc size, so the usual JB caveats apply (you may love it or hate it, great overdriven but pretty useless clean, works better with 250k pots, especially with bright sounding woods).

 

[PolyMorf]

Take the pain!

 

[HarryJ]

Regarding Carlos' recommendation of the Dimarzio Pro Tracks. I have to agree.

In terms of versility, they are my #1 favorite. The series tone comes very close to the richness of a side by side PAF tone. The parallel has far more sparkle and definition, and the split gets a great single tone, with the pronounced attack transient, albeit with the hum.

The V.V.'s get closer to the strat single vibe than the P.T's

Another of my favorites is the Cruiser. Not as versitile as the P.T, but it has the absolute coolest P-90esque vibe to it.

---------------------------------

Some Clips of my chambered ash strat with P.T's
http://www.harryj.net/blue_strat_grain.jpg

Here is a clip with the Pro Track in parallel mode:
http://www.harryj.net/tele_blues.mp3

The first and last sections of this track are P.T's in parallel
http://www.harryj.net/beckish.mp3

Same strat with P.T's in series
http://www.harryj.net/wank2.mp3

Here is a live cut using my chambered blue strat with the P.T's in series
http://www.harryj.net/Breakfast_Blues.mp3

---------------------------------------

Godin Tele with a cruiser and protrack side-by-side at neck position
http://www.harryj.net/multibucker.jpg

Cruiser
http://www.harryj.net/neckcruiser.mp3

P.T
http://www.harryj.net/neckprotrack.mp3

OD neck
Cruiser, Split, Protrack, Both in Series
Neck

Harry Jacobson
www.harryj.net

 

[r9player]

+1 on Kinman's really awesome noiseless pick ups
These pick ups have a really nice vibe to them.
The other pick ups I like are Langcaster pick ups. www.langcaster.com
These are just pristine crystalline sounding pick ups.
The Kinman's are nice because they don't need any batteries or or have a circuit board. The Langcaster (also due to build in OD effect) has a small circuit board and needs a 9V, but it is worth it, he makes drop in harnesses now and besides removing 1 trem spring I didn't need to make any adjustments.

 

[tone4days]

seymour duncan is about to release the classic stack plus for strats ... very incredible tone (i've heard prototypes) and no noise .. i think there are going to be two versions, one traditional and one a little beefier ...

should be on the street in just a few weeks (if they arent already) and will also be stock in a nuno bettencourt sign model (washburn?)

t4d

 

[Leucadian]

I bought a used Suhr Classic that the original owner had retro-fitted with Kinman's...they were very quiet but didn't sound like single coils to my ears. Then when I heard Suhr was offering the Silent Single Coil System...

The SSC will be available on non-Suhr strats soon...these are real single coils with no hum...pretty amazing

 

[HarryJ]

The Suhr system looks similar to something I saw on the net a while ago... can't remember where.

It should be very cool, although will require alterations to the guitar if I understand correctly... I suspect a pretty penny too?

Are you there John? Tell us more about this... looks very cool

Harry Jacobson
www.harryj.net