Best Noiseless Stratocaster Pickup (our top choice)

Most electric guitar companies produce some form of stock pickups, which are really cheap and should (ideally) be replaced. Fender does as well, but also have their high-end line of Fender branded pickups. This is where we find the Ultra Noiseless and Gen 4 Noiseless Strat pickups, among others in the series.

And while there are other noise reducing pickups out there - from other brands - we've found that the Fender Noiseless rails are consistently the best choice by a wide margin.

A lot of pros that play Stratocasters use Fender Noiseless sets.

If they're good enough for Eric Johnson and Eric Clapton, they're good enough for us.

The only set of pickups that might compete with the Fender Noiseless rails would be the Fishman Fluence Stratocaster set. However, they're an active set, which are sometimes not what Strat players are looking for. We'll make our case for the Noiseless Strat pickups below. 

Read more: Best Stratocaster pickups

Compare the Fender Noiseless set to other pickups

This table has the Fender Noiseless Ultra pickups and three other similar alternatives. Use the compare buttons to see them side-by-side, which shows pricing and basic features. You can also add more pickups with the plus sign at the bottom of the popup bar. 

Pricing Tools

To display pricing for pickups and other guitar gear, we use live updating tools from multiple vendors so you can easily compare the most current pricing. We've broken up Sweetwater pricing from other vendors and have a couple price tracking tools as well.

Sweetwater Pricing

Additional Vendors

Price Alert Signup (tracks with Sweetwater)

Price History (tracks with Sweetwater)

Honorable Mentions and Alternatives

It should be clear that whenever we offer up a "best of" or "best for" recommendation, we're speaking from opinion and not trying to discount other options. The fact is, the best noiseless Strat pickup for one person might be entirely different than it would be for another, based simply on respective situations and preferences.

Plus, there are some really great pickup sets out there for Strats, some of which I've already mentioned in this article.

Here are the honorable mentions I'd recommend targeting if you don't go with the Ultra Noiseless set:

• Fender Hot Noiseless
• Fishman Fluence Strat
• Seymour Duncan California '50s
• Fender Gen 4 Noiseless Strat
• Fender Custom Shop Texas Special

There are several versions of the Fender Noiseless sets, and they're all solid options. If you want to get away from Fender, our next stop would be the Fishman Fluence series, unless you're specifically avoiding active pickups. From there, it's Seymour Duncan as a close third choice.

Read more: Difference between active and passive pickups

To recap brands:

1. Fender
2. Fishman
3. Seymour Duncan

The Noiseless series

The Strat pickups in the Noiseless series all have their own unique voicing, though the difference between them is going to be subtle. If you don't like the added output in the "Hot" Noiseless set, you can drop down to something like the Gen 4 or the Vintage Noiseless Strat set.

They're all good options in addition to the Ultra. In fact, we'd recommend that all Stratocaster users spring for at least one of the Noiseless pickup sets.

Stratocasters and Telecasters are notoriously noisy. This is what the dual humbucker setup was designed to mitigate in other guitars.

And since the three single coil pickup arrangement is hard to tame, the Noiseless pickup series is Fender's answer to that problem. And they've done an exceptionally good job in making noise a non-issue for Strat and Tele players.

Anything from the Fender Noiseless series should do the job.

Conclusion

Normally I prefer to see a third party (Seymour Duncan, Fishman, DiMarzio, etc.) pickup manufacturer in nicer guitars. But Fender's high-end pickups are the real deal. They clearly did not cut corners and seem to have put a ton of emphasis on the Noiseless series.

Major brands that do their own high-end pickups include the following:

• Gibson
• PRS
• Fender

So if you're having noise issues with your Stratocaster - Fender or otherwise - consider starting with a pickup swap and install something from the Noiseless roster.

As a side note, noise issues can be due to non-isolated power supplies as well.

Read more: Best guitar pedal power supplies

If you have questions about Fender Noiseless pickups or something else mentioned on this page, feel free to reach out via the comments section below.

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