Fender Super Twin.

[DrNomis_44]

How do the N4's compare to the Fat 50's ??

I have vintage noiseless in my Deluxe Strat. They sure have the clean tone that a Strat should be but by my reckoning they are noticeably lower in output level. I'd be guessing at about 1/4 to 1/3 of what the set of 490R/498T HB put out in my LP, and 2/3 the level of my MIM loaded ply Strat.... Maybe when they (Fender) say 'vintage' they mean underwound compared to today's offerings...

Tonewise, the N4s in my Fender Strat are about the same as the Fat 50's, the real difference is that I'm no longer getting that annoying background hum with the N4s, like I did with the Fat 50's, the N4s seem to have a bit more output than the Fat 50's too, but then that might be because I've set the pickup heights so that both the low E and high E pole pieces on each pickup are about 3/32 Inch close to the E strings when they are fretted just behind the last fret.


I'll record a quick demo later on so you can hear what they sound like.


I just remembered trying some Fender Noiseless pickups on my old Mexican Strat that I used to have, I remember them sounding a bit thin and weedy, they might have been the vintage noiseless ones cause their output was a bit low.

I'll record a quick demo now so you can hear what the N4s sound like, I'll be recording directly into my laptop via a Scarlett 2i2 usb audio interface, and I'll be using an amp plugin called Emissary, and a speaker cab simulator plugin called Nadir, in FL Studio.


Here you go, hope this gives you some idea of what they sound like, notice that there's very little background hum noise:

https://soundcloud.com/drnomis_44/am...pickups-demo-1


Personally I think they're fine, you get that single-coil pickup tone without that annoying background hum noise that you get with conventional single-coil pickups, even though the N4s are technically humbuckers from what I've read.