Hey guys,

I got a new Strat a few days ago, swamp ash body+one-piece maple neck. It has a HSS wiring and currently has a Bare Knuckle humbucker in the bridge and two Vintage Noiseless pickups in mid and neck positions. The unplugged sound is great, the axe is very resonant, bright but with solid low-end. But when I plug it in...

The Vintage Noiseless sound very brittle, a bit ice-picky and they don't have that nice low end that should be there. Furthermore, they are far too quiet - the difference in signal between the VNs (around 9k resistance, I think) and the Bare Knuckle (14k) is tremendous, I can't get them to drive the amp at all. I got them set according to the settings recommended on this site, i.e. bass side: 3.6mm , treble side 2.4mm but the signal is too weak and I guess it'll get muddy.

Also, I have 500k tone pot for the singles (1meg is recommended, I guess), I don't know what's the measure of the volume pot but probably 250k. It means that they shouldn't be that bright but does it also mean the signal will drop?

I wanna play stuff like Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, but also Rage Against The Machine - I thought that the Vintage Noiseless will do that with ease since they are supposed to be hotter than other 'vintage' pickups plus they are noiseless so better for distortion. Are they the right choice for me and they simply need tweaking, or maybe I should get rid of them and buy something different, like Hot Noiseless? I don't really care about the 'sparkle', I want them to drive the amp fairly well and do well with fuzz/distortion.

Heave the entire sordid mess then pick yourself up a SSS pickguard and stuff it with DiMarzio "Area" series pickups.

They've got "grunt" to burn, are totally noiseless, and they will "drive an amp".

(you'll need 250kΩ pots for them)

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

Actually I was thinking about putting the Bare Knuckle in my Ibanez Artist (it doesn't seem to really fit the Strat, but it's a good pickup, it's Bare Knuckle duh) and getting rid of the rest, guess I need a bit darker and stronger. So, Dimarzio Area are a better than the Vintage Noiseless?

To get the authentic Hendrixy sound you need to get either pre CBS or early CBS type pups and as previously get an SSS setup.You'll find this would work for just about all the artists that you mentioned.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Yeah, but it's strange that "Vintage Noiseless" can't do such thing. I thought that they're going to sound, well, Hendrix-ish, maybe a bit darker because of the addition of the other coil, but it would suit me well. Meanwhile, it's brittle, no body at all, and no nice low end. I don't need an "authentic" sound, I need something that's pretty versatile and comes close to Hendrix but also can do some more modern things, or rather - modern music with vintage twist, like John Mayer or Pearl Jam, for example.

I put the pre-wired DiMarzio Area pickgaurd in my strat a year ago and have never looked back...well I did swap the mid and neck pups just recently. I like the tone better that way.

Here's a u-tube vid that will give you an idea on the tone. Not me btw...

-T

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Might be better with the vid link aye?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJaAhRTZ ... re=related



-T

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Sounds nice, but it mostly presents the clean tone. Meanwhile, my "clean tone" isn't too clean - think John Frusciante/Hendrix break-up/crunch kinda thing, that's my clean sound, which I boost with a T-Rex Mudhoney to get this partly-fuzz, partly-distortion sweet sound. When I want 'clean', I just back the volume knob on the guitar a little bit. It worked nice with my JV Strat, so I guess I can achieve it with this one, too.

Oh, and I'm afraid that the Area ones can be a bit too bright for swamp ash+maple combo, the Dimarzio site shows that they have little bass and midrange but plenty of high frequencies. I need a bit fuller tone, I guess.

The DiMarzio site is misinformed.

The Area's are plenty beefy, even with the ash/maple combo. The only mod you may need to make is wiring up your bottom tone control to the bridge pickup to roll off any surplus "bite".

Arjay

_________________
"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

Have you tried the Custom Shop '54s or the beefier-sounding Fat '50s? These pickups work fine on a maple-neck ash-bodied Strat.

i'd get rid of the 500k pots for 250k's and put a couple cs69's in. or maybe some eric johnson pickups that occasionally pop up on ebay.

Sounds like a wiring problem to me. Which Bare Knuckles are in there?



-Nutter

The Bare Knuckle is PROBABLY Abraxas, it's in the bridge. Mid and neck are Vintage Noiseless. I don't know exactly what kind of BK it is because I bought it second-hand or even third-hand, if you will The guitar was set-up by a professional luthier and the wiring seems to be ok, plus he really liked the tone he got out of the Vintage Noiseless pickups in this guitar so it seems it's a matter of taste.

Well the Dimarzio Area pups sound very nice and FULL in my strat.
Not sure where or why Dimarzio would label them as without mid or bottom??

-T

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-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Beats the hell outta me too -- I have two Strats loaded with DiMarzios. There's plenty of mid and bottom on demand, at least through my vintage amps.

Mebbe that's where the OP's problem lies......?

Arjay

_________________
"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