Fender noiseless pickups

[aquietstorm]

I have a set of these to join the thinline telecacter parts that should arrive tomorrow.  Am I correct in thinking that these are really small humbuckers?  Should I use stock 250k pots or 500k pots.  What about the caps? 

 

[aquietstorm]

It seems these pickups are used in the american deluxe tele so I will use the schematic and parts values from the fender site.

 

[CD]

I was under the impression they were true single coils, but noiseless.

 

[aquietstorm]

I was under the impression they were true single coils, but noiseless.

I don't know how they can be single coil and noiseless.

They have four coil wires connecting to two main wires so it makes me think there are actually two coils in there.  Perhaps stacked and connected with reverse polaritey to cancel hum.  Or maybe I am wrong and they are just single coils.

The resistance and inductance seem closer to humbuckers than to single coils too.

But the Fender schematic for the american deluxe tele uses 250 k pots and a .022 uf cap so that is what I will use.

 

[CD]

I've never really looked into it being primarily a humbucker guy. I just don't dig the single coil sound much.

After thinking about it I looked at the Dimarzio website and their "single" coil pickups with the hum canceling all had two poles.

 

[-CB-]

The Fender noiseless pickups were designed by, and for a while at least.. made by... Bill Lawrence (the real Bill).  I'm assuming only initial production was by BL and soon thereafter made by Fender in their own plant, also initially supervised by Bill himself (or so he's said).

Bill has a very good reputation for making clear bright pickups.  Having said that, I thought the Fender noiseless were a bit too thin for my taste, but... I'm sort of a fat wound single coil sort of player anyway, so what do I know.

 

[Baldrick]

Hello............

most of us should have gathered by now that a humbucker in a single-coil size rout won't sound like a single-coil to the point where your ears can't tell the difference. I'm not sure what the difference is betwen the Lace Sensors that Beck/Clapton used to use in their signature Strats and the Fender Noiseless that they now use, but they sure aren't pure single coils. I am quite suprised that I have seen no mention of Chris Kinman's pickups. His website goes into almost painfull technical detail without somehow giving his game plan away. In my humble opinion, this is the best of the type out there at the moment. Usually when a company brings a new noiseless single-coil onto the market that is the major selling point....that they are noiseless. With the Kinmans the noiseless factor is just a bonus! The best part is the tone. They're aren't any brand new '50s or '60s Strats around although there may be quite a few that have had very little playing time. I'd wager that the Kinmans are the closest to what those vintage Strats sounded like when they were new.....and they're noiseless. There are various sets but the "Traditional II" just has THE sound. There is a Dave Gilmour set as well as he uses them now as does Hank Marvin....who??? I'm not certain but I don't think his pups are of the much vaunted magical/voodoo scatterwound type yet they still sound , well, make your own mind up. As far as I know Seymour Duncan's pups are not scatterwound unless you specify a Custom-Shop model and even then scatterwinding is an optional extra and nobody seems to complain about his pickups. I don't know whether Americans haven't really taken to Kinmans because he's not American (he's Australian) but if you're in search of great Fender tone for Strat or Tele you need to leave your patriotism at your desktop and sample the delights of noiseless twang. If you are into really overdriven sound you may need to look elsewhere. These things really shine when played clean or with just a wee bit of break-up. There are sets designed for high-gain sound but I don't think they have the "jeeeez" effect of the "Traditional II"

I'm not sure he's the most modest of tone-gurus but maybe he's not the most arrogant neither. However he has acheived something of value. I'm singing his praises and those of his products and believe it or not I'm just a customer. Just listen to the sound bites on the website.....and just remember they're all completely noiseless even when you play next to your local electricity generating station! In the end we will all make our own decisions and as long as you purchase a good brand you should be OK. Remember, all these handwinders all use exactly the same raw materials. If you don't like the sound of your pups but they are a good make try changing the capacitor. Better to spend $8 on a really good capacitor than $220+ on three new pups which are virtually indentical to those you have just replaced. Very few manufacturers have been able to come up with something different. Chris Kinman has achieved that goal. :icon_jokercolor: