Fender Vintage Noiseless Hot Strat

Frist of all, sorry for my english. Its a little rusty.

Hot Noiseless??? Strat?? Pickups (Set of 3).
DC Resistance :10.4K
Inductance : 3.5 Henries
Magnet : 2 Ceramic 8
Weighted Resonance : 3,100 Hertz

I have a Washburn Lyon with a homemade boost. The stock Pickups, even with the boost, sounded boring and muddy. Got a set of 3 Hot Noiseless and removed the boost.

The noiseless are installed with one 1Meg Volume control, one 500k tone control for neck pickup and a 500k push-pull pot for bridge and to turn on an off the bridge pickup when the neck pickup is on and the neck pickup when the bridge in on.

Theese pickups are very loud for single coil pickups. And they are really quiet. I have one Marshall Valvestate 8040.

We cant forget that they are, stacked, but single coil pickups, so dont expect a humbucker sound. The second coil in each pickup jus cancel the hum, so they are "noiseless". And They really are.

Neck: Very bluesly sound, have lots of trebble. To more bass sound you can use the tone pot.
Middle: Very brilliant sound, great for open chords and funky stuff.
Bridge: Wild, very, very trebly.

They work very well with distortion too.

If it was destroyed or stolen, I would replace them with the same set.
Best of all, they are not exispensive.

Passive (HB? I don't remember) 10.4K or something

3 set. Replace SD Little '59 & 2 Texas Specials. If Jeff Beck has a guitar with these in them I'll kiss your ass. I wanted a hotter fuller PU.

They sure aren't hot. The neck and middle are boring. The bridge sounds like fingernails on a blackboard. I even tapped it into the middle tone control to try to get rid of that. Now it sounds muddy AND wimpy.

I really wanted these to work. Nobody wants to be out 140 bucks. I researched the heck out of this. My original pickups are going back in or I'll get a SD JBJR and move the Little '59 to the neck. It's too bad that local music stores can't afford to stock products anymore. At one time I could have gone somewhere and tried these out. Now you have to rely on forums (don't tell me to adjust the pickup height) and still pretty much buy blind. While we're at it, Vista really sucks too.

These here pickups have a pretty quite noise level, which is good. Aren't many features...

I installed this into my 2007 American Standard Stratocaster as I was getting irritated about the noise from my stock neck and middle pickups, and I wanted something more beefy than what was already in the guitar. I decided to keep the Dimarzio Virtual Solo in the bridge because I haven't heard anything much better than the Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder, but I didn't want to copy my dad to that extent.

The output is okay, right now I'm using it with a 30 or so year old Rat distortion pedal into a Fender Twin. The pickups sound good with the Rat, but when the Rat isn't in use the tone is really sterile. Somehow they managed to suck out the magical midrange that makes a pickup sound good to my ear. They'll do, but don't bother with the bridge position one because it sounds like hell.

If I had more money to flaunt around I'd replace both with Seymour Duncans of some sort as I was really pleased by their Little '59 for the Tele. The Fender Noiseless are good for a overdriven Jeff Beck sound, but not much else. It really should have a better clean sound, but I'm finding that the only good clean sound is my Martin D-35... so far almost everything else I've played on in the past 9 years sucks.

Although called "vintage", these pups are modern in appearance except for the great old "nicotine-yellow" color of the covers. Other reviewers have praised the tone of these gems and I agree whole-heartedly! However, here's a secret that I discovered quite by accident: DO NOT INSTALL 1-meg pots (as recommended) in your guitar. 1-megs remove about 1/3 of the over-all output of the pup and completely erase the mids (balls) from the guitar!!! By using 250K pots, the pups are allowed to run free and run they do. The resistance is much lower and the pick-ups just "blossom"!!! It sounds like 3, P90's but "out-of-phaseable". The neck position is SICK!

I put these puppies in a 1993 American Peavey Predator (Strat). This guitar is solid as a rock and the combination just "sings"! I don't think that they would be quite as good in a plywood strat. They seem to convey what the body sounds like.

Again, the out-put is more substantial without the 1meg pots and the guitar sounds great in almost any amp. Bear in mind that these are not "heavy metal" pick-ups even though they DO sound great over-driven... The tone is exceptional and smooth over the whole bandwidth.

They're are some GREAT pick-ups out there (GFS) that are also noiseless with great tone but for me, in a strat, these guys are perfect! I can go from Surf Strat to Hard-Rockin' blues in a second and everything in between. What else do you want?!

Noise-cancelling stacked passive single coils with ceramic magnets and flat (non-staggered) polepieces. The title of this review thread is misleading. They are NOT called Vintage Noiseless Hot, just Hot Noiseless. Used to be called Hot Ceramic Noiseless, but the "ceramic" made too many people wary of them, I suppose. There is nothing vintage in them. Anachronistically staggered polepieces, magnets that lose their magnetism, brittly wire, vulcanised paper bobbins and the laser-sword-hissing are notably absent. These are modern pickups for a Stratocaster. The only "vintage"-feature is the colour (dirty ivory), and trust Fender to mess this up: It fits none of the plastic-part-colours they offer in their instruments or accessories.

I have a reasonably well-made Mexican Fender Stratocaster from the first series. The stock pickups were a mere travesty of the electric guitar pickup. Totally useless, I was on the verge of selling the whole guitar. Instead I bought the set of Hot Noiseleess pickups and now have a completely different, functional and good sounding guitar.

The pickups are called "Hot", but except for marketing purposes there is no reason for this. Their output is not high at all, indeed they seem to have less output than the stock so-called pickups in the MIM-Strat. As I said, these pickups are modern pickups in the sense that they do the job of a pickup exceptionally well. Bill Turner, the guy who designed them, knew what he was doing: Designing a pickup, not designing a coloration of the sound of the guitar. Consequently you must be prepared to accept that the whole frequency-spectrum of your guitar is sent to the amp. No added mids, no midscoop, no added treble, just the noises the wood, the strings and your fingers make. I like that. Getting a good tone is difficult enough. If you want to add a fourth variable to the equation of fingers, instrument and amp go ahead, go vintage....

All the above does not mean that the pickups are sterile. Not at all, they are exeptionally dynamic, the neck position has the right amount of bass and bite, the bridge pickup is classic strat (not overwound) and not too shrill. The real fun comes in the in-between-positions. Pure bliss, stratocaster sound deluxe. The strings seem to be able to vibrate more freely, the magnets are not as strong as in a pure single-coil. And don't be afraid of the "ceramic". The ceramic pickups in cheap guitars are shrill and harsh because of the bad pickup-contruction, the magnets themselves do not make a sound, they make a magnetic field. The Hot Noiseless are very "silky" and smooth, surprisingly so. The balance between the strings is great, probably due to the non-staggered polepieces. Anyone still uses a wound third string? Thought so....

They sound good in front of any amp (Class-A-Tube or Solid-State) and their neutral frequency response goes well with any effect.

And they are really noiseless, even at higher gain setings. They go well with blues, country, classic rock, probably everything else you would use a strat for. For me the blues.

As far as Stratocasters go, my search for a good pickup has ended here. I can't be bothered with trying out everything under the sun. From what I hear, there are small manufactureres who do a better job than Fender, and this is probably true. But I stick with the Fender Hot Noiseless pickups: They are modern, with character, and do not change the general sound of the guitar. All others (tried the Texas Specials and Duncan SSL) try to make your guitar into something that it is not. Might be useful to compensate for shortcomings of the instruments or to enhance your preferred sound (dark or bright), but you always lose something at one end when you add something at the other. I go for the faithful reproduction. I am simply too old (been playing for a couple of decades) to run after the sound of the long-dead heroes of my youth. And don't contemporary guitar players tend to go for active pickups? The Hot Noiseless might be the way to go if you want the sound of active pickups and - like me - you hate the thought of a battery in your guitar (what next? touch pads? remote controls?)

Single coil passive set.

Warmoth strat with alder body and birdseye neck with stainless steel frets that I put together from scatch. Full set of three.

Calling them them hot in the traditional sense is a bit misleading, but they are livelier than tradition strat pickups. Not crazy about the middle position (but I don't go there much anyway, so it's set a bit low), but through my 50 watt plexi and one of the old basketweave boxes they shine expecially in positions one and five, giving a nice crunchy tone with sweet highs that are neither shrill or overly twangy. Great for hard rock and 70's style metal, though for real OTT heavy metal of today maybe not so suitable. But still great sounding. On a clean setting they are head, shoulders and kneecaps above most strat pickups, especially in posi's two and four. If you are looking for a nice juicy sound like Robert Cray, just go with a smidge of chorus and they gush.

I would definitely replace these pickups if they were stolen or smashed. I tend to build my own guitars these days, sometimes from Warmoth parts or from scratch (LOTS of work!) and love to try new pickup/wood combinations. My "Jeff Beck" Strat is my current fave...it gives the strat sound I really like, very smooth and mellow with appropriate grunt when required. If I want something harsher or more suited to modern metal, I would go elsewhere, but for sweet yet muscular strat tones, these are my faves.

Hot noiseless fender strat

Fender Jeff Beck Custom

Superb. However, putting these pickups in inferior guitars with cheap wood as some reviewers have stated, will not guarantee a good sound.
also, when I read how some reviewers have a long list of boxes and effects between their guitar and their amp it screams amateur hour. A great strat and a good amp don't need anything else to sound great!

I'll use them forever.

Single coil, passive.

Mid-90's CIJ 68 Reissue Strat
Preplaced older model, un-identifiable Duncans
Discovered that this parts o'caster needed a total electronic update. Replaced pups along with Fender pots and pickguard. Old Duncan's were too thin sounding and there wasn't enough tonal difference between the five positions.

Here's my two cents to some already good info I gleaned from these listings:

Good: very articulate pickups in the classic strat sense. These have given me five very distinct tone options in my guitar. ALL ARE CLASSIC STRAT SOUNDS. If you've used a boost pedal, or are familiar with what they do, these pickups sound like a regular strat through one of these effects. They have a boosted sound with more presence than typical strat pickups. But the sound is still a 100% Strat. Someone wrote that these pickups "modernized" their strat, and I think that's a good way to look at the upgrade. Did I mention they're dead silent.

Bad: the label "hot" is a bit misleading and the hype and mp3 sample Fender has on its website for this pickup (and the JB Strat) may alter some expectations about these pups. These are not crazy JB hot sounding pickups along the lines of the Duncan JB humbucker or a Flying V. Don't let the Jeff Beck endorsement lead you to think you're going to get a hot shredding sound out of these. You're still working with single coils and the sound is still in the Strat family.

Other: That being said, these fit the bill incredibly well and I'm very happy I went with these over the vintage noiseless pups that you find on the Eric Clapton Strat and the various custom shop model pups.

I'm playing through a Hot Rod Deville 4x10 and this guitar sounds amazing through it with just a touch of reverb. Sustain and note decay is just long enough to let your fingers contribute to your tone. They respond well to effects, but the natural Strat tone is what I love most. I play blues, classic rock and some country.

Would definitely buy again. Have played hundreds of Strats over the past 25 years and these are the first pups (besides Texas Specials) that I've noticed a true tonal difference. Unlike the Texas Specials, you're not going to sound like one of the thousands of SRV devotees out there playing them. There is some uniqueness to having a Strat stand out on its own merits. Don't buy if you're looking for a true "hot" or "shred" sound. Go with a shredder axe or humbuckers.
Only complaint is Fender's wiring diagram. The one that came with the pups was photo-copied and illegible. Download the one from the Fender site for the Jeff Beck strat (same wiring for any strat). Make sure that you pay attention to where the wires are soldered to the pot posts. Fender does not label them and it took me a couple hours to figure out that that makes the volume and tone knobs work. Beyond that, it was easy to diy install. Compared to the cost of custom shop pickups, these are a much better deal.

Single Coil Stacked Humbucking-passive

2007 Fender MIM Stratocaster. Installed complete set. The reason I did this was because the pickups that came stock although not sounding bad to were way too noisey if played in the 1-3-5 positions. I looked at Fender Vintage Noiseless, Kinmans, Lindy Fralins and Bill Lawrence offerings. Decided to go with the Fenders "Hot" set since I primarily play blues and classic rock with a little hard rock and metal.

Can't say enough how important it is to adjust the pickup heights! Of course that is true for ANY guitar but especially one equipped with single coils. After shielding the control cavity and pickguard completely I installed them and tested everything using a digital multi-meter then buttoned it up and restrung it. Immediately I noticed NO 60Hz hum in ANY of the positions. From there I began adjusting the pickup heights and after about a hour I found the sweet spot for all of them. It is simply a wonderful sounding instrument now. At 3/4 volume on each pickup individually (1-3-5) I get a very, very "Stratty" sound with lots of tonal definition. In the 2 and 4 positions I get the world famous "quack" these guitars are known for. And cranking the volume to full on it dirtys up enough to puch the amp into overdrive. I use a variety of amps. They range from Marshall 2204 tube rectifier style heads and 4 x 12 cabinets to a POD XT Live (with every model pack installed) and 2 Tech 21 Power Engine 60's to a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with pedalboard to a very old Sears Silvertone 212 piggyback head combo... and this guitar shines through them all! I own a '62 reissue Stratocaster (American made) and this MIM sounds better by a large margin. I also installed a Callaham bridge too and now the '62 stays home in the case when I gig!

If It were destroyed or stolen... this guitar would certainly get replaced the exact same way! Fenders American made offerings IMHO are only marginally better than the MIM counterparts... and if you change out the pickups and bridge/tuners you have a better sounding guitar and for a hell'ava lot less money and your not afraid to play the thing out regularly!

Stacked single coil pickups with ceramic magnet.

Installed in a Fender MIM Strat because I wanted to get rid of the "thin" Fender tone in all positions.

Great mid-range tone from all three pickups. The tone is thicker and fuller than other Fender pickups. You need to adjust the pickup heights according to your particular taste. Time must be spent to dial in your tone. I like the tone when the pickups are set closer to the high e strings and a lower on the low e strings.

I've been using these pickups for at least three years now and like the sound that I get out of my Strat. I play classic rock and oldies and the tone is just great. It is not for someone who likes the heavy rock/metal/fat sound. They need to get a Gibson type of humbucker guitar.