Noiseless Tele Pickups

[T89Rex]

Hi all. After what feels like an absolute eternity, a whole lot of my stuff I sent back from the UK before I came home (before Christmas!) should be arriving in Sydney next week, including a Squier Tele that doesn't play too badly, but has some pretty rough pickups in it. So I'm after some recommendations for noiseless (or if they're single coils, at least very quiet) pickups.

This is my only Tele so I'm looking for the standard Tele sound. I had been looking at Kinmans but the pot of money is starting to look a little empty so something on the cheaper end of the scale would be better. I went to see Bruce Springsteen the other night and noticed just about everyone on stage was using Hot Rails, which I hadn't considered before. Anybody got any experience there?

 

[mayfly]

Sorry man - all my tele pickups are noisy.  Sound great mind you, but noisy.

Australia has a bunch of home grown industry - are there any Australian pickup guys who might do noiseless?  Or maybe could be talked into it?  Nothing like shopping locally.

 

[T89Rex]

Yeah supporting the local industry would be a bonus if it's possible. Chris Kinman is Australian but I believe the company is now based somewhere in Asia for tax purposes. My old guitar teacher had a set of his pickups and they sound great (and are indeed dead silent) but they're a bit out of my price range at the moment. Other than that I don't know any local makers.

 

[Cagey]

He mentioned the Kinmans. which are Australian. They're supposed to be quite nice and I've been tempted more than once, but they're just too cost-prohibitive.

For reasonably priced Tele pickups that sound great and aren't noisy, I highly recommend the Bill Lawrence MicroCoils. They're not a stacked humbucker, and there's no dummy coil - it's an actual single coil pickup. But, something to do with their materials/construction makes them noiseless, or very nearly so. They look a bit unusual internally...

I understand he uses baby spider web wires to wind them, something like a 52 gauge, so the coil is much smaller. Then, he uses neodymium magnets to create a strong magnetic field that's spaced away from the pickup so it has little effect on the strings. The end result is excellent. Tele sound without the the icepick or the noise. Then, they're only $85/set. I have a set in one of my Teles, and a set of the Strat version in one of my Strats. The same things can be said of the Strat pickups - closest thing to original Strat single coils, but without the hum.

The only other single coil replacements I've been as impressed with are the Fishman Fluence parts, but they don't make a Tele set. Yet. Those are "active". Honorable mention goes to GFS and their "TrueCoil" pickups, but they don't make a Tele set, either. They use a small "dummy coil" to get rid of noise, and they work well. They're also very authentic sounding.

 

[bagman67]

GFS (Guitar Fetish) doesn't market the TrueCoil brand for their Tele pups, but instead call them "Neovin," and they use a neodymium magnet and other secret sauce.


http://www.guitarfetish.com/KP--Neovin-Pure-Vintage-bridge-pickup-for-Telecaster--Kwikplug-Ready_p_23142.html

 

[Cagey]

I'm familiar with those and have used them as well. They're not quite the same as the Truecoils. They sound good, and where I've used them I'm not going to replace them. They really are noiseless, where the Truecoils are still slightly sensitive to EMI. It's not bad at all, though. I mean, I can tolerate it, and I hate pickup hum. On the plus side, as you say, the Neovins are available for Teles, so they'd be a viable option for Mr. Rex.

 

[Axkoa]

I didn't know you lived in Australia as well dude! I live up in Brisbane. I hate how pricey brands like Seymour Duncan are.

I don't know about noiseless pickups, but http://www.leddinvintageguitars.com/ up here have some decent looking pickups.

 

[T89Rex]

Yep, the Australia Tax really bites hard sometimes. Part of it is how high wages are, which I'm more than happy to pay for given that I reap the benefits of that in my own salary, but when prices are pushing double what Americans pay you know there's something else at play. That said, I'm finding that a lot of boutique pedals (or at least Chase Bliss, ZVex and Earthquaker which I've been investigating lately) are actually available locally for a price that's at least comparable to the US price. Perhaps the times they are a-changin'...

Those Bill Lawrence pups look very nice indeed. There aren't too many sound samples on YouTube etc but what's there sounds like what I'm after. And the price is right; I can get them to my door for under 150 AUD, less than half the price of the Kinmans before shipping. Thanks.

 

[Cagey]

They've never been a high-production shop, so you don't see their products in the wild as much as one might imagine, given how desirable they are. It has always been a mystery why they don't either hire more people or raise their prices. They could probably do both and get away with it easily. But, Bill and his wife Becky were in it more for the fun and adventure of it all more than anything else. Not really business people. Bill's a legend in the pickup field - many pickup designs by the majors out there use his ideas. Still, they'd answer their own phones personally, talk as long as you wanted, make recommendations, discuss wiring tricks, tell stories, on and on. It's a wonder anything ever made it out the door. I'm speaking past tense because Bill died a few years ago, but Becky's still on it.

I say all that to say: deliveries aren't always freaky fast. Becky's changed things a bit so they do maintain some inventory, and they've moved to a new shop in an effort to streamline things, so maybe no worries. But, while you might see parts in a week, don't be surprised if it takes 6.

 

[T89Rex]

Yeah, I'm in no hurry. I haven't seen the guitar they'll be going into since 4 December so a few more weeks (or months) on that really doesn't bother me. I've got two guitars here plus the Mooncaster soon so I'll have plenty to keep me entertained.

So the next thing is to think about how to wire them up! I've been thinking about using the Broadcaster wiring scheme since I saw this video:

[youtube]mETOjlcey_Q[/youtube]

The problem then would be I can't ever see myself using the ultra-dark neck setting, and I'm not sure whether I want to sacrifice the tone knob. Would it be theoretically possible to have:

Position 1: Neck
Position 2: Neck + Pot 1 controlling blend with bridge
Position 3: Bridge

plus Pot 2 as master tone. I almost never use the volume knob, and my volume pedal can stand in for the few occasions I want to.

 

[rgand]

That's pretty cool sounding. If you don't like the really dark tone, maybe use a different capacitor so it doesn't get that dark.

 

[Cagey]

I think if it was me, I'd just put in a blend and tone pot. Maybe not even a tone pot. Either way, you don't need the switch. Blend pot will give you all bridge, all neck, or any point in between. If you want a tone control, it ties to the output of the blend pot. Guitar Fetish sells blank Tele control plates so you can drill them in any configuration that suits you. One came in handy once for a guy who hated blade switches. Regular vol/tone, but toggle pickup switch instead of blade. Somebody else wanted two volumes and no blend, tone or switch. Turn up one or the other pickup, or some mix of each.

 

[T89Rex]

:doh:

Of course, that's much smarter. This is why this place is so darn useful.

 

[stratamania]

I have some Kinmans in a warmoth strat which are very good, and in a tele some Joe Bardens, which are also very good. Alas both are quite costly.

In another tele I have some Seymour Duncan noiseless vintage pickups, the exact details of them are in the Tele build thread in my signature. (I believe Brent Mason, uses the bridge pickup ) no idea what they cost in Australia, but they were a fraction of the cost of the Kinmans and Bardens and still very good.

Other options I can think of might be Dimarzio Areas of some type for the tele and also EMG has some positive reviews for its Tele pickups.

 

[T89Rex]

For some reason I had in mind that Seymour Duncan was at the saner end of the price scale, but the Vintage Stacks run $170 each here - way out of my price range. I guess that puts paid to the Hot Rails idea too.

I've heard some good things about DiMarzio Area Ts. They're about $200 a set which is probably within my limits. I'll do some listening around. I've never played anything with active electronics so I'm a little wary of EMG.

 

[stratamania]

Wow, that is a lot. I think I paid somewhere in the region of £60 odd pounds per pickup for the Seymour Duncans a couple of years back.  At £60 per pickup that translates to just under 200 AUD for a pair.

And the UK isnt exactly cheap either. I just checked and those pickups are now going for just over £70 each at todays prices.

 

[Cagey]

Active pickups are generally pretty clean, but some have outputs that can be adjusted to overdrive some amps. They're also very quiet - silent, really. Some sound better than others - complaints are usually along the lines that they're "sterile" sounding - EMGs are often accused of that, although it's not entirely true. But, they're not all that way. For example, the new Fishman Fluence pickups could never be accused of that. But, those are expensive even here. In Oz, I imagine the price tags induce heart attacks. That's likely to be the case with most actives, as you not only have the pickups, there are electronics involved.

 

[T89Rex]

Apparently the Seymour Duncans come down to about $250 if you buy them as a set, which is only a touch more than £140. Maybe good things just cost money. That Bill Lawrence set is looking more appealing by the minute.

Also, is this how I'd want to wire the blend / tone / no switch set up?

 

[Axkoa]

The local guitar store sells a set of JB and Jazz SD for $325, neck and bridge. Individual JB sells for $180. It cost less for me to get a custom handwound pickup from the UK, including shipping and exchange rate...

A set of Mark Holcomb 7 String signature pickups goes for $512... so just under 400 USD.

 

[Logrinn]

The local guitar store sells a set of JB and Jazz SD for $325, neck and bridge. Individual JB sells for $180. It cost less for me to get a custom handwound pickup from the UK, including shipping and exchange rate...

A set of Mark Holcomb 7 String signature pickups goes for $512... so just under 400 USD.

Shudder ...  :sad1: :sad: