Denoising strat - shameless request for recommendations

bleujazz3 said:
I recalled that Fender once made noiseless pickups, so I did a little research...turns out the Lace Sensor was the first attempt at noiseless. The Lace Sensor runs off of battery onboard guitar power, and introduction of a power source into a guitar would mean I'd have active pickups. Not the most desirable option.
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Huh? I have Lace Golds in one of my Strats - bought and installed them many years ago. No onboard power required - they install just as you would a regular single-coil pickup.

Of the "noiseless" pickup options that I have (which include two different generations of the Fender Noiseless, a variety of SD dual coils, and DiMarzio HS-3 pickups), they are closest in sound to a Strat single coil IMHO. YMMV and all that.

Dave
 
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Rex said:
True, but the alpha will get you by without too much weirdness.
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Until it doesn't. if it were built around their full size most premium pot I would be happy to use it but these are a low grade pot and poor durability switch by number of actuations.
 
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xarkon said:
Huh? I have Lace Golds in one of my Strats - bought and installed them many years ago. No onboard power required - they install just as you would a regular single-coil pickup.

Of the "noiseless" pickup options that I have (which include two different generations of the Fender Noiseless, a variety of SD dual coils, and DiMarzio YJM pickups), they are closest in sound to a Strat single coil IMHO. YMMV and all that.

Dave
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YJM is a Duncan but yes pretty good. The Malmsteen Dimarzio is the HS3.
 
tysonlt said:
I played a gig with my vintera strat last night and the downlights at the venue necessitated staying on position 2.

Time to address the noise question. There are so many options for noiseless pickups - any body else have strong opinions?

I’ve seen Kingman come up a lot, and the illitch pick guard. Shipping to Aus can be pricey just to try these things out.

I like the strat chime sound but I’m not super-religious about it. I find the current pups a bit bright and bitey so would be happy to ‘lose’ a little bit of strat quack if that’s the trade-off, but still want that basic strat sound.
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I have 2 suggestions for pickups.
First would be zexcoils. Fellow axe fx user Camilo Velandia uses these and sounds fantastic.


Other suggestion would be the dimarzio “area” pickups. I think those are great single coils, disguised as noiseless pickups. Lincoln Brewster plays them and he sounds plenty stratty to my ears.
 
My main touring guitar is a late 80s strat that was originally outfitted with lace sensor pickups, which I never liked. I swapped them out for Dimarzios, then later Fralins. Ultimately, when I took the guitar to Mike Lull (legendary NW luthier) for a stainless steel refret, I asked his recommendation for low-noise single coil pickups. He and I had spent a lot of time together over the years chatting about all thing music and food, and he knew my playing style and the classic tone I preferred. He said Kinman pickups were what I needed. Yes, they're expensive, and you have to wait for them to ship. But they are amazing. They're not perfectly noiseless, but they are very close to it. There are some venues with very noisy power and lots of RFI. Before I had the Kinmans installed, I had to use a backup guitar with stacked (humbucking) single coils. Once the Kinmans were in my #1, I could do nearly any show without excessive noise. One place we used to regularly play is literally next door to a power substation and you can hold up a fluorescent light tube next to the fence and it will actually light up! That venue had a 60 cycle hum that was so oppressive you basically had to tune to it and consider it part of the band.
 
Andy Eagle said:
The Alpha push pull is not great and there in no quality push push.
View attachment 133863
Nothing comes close to these.
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Yes, those are the best.

<rant>
What bugs me about push-push switches is that there is a rugged, reliable, and simple push-on/push-off latching mechanism that can position something at an extended or retracted position alternately, which has stood the test of time, and that NONE of them use. The Bic Clic pen has existed for at least 50 (if not 70) years, and the mechanism for extending or retracting the ball point tip just works. Why is nobody using this in switches?
</rant>
 
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xarkon said:
Huh? I have Lace Golds in one of my Strats - bought and installed them many years ago. No onboard power required - they install just as you would a regular single-coil pickup.

Of the "noiseless" pickup options that I have (which include two different generations of the Fender Noiseless, a variety of SD dual coils, and DiMarzio YJM pickups), they are closest in sound to a Strat single coil IMHO. YMMV and all that.

Dave
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Hmm. I once owned some Red-Blue-Gold sensors that didn't require a battery...why have I more recently seen modified guitars with lace sensors that put a battery compartment into a guitar cavity?

Of all the single-coil Strats I ever owned, the noiseless pickup ones were the ones I appreciated the most...could never get used to the 60 Hz hum single-coils created...and currently, it's the lace sensors in the older Fenders and the noiseless pickups in the Fender American Standard Ultra SSS that have got me thinking...
 
bleujazz3 said:
Hmm. I once owned some Red-Blue-Gold sensors that didn't require a battery...why have I more recently seen modified guitars with lace sensors that put a battery compartment into a guitar cavity?
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My guess is that the player simply wanted more output and so added an onboard preamp.

Blackmore used Lace Golds for some time - but was also known for pushing the front end of the amp with the preamp in a Aiwa tape recorder. There's more about the various pickups he tried at this page (no affiliation):
https://www.treblebooster.net/bsm-tonezone/ritchie-blackmore
 
My noiseless journey with my Strat:

After determining I wanted to go noiseless back in 2011, watched a bunch of videos, got people’s opinions, and tried when available.

Went with DiMarzio, Area 61 for the bridge and area 58’s for the middle and neck. At the time I was busy as hell and took the guitar to my tech to install the pickups. (this comes into play later)

Got it back, it did sound pretty good but very ice picky. After playing around with the height of the pickups and so on got it in my head to try Fender N3’s, did the work myself this time just loaded up a new pickguard and did a swap. The N3’s sound ok not ice picky but a little heavy in the mid’s.

While going through stuff one day pulled out the pickguard with the area pickup’s and noticed that when the tech loaded that pickguard he put in a treble bleed (which is not my first choice).

Got rid of the treble bleed reinstalled the pickguard, much more to my taste.
The above was basically over a two-year period and ever since then have been with the Area pickups.

Young me would be still chasing, 60-year-old me ask some questions.

Pickups were purchased for the purpose of noise reduction; do they do that? Yes!
Does it sound like a Strat? Yes!
Is it a pleasing sound? Yes!

I’m done!
 
skolacki said:
Fender makes those S1 push push switches. Can’t speak for durability but I haven’t ran into issues yet.
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Yeah I've wondered about those.
Seems likely better quality than the alpha ones.

Apparently the Fancy Way is one of those and a Fender Super Switch (4P-5T), lots you could do w that pair...
 
skolacki said:
Fender makes those S1 push push switches. Can’t speak for durability but I haven’t ran into issues yet.
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I like them. 4p2t, so lots you can do. The only downside so far is that they only make a Stratocaster Volume knob for it - no Tone. Telecaster knobs are also available, and are not labeled, so they can be used for anything, but you are stuk with the one spot or a mislabeled knob on a Strat....

I guess you could get a buddy with a 3D printer to make knobs, tho....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
I like them. 4p2t, so lots you can do. The only downside so far is that they only make a Stratocaster Volume knob for it - no Tone. Telecaster knobs are also available, and are not labeled, so they can be used for anything, but you are stuk with the one spot or a mislabeled knob on a Strat....

I guess you could get a buddy with a 3D printer to make knobs, tho....
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How weird would tele knobs look on a strat?
 
Dave Merrill said:
How weird would tele knobs look on a strat?
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Dunno. Looks ok on this one, but probably would look out of place on this one:
20230908_141459.jpg
 
unix-guy said:
To be fair, does the label actually help you? I have about 30 guitars, none of which has a labeled knob ;)
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Quite a few here as well. Used to use the Gibbo style lampshade knobs a lot, with no labels. My main Strat had three Tone knobs, going back to a now 30 year old joke (imagine Jan complaining "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha" and substitute "Tone", and you'll have a good idea of what my acquaintance James' GF said to me), until very recently, when I got the S1 switch/pot/knob....
 
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