I recently bought a new Fender Highway One Strat, three color sunburst with maple neck, and love it, but the pickups seem a little noisy. I was considering swapping them out with the Fender VIntage Noisless, or the Fender Hot Noisless, but from the pictures I've seen they both don't look pure white like the white trim on my Strat. Has anyone actually seen them and know for sure what color they are? Also if anyone might have heard the Hot Noisless, how did they sound?
Try shielding first. It's very easy to do yourself, and will go a long way to help any single-humbucker sound better. Much of what you're hearing is probably NOT the pickups being "noisy," but interference in the unshielded circuit.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
Agree with KP -- shield first. Fender vintage noiseless have a rep for being characterless compared to Fender's true single coil ("non-noiseless") pups.
If you insist on changing them, most Strat pup covers can be swapped.
-=tension & release=-
Do you have a link that explains how to shield? I've never done any modifications at all. The stick pups do sound fine..well the bridge one does sound a little too twangy
Sure the bridge is twangy -- but you have two other pups plus combos to use if you don't happen to need twangy. But one day, twangy might just do it the job for some tune ...
Here's the well known Guitarnuts webpage on Strat shielding:
-=tension & release=-
Once you've shielded your Strat, try having a good look at the environment that you're playing in - are there a lot of fluorescent lights (strip lights)? Are you standing close to any transformers (e.g. PC screen)?
Another thing to do is to switch to positions 2 and 4 wherever possible. The middle pup should be counterwound so that switching it in with either the neck or bridge pup will act like a humbucker and cancel a lot of the noise.
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in any dictionary?
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