I recently put fender noiseless pickups into an old squier strat of mine and they've been pretty quiet. I checked the distance from the strings to the pickups against the fender setup guide and re-soldered the connection to the input jack but it's still too quiet. I got the pickups pre-wired - could something be wrong with how they were wired initially that would cause this? Thanks.

What do you mean by too quiet? They are noiseless, meaning no hum or noise from interference, they should be absolutely quiet. Do you mean that when you turn up the volume, your output isn't very loud?

If they aren't loud enough, raise the pickups closer to the strings by adjusting the screws on either side of the pickups.

I mean the output isn't very loud. And the pickups are at the distances specified in the setup guide found at http://www.fender.com/support/stratocas ... _guide.php

From your link:

Note: These are minimum specifications that are meant as a guide; they should not be construed as hard and fast rules, as we realize that every player's subjective requirements often differ.

If you have the noiseless pickups that don't have pole pieces showing, you can raise the pickups as close to the strings as you want, as long as they don't touch when the string vibrates.

If you have the noiseless pickups with pole pieces showing, you can raise the pickups closer to the strings, but you may loose sustain on the string from the pole magnet pull on the string.

If I remember correctly, when I had noiseless pickups, they were not as loud as many other pickups, but were a lot cleaner and clearer sounding. There is a little trade-off between noiseless and output volume. If the difference in volume is dramatically different than your old pickups, you may have a problem, but remember that some of what you hear from your old pickups is noise and that might make them seem louder than the noiseless pickups.

If you ordered the pickup assembly from a reputable dealer, you should be able to return it.

Probably nothing is wrong. Contrary to popular belief, the Vintage Noiseless are not as loud as outright Fender single coils. To exasperate this reality, the closer one adjusts a VN to the strings in order to bring up its volume, the worse it sounds. YMMV.

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You dig?

hmmm ok. Well it sounds pretty close to normal volume on my smaller amp (Fender frontman 25r) but when I plug into fender hot rod deville there is a very noticeable difference in volume between the noiseless pickups and my other guitar that gets greater as I increase the volume on the amp.

Did you replace just the pickups, or did you put in new pots as well? I bought my Vintage Noiseless pickups as a kit that came with pots and some other components as well. The kit also included a wiring diagram that I believe is different from the stock wiring.

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

I replaced everything. It all came pre-wired on a pickguard so I only had to solder the connection to the input jack and the ground.

Then you could have anything installed especially if you brought it off a random person.

Unless your handy with a multimeter you may to take it to a tech to check over.

You will need to check the resistances of the pots and pickups and make sure its been wired correctly.

Fender Noiseless in a pre-wired oickgard : This is not a fender product .

+1 Shockwarrior,
Maybe somebody could make something wrong in wiring , solder, potentiometers ?

Well what is your other guitar??? If it has hot humbuckers, then of course it's going to have more output and be louder than your Strat with noiseless pups. We need to know what your comparing the Strat to. You might not have a volume problem after all.

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

My other guitar is a paul reed smith singlecut se. I also tested it against my friend's fender showmaster QMT HH.

Compare your Strat to another Strat. I have VNs in my AmSeries Strat with the bridge and neck pups set to Fender's spec height, but the middle pup is lowered almost flush with the pick guard. I learned that from this forum. I have no volume or chime problems, the setup looks like this:

Soldiering is critical, Make shure it is soldiered correctly, On the top of this page go yo support, go to technical specs, go to wiring/parts diagrams. download the pdf file. If that does not work out go to www.guitarelectronics.com Great website, I have had work done by those guys, and they have printable wiring diagrams for free. E-mail them and they'll answer any questions for ya. Great repair facility here in Phoenix. If you own a Strat, you gotta get under the hood now and again. Great choice switching out those stock pups and +1 for doing it yourself. Good luck!

Keep in mind the humbuckers in those guitars are going to be "louder" than single coils (including noiseless ones). lindseyp said it best to compare your guitar to another Strat.

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.