Anyone familiar with Noiseless or Texas Special Fender pickups?

[iplayLouD]

I've had both sets.

Texas Specials
I've had this in a "Blackmore" style strat for years. They're a strat single coil with more balls, essentially. Worked great for DP/Rainbow tones, up to Gary. They're great for SRV stuff to (kind of the point).

Noiseless
You either like 'em or hate 'em. They sit between single and bucker, feel-wise. What I love about them is that they have, by default, more balls and a more "rounded" feel than regular singles, making the more versatile without being a balls-to-the-wall or overbearing pickups. They're in the Jeff Beck strat for a reason.
 

[eduardoritos]

I have my strat loaded with texas specials. 
it's an AM special. 700€ second hand. 

I did two mods on it, the ghost coil, which reduce hum on #1 and 5 positions, and the "neck on" mod, allowing the 3 pickups sounding at once or the telly 1 and 3 sound.

Yjm says that not very hot pickups avoid interfering the natural swing of the string vibration, because less magnetism makes less interference, so the direct guitar sound is better. You can raise the signal with some bosster (he uses the DOD preamp).

My strat on pretty high od mode.


 
 
 
 

[bourbonsamurai]

I have Texas Specials in my Telecaster, and I like them better than the Lindy Fralin Blues Specials I had in my MIJ Tele, which I think I only liked because they were Lindy Fralins, and not because they sounded right for me.  They're pretty hot, at 10.2k bridge, and 9k neck.  the output of the neck pickup, coupled with the nickel brass cover, darkens the tone enough to make it difficult to get a tonal balance with the bridge pickup, so I disconnected the neck pickup from the tone control altogether.  Now, i just adjust the amp so it sounds right on the neck pickup and roll off the tone control appropriately to balance with the bridge.  Theses are fat, midrangey pickups, and they have the snotty quality I like that sounds like I'm using more gain than I am.  They also sound great with both my Marshall 1974x and my Deluxe Reverb, pushing the preamps in complimentary ways.  I love them.
 
 

[Dargavel]

I have a JB strat with hot noiseless in it. It's possibly the best playing strat I own, but I find myself putting it down because I'm not in love with the pickups. A vintage strat neck is my golden neck pickup tone, mostly because I love the way the top end sounds, the biting upper mids, and the string separation. The noiseless sound as close to a flat EQ as I can imagine. They're a little compressed, and also very quiet compared to true single coils, so if you're swapping guitars to something with humbuckers, you're going to have substantial changes in how you're hitting the front end of the amp. The bridge pickup sounds similar, which means it doesn't have the icepick of standard strat pickups. Particularly, when I added a treble bleed to the volume pot and switched the tone pot to a .15 rolled all the way off it does a get pretty close to Beck's tone. For an everyday pickup though, I really don't like it. It sounds incredibly bland with higher gain, and the rounded treble mutes things like pinch harmonics considerably. I have never willingly used the middle pickup. I would think something like the dimarzio area series or duncan STK would do a much better hum cancelling strat sound. 

[Tatosh Guitar]

Thank you all for the comments. The more and more I read about it, it seems the Texas Specials are right down my alley. I gotta wonder why Fender hasn't made a noise canceling version, but I guess I could do the dummy coil mod if I get annoyed enough by the hum.

 

[Dinosaur David B]

If the wiring in your place is dodgy, the dummy coil mod will only help a little. I found that out. 

TBH, I won't ever install true SCs anymore. They're just not worth the hassle. I'm not going for chimey Fender SC tones anyway, so I'd rather use noiseless and tweak the tone elsewhere in the signal. 

[Tatosh Guitar]

If the wiring in your place is dodgy, the dummy coil mod will only help a little. I found that out. 

TBH, I won't ever install true SCs anymore. They're just not worth the hassle. I'm not going for chimey Fender SC tones anyway, so I'd rather use noiseless and tweak the tone elsewhere in the signal. 

 

I know what you mean. I have read interviews with Eric Johnson were he says that he has played venues were the hum was louder than the actual notes coming out of his guitar.
 
I installed a DiMarzio HS-3 (the 80s Yngwie pickup) in my superstrat, in the neck position, over 20 years ago. I remember I noticed the lack of hum right away, and it has great tone as well. The only thing is that I wish it was louder, because almost every bridge pickup I paired it with easily overpowered it. It wasn't until I settled on the Duncan Custom 5 in the bridge a few years later that I was happy with the end results as far as pairing it.

My Charvel is a SSH configuration too, and that one has original pickups (80s). I haven't noticed hum issues, so either the wiring on my house is great or that guitar is wired in a way to avoid that. Don't think noiseless existed back then.

Anyway, up until now, and like you, I was dead set on noiseless for my next strat. Now I am having doubts because the reviews from everybody here are telling me I will probably love the Texas Specials LOL.
 

[Haffner]

 
I installed a DiMarzio HS-3 (the 80s Yngwie pickup) in my superstrat, in the neck position, over 20 years ago. I remember I noticed the lack of hum right away, and it has great tone as well. The only thing is that I wish it was louder, because almost every bridge pickup I paired it with easily overpowered it.
 

 

It's a fault of the HS-3s which are otherwise amazing imo. I had to buy a bridge HS to even it out some. They both sound terrific, but they're not entirely even volume still.

I use the YJM Furies in my Black Beauty Strat and they're more level, though I'm not as wild about their sound with low gain.

 

[Tatosh Guitar]

It's a fault of the HS-3s which are otherwise amazing imo. I had to buy a bridge HS to even it out some. They both sound terrific, but they're not entirely even volume still.

I use the YJM Furies in my Black Beauty Strat and they're more level, though I'm not as wild about their sound with low gain.

 

 

Ahhh, finally, someone whose opinion I trust who has first hand experience with both the HS-3 and the Fury!!

The DiMarzio sounds great and does clean sounds as good as what (in my head) a strat should sound. On the neck position, it does exactly what I need it to do.

I am looking for something different, a different color, so to speak.

I know you dig Uli, Ritchie and Gary. In your opinion, how do the Furies perform? Every YouTube video I have seen features them doing the Yngwie thing. Nothing wrong with that, but I need to hear something else aside of non-stop sweep picking arpeggios to get a proper idea of what they can do.
 
 

[Dinosaur David B]

IMO, the differences between Uli's, Ritchie's, and Gary's Strat tones can all be resolved by varying gain level and EQ. 

Ritchie has the cleanest (lowest gain) tone, followed by Uli, then Gary, who uses the most, and brownest distortion.
Ritchie is also the trebley-est, followed again by Uli, and Gary has the fattest tone of the three.

You can probably do 99% of all three at the amp, but if not, an EQ pedal would get you there.