Just bought a used 2001 MIM strat and replaced the pups with these, with my Vox handwired I really like the clean tones on the 2nd and 4 position. With hotter gain setting I didnt really like the trebley tone on the bridge pickup. Lot of people complain about these pups. There a bit better with my 6505+ combo because its warmer and more gain. I used the stock pots, the guy at the store been installing and working on guitars for many years didnt really think I needed the 1 meg pots, I keep them on full anyways. Whats your thoughts on the pickups? I like a SRV tone to a classic rock and they do ok but are there any tricks? thx.
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Gibson SG Standard
Fender Strat MIM
68 fender twin custom reverb/Bogner pedals

I put Vintage Noiseless pickups in an old MIM Standard Strat in Midnight Wine. I'm pretty happy with mine. I get some good sounds out of them. I have '57/'62's in two other Strats (one sounds better than the other), and I have Seymour Duncan Antiquity's in another Strat. As much as I like the vintage voiced pickups like the Antiquity's and such, I'm glad I went with the Vintage Noiseless pickups in that particular guitar. Gives me more options. I wouldn't want 4 Strats that sounded the same anyway.

you play more clean or over drive, i like both though. I use my Sg or les paul for more gainy stuff.

Well, I like a bit of drive but not alot. The amps that I've used with that particular Strat are a Hot Rod Deville 410, a Hot Rod Deluxe III, a Peavey Delta Blues 115 and a Vox AC4TV. The Vox is my practice amp and I've probably used that guitar more with the Vox than any other amp. I don't turn it up all the way. Rather, I keep the volume fairly low and use a Marshall Guvnor Overdrive pedal. With this set up, I'm able to get clean tones by turning the guitar's volume down and overdriven tones by turning it up.

Last time I played live with that guitar I used the Delta Blues and got basically the same thing. I just turn down to play clean and up to get some gain, but I never use ALOT of gain anyway.

I think these pups are best for clean pretty much

well any Strat pickup that's supposed to be voiced for a "vintage" sound is not gonna get a lot of gain easily. Not as easily as say, a hotter pickup like a Texas Special.

But I feel like I get some good overdriven tones out of my Vintage Noiseless equipped Strat. But what I consider overdrive might be fairly clean to your ears. It's certainly not saturated with distortion.

I know what your saying about the vintage thing, just the bridge pup is very trebley , maybe a cap would solve that.

Ken you might try adjusting your pup heights before adding a cap. I have one of my strats equipped with vintage noiseless. You will never get a great overdriven sound out of those without a good overdrive peal. They're just not wound that hot. As far as the treble you're going to get that in all strat pups in that postiion simply because of its location next to the bridge. You can compensate by rolling off the treble on your tone pot if it is wired to the bridge and not the middle pup.

Noiseless pickups generally are further away from the string than a regular single coil because of the dummy coil in a noiseless pup. However I found that mine sounded a little fuller closer to the string than the stock recommendation of 8/64 on the bass side and 6/64 on the treble side. Good luck.

position 2 sounds awesome on the cleaner side, thx for the help, what does SRV and Robbin Trower using mostly on the pickup setting? position settings?

i really like the V.Noisless on my custom---

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2011 PRS 25th SAS
2008 Eric Clapton Custom Antigua Strat
2012 PRS Artist Package Studio Special Order

The Strat in your sig is awsome! I've never tried the Vintage Noiseless in a Strat, but like them in my Tele.

thats my custom Clapton Antigua--# 39 of 100--awesome guitar--i had a custom Blackie and i like this one better

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2011 PRS 25th SAS
2008 Eric Clapton Custom Antigua Strat
2012 PRS Artist Package Studio Special Order

sexy

You have the VN pups in that one?

I'm curious to know what model year (roughly) the Vintage Noiseless pups are based on? Does anyone know?
(In other words, what guitar did they have in mind when they were designing them?).

I'm also curious what they're most similar to:
- CS 69s
- CS 54s
- Fat 50s
- 57/62s
- TexMex
- Texas Specials
etc.