Although they were silver, what you are describing sounds like the old Electro-Harmonics LPB-1.

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You dig?

You get used to hum, and how to control it. I don't think it's such an issue. I use my volume knob to reduce it as much as possible but only because of others. I don't have problems with it.

Wow, I missed that memo! LOL Thank you!!

And for someone to actually save my postings, truly, I'm flattered.

I guess I do have a few tricks up my sleeve after all when it comes to line noise.

Yes, I use stacked HBs too. They are of DiMarzio's Virtual Vintage series.

Have you noticed that ever since Fender came out with the Noiseless series, people have started to and are increasingly calling stacked HBs, "Noiseless pickups"? Marketing wise, Fender's done their job, eh?

I don't know what you mean by, "the three types" which you've cited. Would you please elaborate?

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You dig?

It wouldn't fit in my recessed Tele cupjack without modifying and led me to reversing the Strat jack too. Yep, I had one of those too :

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Well theres the SCN, The Vintage and The Hot and I have a Strat that has each set. The only ones I cant really get a true sense of there tone is the Vintage because of the Claptons TBX and Midboost, which is really masking the tone of the pup I cant get a true read. But damn that guitar sounds so good.lol I really love the Hot and I think a lot of guys get thrown off expecting something that is going to have more power and be closer to a bucker, but that is not the case at all.

For that tone like you I have Dimarzios. I dont remember how long ago I had them put in my Tele on a reference by my friend Mike who owns the store I hang out in(by the way you two guys would make some team) but it is amazing how powerful they are. If I had ever become a famous player with a signature guitar that 62 reissue Tele with the Fast Tracks and medium Jumbo frets would have been it.lol Most guys just cant imagine a Tele being capable of doing things like that and I have seen a lot of bewildered faces. Then again Ritchie Kotzen did it. Bit off my $@!&. lol

Martian in maybe five years from now they might have them perfect but you know there is always going to be people that will complain. I just know for a fact as I have that feeling and am rarely wrong but I bet you have the Martian prototype pick up in the basement somewhere.lol Now if we can only get it to the guys upstairs to hear.

Like tone? Your missing some of that classic SC tone if your won't own one.

I like my HB's as much as anyone, but they can lack in the high end compared to a SC. SC's just have a better clean tone than HB's, which sound thin clean to me, and just lack tone on the top end. When you use a lot of distortion, which I certainly do, the distortion creates a lot of overtones and noise for you, so a HB is better for that application to keep things in check. However, even with high gain, the SC does deliver a bit more tone in the high end, but thn lack lows. HB's kick out the low end better under high gain

Guys, hum is a frequency and if you cancel it you will also also lose that frequency in your tone. When you take frequencies out of a sound, the given sound gets thinner.

With that, I am havin good luck using a gate. No frequencies are cancelled and when I stop playing...noiseless. Some say gates can rob tone, but when I switch it on and off, I notice next to nothing in differences. Maybe some of you guys just need a decent gate, which should open and allow all frequencies through and shuts when the signal drops below a certain threshhold. Yes, it can cut off sustaining notes, but decent gates can allow for different on and off threshholds to get some of the sustain back. Is is perfect...no, but to me better than noise cancellation, which is guaranteed to rob frequencies from your tone

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Guitars:
1. mid 70's Ventura MIJ Gibson l6-s clone (Pre-lawsuit) in Black with Rosewood FB and EMG 81 BR/ 85 Neck
2. ESP KH2 Neck Thru
3. 2008 Am Std Strat in 3 tone sunburst

Ohhhhh - I thought you were talking about some third kind of pickup species or something. Now I know you're talking about the 3 models of Fender stacked HBs which, segues me right into: Mother always use to say, "If you don't have anything good to say about something (or someone), don't say anything at all."

Yes, Mother!

Moving right along, if you like the way your guitars sound now with the Clapton circuit, just imagine how good they'd sound with some DiMarzios!

Picking up (now there's a play on words) on your 5 year prediction, I'd be willing to bet that among DiMarzio, Kinman and (lately) Duncan, one of them will indeed, perfect it.

Yes, that old expression, "You can please some of the people some of the time..." would absolutely, positively be valid even after this inevitable accomplishment too. Besides, there is a segment of the population who just like to piss and moan purely on GP any way. So, even though one, quickly followed by the other two will surely succeed, there is yet another sect who will refuse to recognize the achievement within the same mindset of the whole Fender MIA vs. MIM thing today. Hey, its their loss!

As to any pickup designs I may or may not have come up with, let's put it this way, I've made several (not hundreds) for players over the years who were looking for a specific sound they couldn't find elsewhere and believe me, they had to virtually harass me to make them. It is SO very time consuming to do it all by hand and I really have no desire to enter into competition with well established manufacturers with huge bank rolls. I do appreciate the thought though.

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You dig?

So is the twisted tele lipstick a humbucker or is it shielding from the pickup surround?

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No no and no

The Twisted Tele pickups like the ones in the Baha are single coils.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

So presumably the lipstick cover acts as shielding. My body seems to generate interferance like no ones business. The bridge pickup on that guitar is like a waspnest and the neck pickup silent.

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No no and no

thanks Martian....yes that is it.......but wow, talk about the memory is the first to go....even after looking at it here...i still seem to recall it being gold....guess thats just one more reason I hould of slowed down on my drinking back then

Martian you are an east coast guy right next to me in NJ and like myself have always spoke up on the forum even when it was going against Fender as a lot of guys dont want to say a bad word about the big F.

What I want to know is what do you think the Claptons and Becks of the world really have in there axes for pick ups because it sure is not what we are getting. Even outside of pick up talk Beck is one of the greatest masters of the tremelo bar in guitar history so you think special attention would be put into his artist series guitars trem. Wrong, not even close. I was looking on Harmony Centrals reviews of his custom shop model and there are quite a few guys who have both models and all who had both prefer the regular artist over the CS model and all say the same, it does not hold its tuning after a few dives.

Now whatever Beck really has or is using why cant we all have it. A lot of guys say there trems are well set up and dont have much trouble,but there is no way they could play a two hour set where every song makes heavy use of the trem and not make a guitar change of guitars like Beck.

I also am not sure if Clapton still uses the noisless pups but when he was, his tone was amazing same with Beck. If we are paying enough I think we should at least get the same quality pick up and trem wise. I would not expect the same care and wood or a master builder unless I was paying.

But I can buy an original Floyd Rose that Vanhalen used and abuse it as much as him and it will hold its tuning.

I'm no studio musician, bust a basement hacker, but I don't mind the hum personally. I agree that by taking the hum out of a single coil, it loses some of its personality. That's why I favor the vintage fender pups - they just seem so raw and edgy. As soon as you play a note, hum is not an issue.

That's subjective. I've owned guitars with standard single coils but I won't ever again unless, as I stated, I only play it clean.

While I agree that single coils are capable of producing a brighter sound than humbuckers, how much brightness is enough is subjective.

Again, that's subjective and completely dependent upon a variety of factors. For example, I love the plain clean tone of my Les Paul with Dimarzio 36th Anniversary PAFs. Do they sound like Strat? No but a Strat does not sound like a Les Paul with PAFs either. One is chocolate, the other vanilla and I love them both.

Once again subjective. A humbucker with distortion and a single coil with distortion are two different sounds. It cannot be proven that either is better because it is highly subjective and there are other factors (e.g. like the amp) that affect overtones.

That depends upon a variety of factors including the pickup, the amp, the speakers, the player, etc.

Guitar pickups are not flat response transducers. They all color the sound and create their own tone. Whether or not the frequencies removed by a humbucker, in any form, make the the sound thinner is subjective.

Traditional single coils are capable of introducing more noise into a guitar's signal path than just about anything else (aside from faulty wiring in the guitar and other external issues like ground loops, RFI, etc). The more noise that is present in the signal, the higher the threshold needs to be for a gate to do its job. Even in your case, you state that you lose some sustain so you are giving up something. Whether or not the amount of sustain lost is acceptable is subjective but based upon your opinion, you are happy with this solution. I, and others, would not be. Dynamics are an important element in my playing, much more so than any frequencies or overtones that may be lost when humbuckers are used to control 60 hZ hum.

60 Hz hum? I don't mind it at all. To be honest, the only thing I would change I would make is trying out a nice pair of hand-wound pups to see how much of a difference they really make.

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I traded my car in for a microphone.