Noiseless Pickups for new Tele

[gtrplyr335]

Hello all.
I'm the proud owner of a new American Standard Tele. Crimson red with rosewood fretboard....stunning. I have changed out the bent steel saddles with GrapTech string savers and love it. Now I want to address the humming pickups issue.

I want to go to a noiseless pickup set but still debating on which set to go with. My good friend who is a tone seeker...installed a set of Dimarzios and loves them. I tried them and they weren't bad at all. I'm leaning towards the Fender Vintage Noiseless or the Fender SCN Cobalt Noiseless set.
My buddy says if I change to either set, I will have to also swap out the vol and tone pots from 250k to 500k.... Could someone here please give me their opinion on this addtional change? What would happen to the sound if I only switched out the pickups and not the pots?

I want to keep the tele sound as much as possible but would love to 1. get rid of the noise...and 2. have a warmer sound in the neck pickup for a jazzier tone...without going to a full blown humbucker.

Again, any suggestions will greatly appreciated.
I'll look forward to any and all of your thoughts...
Gtrplyr335

[scoots]

i have an am/dlx with the scns and i'm pretty sure they're 250k pots unless someone knows for sure different. personally, i love the scn neck. full and clear, kind of stratty(?) the bridge pup works because it's all purpose. takes pedals well, good with od's/distortion. does clean well in the middle position but clean by itself...haven't finalized an opinion on this one yet. (im following this barden/lawrence thread here on bridge pups) i've read on here to steer away from 500kpots for the volume-heresay. another thing to maybe consider, on the am/dlx it has the delta tone(no load bypass) and again, i'm pretty sure this is a 250k pot. this tone knob bypass does wonders for brightening up the neck pup. also welcome

[Parma_TeleMon]

My faves are the Dimarzio Area T's. They sound like Fender OVs, but without the hum. You probably won't have to change your pots either.

[TG]

The Dimarzio AreaT is the best one, I think. I've tried loads of tele pickups including several noiseless varieties and the AreaT is the only one that sounds and 'feels' completely like a good regular tele pickup. Noiseless pickups usually have a sort of hi-fi quality to them, especially when you play in a group. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is different than a 'regular' pickup.
But I always pair the Dimarzio bridge AreaT with a Fender Vintage Noiseless neck pickup. The Vintage Noiseless bridge pickup has that 'hi-fi' quality I mentioned (it does sound nice in its own way though) but the neck pickup doesn't. Just a very nice, clear and woody sounding neck pickup with no hum. It pairs really well with the AreaT too.

[Rob DiStefano]

it's all about personal preferences - having heard most of the noiseless pups around, i like bill lawrence's L200/L202 set, L290 bridge, and fender's (well, actually bill's) scn set.

[Ignatius]

Another vote for the DiMarzio. I have an Area T but I threw an Area Hot T in and I like it quite a bit. Let's you play in the Tele sandbox (sorta) while also having enough oomph to sound nice and thick with distortion.

I've tried Bardens and Kinmans and didn't like them, although I do have one guitar that has Kinmans in it and it sounds pretty good - in other words, it's sometimes a crapshoot in matching the right pickup to the right guitar.

[telechaser]

I have Dimarzio Area T's in my Thinline and like it a lot.

[Moggl]

A note on the kOhm values for controls:

Almost all tele pickups made today are designed for use with 250 kOhm controls and drop right in your guitar. The 500 kOhm ones are standard for full-size humbuckers like the ones Uncle Orville makes.

One thing you can do IF you think your pups are not bright enough in your tele is to solder in 500kOhm ones, or even 1 MegOhm ones. A higher value means more brightness, in layman's terms. It's a matter of taste more than anything. Whatever sounds and plays / feels right for you is what you should stick with.

Normally, you should be all right by just swapping the pups, and leave the controls as they are.

[BriarJustin]

I just put on a set of Fender Mod Shop SCN pups and wow. Like the box says...Amazing.

[Rob DiStefano]

Originally Posted by Ignatius

... in other words, it's sometimes a crapshoot in matching the right pickup to the right guitar ...

.... and you.

dif'rent strokes for dif'rent folks. most of this pup quest is all about us and not the intended listening audience, who typically only care if they like the tune and can dance to it.

[Moggl]

Originally Posted by Rob DiStefano

dif'rent strokes for dif'rent folks. most of this pup quest is all about us and not the intended listening audience, who typically only care if they like the tune and can dance to it.

+1

[gtrplyr335]

Thank you...everyone for your input. It will be a couple of weeks before I can get around to switching out the pups in this guitar but when I do, I promise to share my thoughts with the rest...

I'm leaning towards the Area Ts...that's what my buddy settled on and he seems very pleased. Hate to copy him and all...but as many of you have said it might be an ongoing process. The ear of the beholder sort of thing. All I know is that I need to hear more Tele and less hummmmm.

Thanks again and I'll still monitor this thread if others would like to chime in as well..... I will also try and post a photo of my new toy. In addition to the black GraphTech saddles I also switched out both knobs with black dome tops. They each have a single red jewel that acts as a reference point.
They look HOT if I do say so myself. One note about the knobs. They are Q-Parts knobs and the salesgerbal told me that they would in fact fit the shafts of my 2009 American Tele. He couldn't be more wrong....I had to drill them out...every so slightly. Now they fit just fine.... Geeesh..

Later.

[Wayne Alexander]

Two classic choices for noiseless pickups for Teles are 1. Kinmans (which sound a LOT like standard alnico single coil tele pickups) - the 60's set is cleaner, the Broadcaster set is warmer, and

2. Bardens. They sound less like "standard" alnico single coil tele pickups, they've got more bass and treble and a more 'hi-fi' sound and feel than vintage tele type pickups, but can be adjusted to a wide range of tonality.

I love both the Bardens and the Kinman Broadcasters, and find both of them very, very good.

[Ignatius]

Originally Posted by Rob DiStefano

.... and you.

dif'rent strokes for dif'rent folks. most of this pup quest is all about us and not the intended listening audience, who typically only care if they like the tune and can dance to it.

Absolutely true! And as someone who plays in a weekend warrior cover band I can personally attest to that. 99.999% of the people don't care or can't hear the difference between guitar A or guitar B or a boutique amp versus a solid state Peavey.

[gtrplyr335]

So, I bit the bullet and purchased some new Dimarzio Area Ts for both the bridge and the neck. My good friend helped me install them last night and they physically fit perfectly where the stock pickups were.
Before stringing it up for a test run, we plugged it in and tap-tapped each pickup to see if we got that right…Hooray. Success.
Now for the problem…..

After stringing it up and going thru my Roland Cube 60….I find that we still have Hummmmm…but now it’s worse. That can’t be right…
These are noiseless….right? I have noiseless on a Strat with the S-1 system…and they are dead quiet. I was hoping for something
close to that. But this is pretty bad…When I touch any metal parts on the guitar it’s better but it’s pretty bad even when just playing.
Also….the tone knob now seems non-existent. All the way up or all the way down…no change…. Yikes.

We installed the recommended capacitor and resistor on the volume control….Dimarzio says these work best with these pickups and
help retain the brightness when you turn down the volume on the guitar…
It sounds like you have installed them and are pleased with the results. Does there exist…anywhere….a simple diagram that a dummy
like me could follow to install these guys properly? I thought for sure we hooked everything up correctly…but obviously not…..

I'll get this right...one way or another. I just know these pups can be more quiet than this....With this amount of buzz and hum I can't really judge how the pickups sound yet.... something is just not correct with my install.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[Parma_TeleMon]

Hmmmm....when I first put my Dimarzio's in I followed a diagram I got from one of their techs for Area T neck, ToneZone T bridge and a coil tap switch. When I did that, I had to completely rewire my three-way switch. Make sure you didn't accidently reverse the wires going to your jack - that's a pretty common oops that would give you the results you got.

[TG]

Hopefully ParmaT above is right and you just reversed the wires from the jack. Usually the white goes to the volume pot and the black is soldered to a pot back.
Otherwise, without seeing what you've done it's difficult to say. The tiniest wire touching where it shouldn't can cause trouble. Or not touching. For instance, the ground wire under the bridge plate can get bent down flat during the pickup change and may not now be touching the bridge metal. You might have to unscrew the bridge and bend it back up. That wouldn't affect the tone pot, though....



But I would consider removing the resistor and capacitor from the volume pot in any case. I have my tone control connected to the middle tag of the volume pot...not the outer one that's connected to the switch. If you run the tone control off the middle tag it separates it from the pickups and has a similar effect of keeping things bright when you turn down the volume, and it keeps things simpler inside the control cavity. Much easier than the resister/capacitor thing, IMO, and it works great with my AreaT.

[gtrplyr335]

OK...for all of those who have hung in there with me on this buzzing delima...
Got it back from the repair shop last evening...very small fee to do the work so not much lost there... He got the tone pot up and running again...
He replaced a .47 capacitor between the tone pot and the vol pot. It works now...man, does it work. It goes from nice a bright to the sound of about 3 wool blankets laid over the amp... Is that normal for these pickups? ? ?

Tried the neck pup and it worked great...no buzz.
Tried the middle and bridge positions....Buzz City....

And then I took a peek at his wiring job...There was no ground wire coming from the bridge plate to anywhere... I dry wired a lead from the plate to a grounding lug he had placed in the pots cavity...and that took care of the problem all together....
It was late last night when I tried that...so this evening I will make that connection more permanent and go from there. If it works, now I will be able to concentrate on hearing the new pickups to see if I like them.

Thanks again for all your feedback (no pun there) and helping with a wiring newb like myself. If I felt more confident in doing mods like this I can see where it would be fun to find just the right sound for my Tele.

Thanks again,
GTRPLYR

[surfco]

+1 for Bill Lawrence pickups.
I love the L-48TL on the bridge and the L-280TN on the neck.
Both of them noiseless.

[TG]

Originally Posted by gtrplyr335

He replaced a .47 capacitor between the tone pot and the vol pot. It works now...man, does it work. It goes from nice a bright to the sound of about 3 wool blankets laid over the amp... Is that normal for these pickups? ? ?

It's the capacitor doing that. Your tele would've had a .22 in it stock, I think, so a larger cap will sound a lot 'woolier'. I don't think modern Fenders use .47s now. 'Vintage' ones did...people just didn't turn the tone knob too far and expect it to stay clear. I'd never roll the tone off more than 10%, if that, with a .47 cap.

Capacitors are cheap and easy to put in. Maybe get a lower value one and try it. I use a low value (about .15 I think) orange drop capacitor and the tone control is 'usable' across most of the knob's sweep.