Lush harmonics in the number 2 position, bridge/middle, these would be the abosolute perfect pickups for a twelve string strat! However these are not good with distortion, i personally thinked they lacked character, even when played clean

it did come with new pots, which was nice. The noiseless logo did look cool, but if your trying to look vintage, then the word noiseless doesnt go with your theme very well now does it? lol

i didnt install these ones, and the people who did install them had a very tuff time getting them to work right.

Well considering the fact that i think one of the pickups i recieved had a reverse polarity neck pickup?, very strange, so had to install the wires opposite on it. The wires are pretty thick, so no danger in breaking one of them.

good price, if you like the sound of them, then sure its a great bargain, even just for the price alone its worth it to upgrade

It fender, one of the top manufactures, has to be good

hobbyist

Christian,blues, rock, country, folk

I give this a 7 for sound because they do have a very nice vintage stratocaster "belltone" sound, but they DO NOT WORK WITH DISTORTION, even a little bit of distortion. They also do not have that warm tone that you can get from even an Epiphone Les Paul, with stock Korean pickups.

I give this an 8 because they come in only one color, that icky aged cream and you can't get any other color of pickup covers to match your pickplate because the pole separation is proprietary.

You can only get that high-treble "quacky" sound and in the bridge position, it's a bit too bright and not warm enough in the neck position.

It's a solid set of pickups, and after a year, they're still working, but they just don't produce the sounds I'm looking for.

For the price, these pickups are a great deal. They just don't give me what I want as far as low noise and vibrant tones. I'm ripping them out and replacing them with Dimarzio Area 58's, which I hear a LOT of good things about as far as not producing so much hum and giving better tones, AND working very well with distortion. I mean, come on folks, who wants to play an electric guitar without distortion? Even clean, these pickups could be better.

Never dealt with them.

You know, they don't really look good unless you like the faded vintage look, but they say "Vintage" on them and that kind of blows it.

25 years as a guitarist

Rock, as far as classic to Metal. Some blues and jazz.

my jeff beck model strat came with these pickups. they are very versitile and have alot of nice tone. i replaced the bridge because it was not beefy enough. however the pickups in the other two positions are really kicking ass!

they are pickups

they are pickups

ive had the guitar about 3 years..no pickup prob;ems, i mean what can go wrong? they are pickups!

the price is not too bad.

ive dealt with fender alot over the years and they always stood by their stuff

i would put these in any guitar i get in the future.

working musician and recording artist

rock, blues, funk, soul

height setting is critical-too high,no sustain and too low,brittle

it'd be nice if Fender trashed the volume compensating cap and resistor, and included a smaller tone cap

none

in a vintage strat, having noiseless on the pup covers doesn't work

geek,player

blues

I tested the N3 setup this past weekend after buying a new American Strat Deluxe. I got it home and compared the tone to my older, American STD, using vintage staggered pickups and a custom Duncan EVH model in the bridge. The neck pickup and middle pickups were compared between the two using a clean Class A amp. CLEAN: N3 neck and middle had no clarity as described. There was no nice hi-fi smooth top end nor that nice Hendrix-ish or Stevie Ray Lennie neck tone nor, was there any Mark Knopfler or Gilmore quack. These pickups are not like Strat pickups that I've played before and, even cheaper pickups yield a more strat like tone that these did. The tone is almost dead and dull with no SPRING or soft, warm compression to fatten up the sound. That was not the only thing. The balance of the bass notes was way overpowering and, again, this was at very low volume using a clean amp using a Baxendal circuit set to flat. No bass boost, and, running in Ultra Linear mode on the tranny...the bass was so running over the plain strings it was ridiculously obvious during test. While over all, I don't think they were bad sounding, just darker, or, lifeless vs. the STD pickups have tons of that nice balanced spring and hi-fi airy top end. The bridge pickup is shrill and, only when rolling the tone off at least 50% was a good tone produced. I had to get on the gain a lot and change the amp around but, I was able to get a pretty decent chunky sound out of it when playing the amp on 10 and running a tube overdrive unit into the front end of the amp to drive the amp and tranny into saturation. The back pickup didn't sound that bad at all on chords however, on single notes, it still was a bit thin and tinny. Just not the sound I'm after at all.

Not applicable

Not sure- I've not cared to pull them apart to inspect for quality control measures and process capability study. I could care less for, they are going into the trash can or, someone can have them for free.

If all you need is a pickup that is quiet, it's a good deal.

I like the cosmetic appearance of these pickups but, that's about it.

Recording Engineer

Blues, Jazz, Rock, VH, Prog Rock, Techno

The sound of these pickups are very lifeless and flat. Overdriving your amp is pretty pointless, as the pickups just render a weak sound. The pickups do cancel out noise, but that's really all they do.

If you are only looking to cancel noise then this is what you want to use. If you want to cancel noise and get a good sound, do not use these. Use Seymour Duncan humbuckers instead.

You put it in and select the pickups. It's quite easy. But that's just the way a pickup works, they don't deserve much credit for that.

These are just terrible pickups. Maybe if you're going for some low-level kind of alt/folk or something it might be good, but if you're playing rock, or even blues these pickups will disappoint you.

Again, very low. These aren't great pickups, so it's not like you could take them out of your guitar and get a handsome reward for them. Also, it's not like someone will see your guitar equipped with these and immediately covet it.

I have not had to get support on these.

I have two of these in my Strat at the moment. They are only there until i can buy new pickups for it. I actually can't wait to take them out. I hate these things.

Guitar player, rock musician

Hard rock, flamenco, classical

I replaced my stock single coils in my 70's reissue Mexican Stratocaster with these. It has an ash body, maple neck, and rosewood fretboard. To put it simply, the sound is fantastic. The neck and mid pickups have a shimmery, lovely clean sound. The bridge clean tone is appropriately twangy and has a nice bite and honk. Most surprisingly is that I get a very full, rich, deep bass out of the neck and mids with these pickups. I got them so I could play with distortion without drowning in noise. They are every bit as quiet as the humbuckers in my Les Paul, but with the added benefit of improving the stock single coil sound I had. You're able to play with a lot more gain with these, since the noise disappears. You can get some good rock sounds out of a guitar with these pickups, although they may have a touch too much treble for really high-gain applications. They also aren't nearly as high output as a lot humbuckers. But I've never heard any humbuckers with such nice clean tones either.

The full set of 3 pickups is very reasonably priced for a complete set, and includes new potentiometers. I must confess I didn't replace the old pots though; I'll always wonder if that's some mysterious part of my Strat's wonderful tone now.

For a pickup installation, very easy. I have no soldering experience other than wiring in these pickups and I did OK. For the price of a tech install I bought a soldering pencil and did it myself. Word to the wise though - use a real soldering gun instead of a soldering pencil. The pencils just aren't powerful enough for the job.

7 years of use, no failures, no complaints. I gig regularly with them and the most I've ever had to do is re-solder a tailpiece ground wire. And that's certainly not the pickups' fault. The gold 'Noiseless' logo has all but faded off the covers, however. I consider that a pretty minor complain though.

For $130, this was one of the best music deals I've ever gotten. A full set of 3 fantastic sounding pickups that eliminate the age-old problem of Strat noise and give your guitar a tone boost besides. To compare, for my Les Paul copy it's more like $90 a pickup for Seymour Duncans (not to diss SD, they are fantastic too).

Never had to use the support, so I don't know.

They look pretty nice going into you guitar, but they are pickups so the difference is subtle.

It has the Clapton sound, just play "Bell Bottom Blues" with them and you'll know what i'm talking about. Less noise, HOWEVER, if you don't put your hand over the strings you will manage to hear a "buzz", that's something strange about this pickups..not very reliable "noiseless" pickups.

The instructions were confusing, quite simple installation.

Good quality, better magnets than the standard single coils.

It's a fair price, but a few less bucks would be better.

Own a bunch of Fender products, such as an Twin Reverb amp, one Texas Special and of course a Fender American Standard Strat.

Blues, Rock, Jazz...never metal and punk

I purchased these about 4 years ago for an older (Blazer) Ibanez Strat clone. I really like these pickups. The factory Ibanez pickups were pretty weak and captured a lot of noise. The Fender noisless are stronger, noisless, and produce that wonderful Strat tone. I use a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp that contributes to the tone as well, but have played through other amps and have been pleased. Over all I would give them a 9 out of possible 10.

Guitar hobbyist since 1967..... I play in church.

Country/ Blues

Hire an American to build it.

Sloppy third rate construction. Had to redrill holes to mount it in the pick guard.

I would look for a better constructed more reliable replacement. I was very disappointed with this product.

Warranty is only valid if you are an "authorized" fender repairman. Middle pickup failed after 6 months.

30+ years playing guitar.

A La Hendrix

Hire an American to build it.

Sloppy third rate construction. Had to redrill holes to mount it in the pick guard.

I would look for a better constructed more reliable replacement. I was very disappointed with this product.

Warranty is only valid if you are an "authorized" fender repairman. Middle pickup failed after 6 months.

30+ years playing guitar.

A La Hendrix

Nothing could make it better!

Simple install, straight drop in and solder leads.. good grief, how mindlessly simple.

Well made, built to last!

Superb value!

Answered questions rapidly via email.