Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

[teletwangthang]

I have the USA Deluxe Tele from 98 that came with Noiseless pups as standard. I am interested to know how they compare to the SD range and which sounds closest, if any, so I can upgrade.

I would like to get more of the brighter single coil sound and I am considering changing to the Tele Hot single coils so if my current pups sound close to the Vintage Stack for example then I have a reference point to start from and listen to on the tone charts.

Thanks!

 

[teletwangthang]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

They're not the Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups, these are the first version which I think Fender just called Vintage Noiseless and are basically stacked humbuckers.

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

They're not the Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups, these are the first version which I think Fender just called Vintage Noiseless and are basically stacked humbuckers.

My brief experience w/the old Fender Noiseless models leads me to think that you should look into SD options.

It was some yrs back, so I'm sorry I can't be more specific than I remember thinking that they were rather lifeless.

 

[Sanford]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

My memory of the Noiseless line comes from working at Mars music around 2001 and listening to different people plinking away all day long on the strats. They all played different styles through different amps, but the one common thing between them was that all the guitars sounded like someone wrapped the amp's speaker in cellophane. I didn't like it the first time I heard it, I didn't like it the millionth time I heard it...nor for any of the 10 hours every day in between.

 

[alex1fly]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

I had 2001 Fender vintage noiseless singles in my strat. I thought they sounded lifeless at the time, BUT - all the recordings I've made with them sound good, I played in a couple of bands with them, and I've also been unhappy with my strat's tone ever since I took them out over a year ago (and tried many pickups in the strat since). The SSL strat pickup was probably the closest to the Fender Vintage Noiseless strat pickup.

I agree with above posters, you can probably nail the tones you want with some aftermarket pickups, but the difference may not be worth the process of buying/swapping/buying/swapping until you find what you're looking for.

You could try swapping one of your pots to a higher value, probably a 500k, to brighten the overall tone.

 

[hanumanlangur]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

My roommate has some Fender noiseless pickups in his tele, and they sound excellent -- very full and clear. I'm not sure if they have different models, or if they're just the standard ones, but there are some great tones to be had with those things.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

Do you want noiseless tele pickups or do the those that still hum not cause a problem?

If not noiseless, then I would not hesitate to reccomend SD real single coils, not that the SD noiseless are not also great, but I find the SD line of strat and tele pickups to be particulary fine.

This is particularly true of the antiquity pickups. One of the things that brought me to trying Duncans was when one of my old bandmates installed a set of antiquity strat pickups into an 80's American Standard and it suddenly gained some vintage "mojo". I could hear it. He later put in a set of Fralins, and while these were fine, I thought it lost some of that "mojo".

Are there tele versions of Classic Stack Plus noiseless?

 

[zanshin777]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

Which pickups for strat of Seymour Duncan don't produce noise ?

 

[Fikealox]

Re: Fender Noiseless vs Seymour Duncan

The stacks don't. I have a set of STK4s in my strat, and they're at least as quiet as humbuckers.