Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Since you don't have middle by itself as an option, I'd use whatever you need to get the other positions to be noiseless if I were you.

Since I'm me, and I love the middle by itself, use position 4 a little bit, very little of 2, and the sound of real single coils, I'd use whichever pickups sounded the best in each position and say to hell with noise cancellation.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

+1 cool rail neck but add a spinasplit or a parallel to self toggle...

Unmodified in the neck, it really should have been named warm rail.. not as much umph as a hotrail but far more than standard strat... Superb if you want some gain for solos.

But when you parallel or spin a split, you can get close to classic strat...superb for rock or blues rhythm.

As you spin off the rail, you get more and more straty and the sweet spot on most of my builds is about 60%...but u can pick up noise in a noisy room.

Parallel keeps u humbucking and can also be rather straty.

I love CRs!

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Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

If you're looking for an Andy Timmons tone out of your neck pickup you should forget any rail type pickup other than the DMZ Cruiser, as that is literally just supposed to sound like a single coil w/o the hum.

If you want noiseless get a classic stack, if not just get an SSL-1 or something. AT neck is just basic Strat tone, the rails are purely for high gain quietness, I would bet my left nut that in the studio he is using an actual Fender Stratocaster with regular single coils.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

ElectricGypsy said:
Ok so Classic stack plus STK-S4m in the middle and as far as the neck pickup I'm trying to achieve a sort of Andy Timmons kind of tone, so a sort of strat tone, but much more round without noise and piercing highs. Based on the description I've assumed that the Vintage Rails would have been the closer pickup to the Dimarzio Cruiser...am I wrong ?
Click to expand...

Well the Vintage Rails is a good, very vintage, lower-output Strat sound. The Classic Stack beats it in the balls dept, and is absolutely rounder with no piercing highs at all.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Previusly I was using a Cool rails in the neck wired in series, but it was definetly too closer to an humbucker; to me it sounds too fat. Sure it's a great pickup if your're loocking for a single coil sized humbucker, but that's not my case. :) Because of this I thought to move to a Vintage Rails that should be closer to a single coil pickup, especially as far as the clarity and pick attack...

I've also considerd the Vintage Hot stack plus STK -S7, but I'm afraid that it could be too close to a single coil...at lest based on the website description :) I'm trying to stay exactly in the middle, so I'd like a pickup that has the clarity of a single coil with it's definition especially on the pick attack and note separation, but I want also the warmth and the noisless feture of the humbucker.

I think that maybe the best solution would be: PB in the bridge, Classic stac plus STK-S4m in the middle and Vintage rails in the neck. On the 2 position I'll split the PB and also the Classic stack so I'll have a noiseless position and in the 4 position I won't split the Classic stack so that would be noisless too. The only last doubt that I have is the the 4 position in that case may be not so stratty because I'll have a stack single coil wired in parallele with a sort of a mini humbucker...
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

I am not quite sure you'd need the middle to be rw/rp to be hum cancelling with the PB, however.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Mincer said:
I am not quite sure you'd need the middle to be rw/rp to be hum cancelling with the PB, however.
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I think that it's the only option that I have if I want a noisless combination in the 2 position. In theory usually the middle pickup it's made rwrp exactly to create a noiseless combination when it's paired with another single coil, as long as you paried 2 coil that are rwrp each other...
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Mincer said:
I am not quite sure you'd need the middle to be rw/rp to be hum cancelling with the PB, however.
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I'm surprised you haven't mentioned your HSS setup blog post yet.

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Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

I don't it actually applies to what he is doing, but you can certainly check it out. I accomplish noise cancelling in all positions while still using 2 pickups that sound like single coils should.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Mincer said:
I don't it actually applies to what he is doing, but you can certainly check it out. I accomplish noise cancelling in all positions while still using 2 pickups that sound like single coils should.
Click to expand...

I've just take a look at your blog post and actully I think that your idea is the same as mine :) Also I've checked the Schaller meagswitch E, that you have mentioned, and my switching configuration is the HSS5 on this page: https://schaller.info/en/megaswitch-e

So at this point it's all about pickups polarity and orientation. If I'm not wrong all Seymour's humbucker are SN = South is the screw coil and North is the slug coil...am I wrong ?
If I'm not wrong about this point, this would be the pickups configuration that will guarantee me all noiseless combinations: SN-S-N

However the Vintage rails can't be splitted so if I want all noiseless combination I have to give up on that...
 
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Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

5 Way sw..jpg

I did one like this once that worked perfect but the Pickup models allowed me to do it ( not sure if u can . the rev. wnd middle accommodated it fine on the Ax I wired .
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

To me it's clear that I've to change my mind about the Vintage rails, simply because it's not usefulf to achieve my ultimate goal. Because of this I've decided to change it for a Vintage hot stack STK-S7.

I've got in touch with Seymour Duncan to know if my switching scheme would be possible with these pickups. Tourn out that the polarity are inverted compared to what I thought: the Perpetual burn has adjustable south and slug north (this was the only that I've got right), the STK-S4m is rw but has north polarity and the STK-S7 has south polairty.

With these pickups my switching scheme would create hum in the 2 and also in the 4 position. Therefore I've 2 options:

1) Following the KNUCKLHEAD's tip and change the switching scheme to support my "noiseless" idea

2) Following the Seymour Duncan's tip: put the STK-S4m in the neck position and a STK-S4n in the middle, so I'll have the pickups in the right position and with the right polarity to achieve my goal.

As far as the 1 option my doubt is that I have never tried those split options so I don't know how the guitar will end up sounding; definetly the split on the 2 and the 4 position are less common and more unusual than mine...

Concering the Seymour Duncan's tip I think that the STK-S4m in the neck position would be too different from the STK-S7 that I've chose. Also I'm not too confindent in the idea of reverse the neck and middle pickup, I mean the STK-S4m is made for the middle position and the STK-S4n for the neck position and I don't know how well they will sound in a different position...
 
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Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Well, the middle and the neck STK-S4 sound exactly the same to me, just different polarity. I honestly couldn't hear a difference.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

The STK-S4m should be south polarity but RW, which should mean that you can get it in correct phase with STK-S7. They say to use the STK-S7 with STK-S4 middle & STK-S7 in neck, for a noise-cancelling in all positions set, in the STK-S7 amazon page by Seymour Duncan. If that STK-S4 middle means STK-S4m, then...

RWRP means it should be reverse wound, and south polarity, compared to a normal wound, north polarity on another pickup, to get it noiseless but not electrically out of phase, when you don't use it as a stack. [Or you get extra noise-cancelling while using a pair of stacks together in stack mode with one RWRP]

As far as the bridge, humbuckers are pretty easy, you can flip electrical polarity by swapping leads on a coil, and you can flip magnetic polarity by taking the magnet out and rotating it 180 degrees. Just be careful that you don't damage the coil connections while messing with the magnet, and you should be fine.

I'd worry about getting the neck & middle you want, then get tinker with the bridge to get it splitting to the coil you want, with the polarities you want.
 
Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

Despair said:
The STK-S4m should be south polarity but RW, which should mean that you can get it in correct phase with STK-S7. They say to use the STK-S7 with STK-S4 middle & STK-S7 in neck, for a noise-cancelling in all positions set, in the STK-S7 amazon page by Seymour Duncan. If that STK-S4 middle means STK-S4m, then...
Click to expand...

The STK-S4m has north polarity and the STK-S7 has south polarity. As I've wrote in my previous post I got in touch with the Seymour Duncan's support and they gave me these infos, so it's not a guess...I hope that they know how their pickups are made :D

And finally the Custom stack plus has south polarity, I've asked them also this. So in the Classic loaded pickguard all the polarities are right to be hum cancelling in all positions...
 
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Re: Noiseless or not noiseless, that is the question

ElectricGypsy said:
The STK-S4m has north polarity and the STK-S7 has south polarity. As I've wrote in my previous post I got in touch with the Seymour Duncan's support and they gave me these infos, so it's not a guess...I hope that they know how their pickups are made :D

And finally the Custom stack plus has south polarity, I've asked them also this. So in the Classic loaded pickguard all the polarities are right to be hum cancelling in all positions...
Click to expand...

STK-S4m is SOUTH polarity, see my post here: https://forum.seymourduncan.com/sho...ails-with-Triple-shots-amp-Classic-Stack-Plus
I really wish SD would just include this information on the website. I ended up having to return this pickup and reorder STK-S4n (neck) version instead.
 
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