Fender V4 Noiseless Strat Pickups vs Squier Stock Cyclone Pickups

Video Transcript

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Fender v4 Noiseless Strat Pickups vs. Squier Stock Pickups

Hey, welcome to get offset. My name is Emily and I once again, have a Squire paranormal series cyclone. This is actually not the one you’ve seen in other videos. It’s still has its original switches fresh out of a box, um, and a little bit of a setup adjustment. Um, so I’m in a band we’re called Sundae Crush, you can preorder our, our upcoming record, but, um, It’s a couple of the band members, birthdays, uh, September 25th and 26, I believe.

[00:00:36] And, uh, one of the gifts, uh, that a couple of us went in on for one of them, my singer, we got her, this, she kind of wanted one and I was going to give her mine until I fell in love with it. So, uh, she doesn’t know yet. She’ll know, by the time this video goes live. But, uh, yeah, we got her a Cyclone and she’s only had one guitar for forever and some really nice guitar.

[00:01:04] It’s a, it’s this beautiful blue Stratocaster. And, uh, when she saw the paranormal series, she was really interested in the cyclone. So I’m really excited that we get to get to give this to her. But, um, my contribution in the guitar was not the guitar. It’s these pickups and that’s what I’m going to be demoing today.

[00:01:29] Jenna, uh, doesn’t like buzz. She doesn’t like she doesn’t and you know what? That’s fine. Really, truly. Nobody likes buzz. Um, that’s why when I play, you know, single coils, I, I tend to prefer the reverse wound, reverse polarity, uh, so that I don’t have that buzz all the time. But this is the gym for noiseless Stratocaster pickup set from fender.

[00:01:58] I watched a couple of other videos on this and I think they sounded, they sounded fantastic to me. So, um, I’m going to install these, I know that there’s something kind of there they’re a little wonky in there, your own way. And the one thing that I’m anticipating having a little bit of just making adjustments with.

[00:02:20] They’re so tall, they’re really tall. And that’s just part of how they’re built. Um, and I, uh, they have three wires instead of two. I’m pretty sure on this one, the white is the hot and then the other two are grounds, but there’s a little, there’s a little chart in here for a traditional Strat. Um, and it looked to me when I was looking at it online that the other two just go straight to ground.

[00:02:52] So I’m looking at the neck pickup there. That’s what I was just holding. And yeah, it looks like one goes to the switch. The white goes to the switch and then the other two colors just really seem to go to the, to the ground. That’s the neck and the middle, the bridge has the red as the hot. And that goes to, yeah, so there’s a white hot, a red hot, and a blue hot, and that’s actually really helpful because sometimes you get these, these three identical looking.

[00:03:34] Um, and they don’t always have on the back what the position is, and then you have to like measure them. And that’s kind of a pain in the butt sometimes they’ll say on the back neck metal bridge, the last set I did did not. So I did have to, uh, Use my noggin there, maybe a little bit of measuring, I might need to use these I’ll need to use these different screws.

[00:03:59] Um, so it’s kind of hard to show on the video, but these screws just are very unique. They’re very different than the ones that come in the guitar. So I was anticipating that I’m going to do to the video a little bit differently. I am going to take a video of the install. And I think that, uh, cause I was requested on my last pickup swap, um, versus a speed overhead.

[00:04:24] So I’ll actually be talking and explaining what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, yada, yada, yada. And, uh, you’ll get to hear me cuss and probably, and uh, and what not. I tend to have, I tend to have problems with the Springs. And in the Picard mountain pickups, it’s just the pain in the butt and something I have to deal with on my own, but, uh, what I’m going, I’m going to publish that video exclusively to our Patrion supporters, sets a Patriot on that call slash get offset link in the video description.

[00:05:00] And I might upload it, uh, as its own thing later. But I feel like Patriots people who support us financially, I just want to make sure they get, they get a little bit of extra love and the extra content that they’ve specifically asked for. So if you’re curious about that, check us out on Patrion. I’m going to make that available to the $5 tier, um, and higher.

[00:05:23] So it’s not a big investment if you want to, if you want to support us, if you like the videos and whatnot, but, um, I’m wondering the same thing I did for the Josefina hand wilds and I am going to play through the different positions and then I’m going to swap. And then the video is, was going to essentially have a back to back for each of the sounds so you can hear them more in comparison to each other.

[00:05:48] I have my strive Iridium round B. I’m going to play through everything on the fender, uh, that clean setting in at about nine o’clock, uh, room. Reverb sound at about, um, noon kind of have the mids turned down a little bit, but not too much. So, uh, without further ado, let’s listen to the neck pickup.

[00:07:36] neck and middle.

[00:08:58] Just middle

[00:09:49] alright.

[00:11:12] just bridge.

[00:12:01] alright, let’s do bridge and neck.

[00:13:24] all three pickups.

[00:14:14] and I’m going to just do a couple of things with some drive.

[00:16:04] I say bridge and neck that was bridge and middle.

[00:17:44] Mmm.

[00:19:49] now we’ll do all three.

[00:20:52] so I’m going to put, this is my moratorium on these pickups. Before I install the new one. So then I’ll play the moratorium of the new pickups after that and the comparison, but just playing through these, I love them with distortion. And honestly, for some reason, this set sounds better clean to my ears, but that’s probably just the day that I’m having.

[00:21:17] Um, they are however, quite buzzy.

[00:21:24] Like, I don’t think Jenna would like that. So I’m really interested to see how the new pickup sound, um, the noiseless pickup sound and see if she likes those more. I think that like the hum cancellation works great, but I would love for her to be able to just, you know, feel like she loves every position on this guitar.

[00:21:44] Um, some people just are a little bit more prone to not liking buzz than others. And really nobody, I think. Loves it. I think you just kind of learn to love it as part of a thing that you experienced with the guitar that you love. So, yeah, I’m going to take this to the soldering station, if you want to see, uh, what I did and while I am doing it and hear me talk, uh, hit up the Patriot in the $5 here.

[00:22:14] And at least, or do 10 or 25. That’s also cool. Um, and see exactly how that all went down. All right. Well, that is the, a B comparison of the stock Squire cyclo and paranormal series pickups. Uh, with the gin for noiseless Stratocaster pickups and my God. What a difference? What a difference. Just like, even in my ears.

[00:22:42] Um, I just spend a little bit more time, uh, before this video versus the last one. And it’s like making sure the pickup height was right. I did a little bit of extra love on this guitar just because it’s going to someone I care about, um, versus me. So, uh, Yeah, they are they’re, noiseless like for real, like

[00:23:04] at least an enormous noise reduction. Um, but how do they sound? I think they sound great. They’re obviously hotter than my last set. I was getting a big volume difference, just like with it driving the Iridium before I even plugged in the hotcake on some of the jazz stuff, which. Made me smile a little bit.

[00:23:27] I was like, wow. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that, but I didn’t. Um, what else do I want to say about them? Uh, I think they’re articulate. I think they sound really nice. I think they’re clear. Um, I have nothing bad to say about these pickups, but let’s talk about the installation since, unless you’re a Patriot supporter, you’re not going to see the installation video a minute.

[00:23:47] Um, they’re hurt. They’re tall. They are. Oh, a lot taller than the stock pick ups. Um, it didn’t really give me much more trouble getting them all, all situated. Um, they seem like stronger magnets. It’s two. And I that’s, I think, cause they’re bigger and like the, essentially the hum bucking capabilities of them, um, make that the case, I think, um, But really nothing too frustrating there.

[00:24:21] Um, compared to a normal set of pickups, it was just as easy, if not, for some reason, a little bit easier because I’m a little more practiced, but what about less now I’m going to talk about, um, the covers. I don’t really like that. They’re branded fender. Noiseless. And the pickup covers. I think that’s kind of like, I would, I would prefer that not be the case, but it’s not a big deal at all.

[00:24:48] Um, there was a lot of wire underneath there, but no more wire than the Josephine pickups, really. Uh, the Josephine hand wound had the cloth, uh, shielding and these have the standard kind of plastic. Tubing. Uh, so it took about, about the same amount of space. Uh, it was pretty easy to do. And, uh, another thing about the, the cyclin is now that I’ve looked under two of them, I’m sure this is just kind of like up to whoever’s wiring up that guitar.

[00:25:23] Uh, there was some, some grounding in a different, a few different places, not a big deal. Uh, just something. That was interesting to me, uh, digging around in there, uh, where, where things were grounded versus on this versus the other one I have. So just, just interesting things. Uh, as far as the cycle in general, I realized I, uh, I don’t really like the middle pickup just in general.

[00:25:52] Uh, I think it’s probably why I haven’t had a strata. I think the best thing about a middle pickup and a Strat. Is to use it with the bridge or the neck to get the, the sort of, um, lessened noise, uh, versus actually just the sound of it. And I really don’t like the sound of this guitar with all three pickups in parallel.

[00:26:14] I do love all three pickups in series. If, uh, if you ever do the super switcher kind of thing that I did with. Uh, Shawnigan treat wire. And if you haven’t seen that video of the super switcher, check that out. Um, There’ll be a little pop up after this video, uh, leading you to that one. That’s really about all I have to say about this, um, this cycle alone.

[00:26:39] I, I don’t, I don’t want to do another review of the cycle on, but this did come needing some more adjustments than the last one I had to make a trust rod adjustment. I did the little thing where you a keto at the first and the 12th fret, and you try to pluck in the middle and it was just dead end. Just a lot of buzzing.

[00:26:58] So, uh, the neck was, uh, needed a little bit of love, but most guitars like out of boxes, you would, you would kind of expect that. And it came with, came with the right equipment. So it was really not a big deal. It was going to Slack and the strings do a quarter turn at a time. Um, that way. Is the way I had to go.

[00:27:20] Uh, so looking down counterclockwise, AKA lefty, Lucy. So yeah, that’s all I have to say about these pickups. I really, really hope Jenna, Jenna likes the guitar and the pickups. I, I suspect that she will. Um, there’s just something so special about when somebody gives you a guitar and I’m really excited to meet even a small part of this.

[00:27:42] So thanks for watching. Thanks for understanding. Once again, like, comment. Subscribe. My name is Emily. Goodbye.