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Post subject: Vintage Noiseless Pots
Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:20 am
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I have the Fender Vintage Noiseless Pickup Set in my Standard MIM Strat. I really like the tone out of these pickups, but they are far too sharp, and they get a really bad edge to them when trying to get a fair amount of gain (think Clapton "Sunshine of Your Love" on 24 Nights).

I am using the included 1 Meg pots, would it be ok to run the pickups with my stock 250k Pots? Im not that electronic savvy, but im not a noob with it either. Im pretty sure I would be fine and wouldn't short/ wreck anything by doing so, but want to be sure.

I have also heard that pickup height is very important for these pickups, what should I have them set at?

Thanks in advance:)


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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:34 pm
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Yes, most of single coil guits has 250k pots.

check it out

cheers :D


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Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:25 pm
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You can use the 250K without fear. However, with the way your pickups are designed, you might want to consider 500K.

Speaking from experience, agreed, the megohm pots are overkill and have to go but the 250Ks will dramatically compress the tonality of your pickups to the point where they will seriously lose dynamics and in effect, sound just as bad to the opposite extreme. This is why I suggest the 500K as a more middle of the road remedy.

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Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:09 pm
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I would agree. The Vintage Noiseless are just hard to dial-in. And, as you said, the 1 meg pots are often big time overkill and give the pickups an extreme jagged edge. 250k pots will REALLY mellow them out a lot, so hitting a mid-point with 500k pots will likely do better.


It's sort of funny... If you do a direct comparison between the Vintage Noiseless and the Hot Noiseless in the same harness with the same pots, the Hot Noiseless actually have the better high-end response.

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Post subject: Re: Vintage Noiseless Pots
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:18 pm
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Wylde_Life wrote:
I have the Fender Vintage Noiseless Pickup Set in my Standard MIM Strat. I really like the tone out of these pickups, but they are far too sharp, and they get a really bad edge to them when trying to get a fair amount of gain (think Clapton "Sunshine of Your Love" on 24 Nights).

I am using the included 1 Meg pots, would it be ok to run the pickups with my stock 250k Pots? Im not that electronic savvy, but im not a noob with it either. Im pretty sure I would be fine and wouldn't short/ wreck anything by doing so, but want to be sure.

I have also heard that pickup height is very important for these pickups, what should I have them set at?

Thanks in advance:)


Hay there

first, all guitars have three components that form a filter or resonant circuit ,the tone is a result of the combination. Changing a value of any one component will affect the tone to some extent. Using the 250K pots wont hurt any thing but will change the tone and response of the circuit. It will also change the output impedance of the circuit. Most pickups that come with pots-- usually means that the finished circuit will meet the required dynamics, tone, impedance, etc....

Its up to you. i just added capacitors to the inside coils (2 & 3) and a bunch of switching so that i could thin out my sound and im still playing with it.


Your pickup height is VERY important. you can find the general settings on fender.com

As an example, my 86 deluxe strat has humbuckers that are very high output and if I'm too close they get all muddy Fender recommends 1.6mm from the strings and thats where they live.

Cheers
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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:58 pm
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I ended up putting in the 250ks I had laying around, they sounded better but had no bass response and the overall tone suffered.

So I went to GC and got 3 Proline 500k Dimesize Pots, installed them and it sounds great! It has almost the same single coil chime (slightly less) that the 1m Pots gave but it didnt give me that edge or "cut" when using distortion. It also gave me more bass response (which may be due to the pickup height, after I installed the 500k's I adjusted pickups to Fender's measurments).

I like the sound I am getting, it sounds a lot more like Clapton now (I use a EQ to do a Mid-Boost along with a Blues Driver), its not as intense as his newer Cream tone, which is fine with me, it makes the tone more of my own. The only thing it lacks is that true single coil chime, which I will gladly sacrifice to have a Noiseless Strat, I have another HSS guitar with true single coils set up to get that high-end chime for SRV type stuff anyway.

Thanks for all the help, I really like the Noiseless Pickups and didn't want to scrap them because of one little "flaw."


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Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 4:06 pm
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just read this and found it a great source of information for the same problems im having with my vintage noiseless's. Thankyou

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Post subject: Noiseless SCN's
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:54 am
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Hey guys, I"ve been reading this post and while I don't use these pups, I do use the SCN Noiseless. I installed them with the 250K standard pots. I guess I did not know that they rec'd 1m pots. While the guitar does not sound horrible, pretty good actually for what it is, I am thinking about going to a very traditional pickup instead. I have found that the only real noise issues are when one has too many peddles on. I usually only use one at a time, just an overdrive or tremelo or something. Compressors really seem to affect noise a lot unless it is a really good one like a Keeley. Anyone want to buy some SCN pups?


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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:13 am
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Try going with 500k Audio Taper Pots and .022 Caps.

And play around with your pickup height.

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