I am doing a total rebuild on a strat. I want to put fender noiseless (stack) pickups in. My question is concerning the "vintage" vs the "hot". I love the thin tone of the vintage, however, I was wondering is it the same as the hot with the volume turned down a bit? If so, I would get the "hot" and have the extra if needed.

I had Vintage Noiseless pickups in my Fender Strat for a while. They had plenty of power, but I don't know how they would compare to Hot Noiseless pickups since I haven't tried those. I ended up taking them out and putting the stock pickups back in because it just wasn't the sound I was looking for. Texas Specials turned out to be more of what I was after.

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Hot noiseless have a hell of a lot of attack to the sound.

Scn's are worth a shot. I found em to be more usable than anything else aside from the stupidly priced dimarzio area pickups.

If you want to try em out, pick up a deluxe strat and ignore the s1 switch.

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The only thing I found "stupid" about the DiMarzio pickups was having to shell out extra $$$ for the vintage (ie: oval-head counter-sunk) mounting screws.

Other than that, they're a fine set of pickups. I have two Strats set up with them......DP414, DP415, DP416. Very meaty, very balanced, and of course quiet as a church mouse.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Yeah their a good pickup for sure. Just not sure their worth the extra £60/$92 markup over a set of vintage or hot noiseless. Or the £100 over the price of a set of SCN's. (which is what I find stupid, but, I suppose they do sell)
I mean their a good sounding but ultimately another run of the mill sounding pickup. Priced the same as a handwound made to order singlecoil.
BareKnuckles, Wizard and Swinstead will all wind you a set of your own singles for that kind of money. Bareknuckles will even wire em to a scratchplate for another £20 ontop of the cost of a area set.

I wonder why high profile singlecoil specializing pickup manufacturers don't mess about with stacked buckers? Is their only Kinnman or does Frailin make em too?

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The DiMarzio Area 58, Area 61, and Virtual Vintage Solo Pro pickups are humbuckers. I don't know what they sell you there across the puddle but these pickups are all 4-wire with split windings and coil-tap capability.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Yes I know their stacked humbuckers, I've used their humbuckers quite extensively. I've currently 2 strats with their rails buckers, a les paul copy with PAF's. I also built a explorer with a single superdistortion on it. Sadly now sold. Infact when it comes to buckers I don't usually consider any other manufacturer.
I'm not ragging on Larry Dimarzio at all. Infact I think he is the single best thing to happen to the guitar world since 1962. Certainly the only reason we have a plethora of options for our guitars and aren't beholden to a load of design for price instruments.

I just think his prices on singlecoil pickups, or rather single coil emulating stacked humbuckers, are a bit steep.

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Bill Lawrence is certainly worth a look. He designed a lot of pickups for Gibson and Fender. His websites are weak, but the products are diverse and the prices are low.

http://wildepickups.com/Wilde_Bill_s_Twin_Blades.html

He also makes a tone filter (Q-filter) that can make a big difference in a guitar without replacing the pickups.

Stratobobster.

Have you used the Qfilter? I put one on my baja tele, it made all them out of phase sounds usable.
Did you ever mess around with the capacitor and resistor values on it?

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Hi niki,

I had the guitar tech at the music store I managed put a Q-Filter AND an L-Filter in a Travis Bean Artist I used to own. Both filters worked great. I am the kind of guy that puts the tone controls on "10" and leaves them there for years. With the Lawrence filters, I was getting great sounds through out the whole sweep of the tone control. After I sold the guitar, It showed up on a recording someone brought into the store. I immediately identified the very unique sounds of my old T. Bean Artist.

The Beans are interesting guitars and had some good features. The pickups bolted right onto the same aluminum billit that continued on to become the neck. The strings were anchored hardtail style into the aluminum as well. The wood on my Artist was beautiful flame Koa. On the downside; they were very heavy and the necks always felt cold.

These days the Q-Filters are small black cubes. Back in the day they looked like they were housed in cigarette lighter frames as the L-Filter pictured here:

http://guitarsbyfender.yuku.com/topic/10132