CherrystoneDesigns

Hardware

Seymour Duncan Stratocaster® Noiseless 4c shielded pickups

You don't need Seymour Duncan Stratocaster® Noiseless pickups with 4c shielded cables, but this is an upgrade you won't regret.

Single-coil pickups come with an unwelcome sensitivity to local electromagnetic noise. If you live alone on Mars, that's probably not a problem. Humbucker pickups like Seth Lover's 1955 P.A.F. (Patent Applied For) pickup solve that problem by including two coils wired in such a way that the noise picked up by one is subtracted from the other. They make life easy by hiding that detail inside the package, giving you only two wires to deal with: signal and reference ground.

Stratocasters® solve it the same way, but they use the middle pickup as the noise subtraction element, so the hum is only cancelled in the 2^nd and 4^th positions of the 5-way blade switch. This gives Strats® a very unique voice as the combined signals are taken from different regions of the vibrating string. That's why Strats® sound like Strats®! But that leave positions 1, 3, & 5 noisy.

To get all 5 positions quiet without giving up that classic Strat® voice, you need to be able to rewire them on demand. That's possible with a marriage of Seymour Duncan's Noiseless pickups with Cherystone Designs' BlackPearl™ circuit board which allows access to both coils. These models can be identified by "Cable: 4c Shielded" in the product description, which is short for "4-conductor, with a (foil or braided) shield".

The Cherrystone Designs BlackPearl™ circuit board simpifies the wiring. All you need to do is match their lead colors with the guide printed on the circuit board. R,G,B,W is the constellation Red, Green, Black and White. The 5^th wire is the shielded cable's drain wire. That connects to either center pin. The outer two pins of the 6-pin connectors are the coils. Both center pins are GND so the shield wire can connect to either one. A color-coded connector kit is provided for early adopters in the Tiny White Box.

There are other makers of hum-cancelling pickups with 4 available wires, but they often have different color assignments. I can't make an exhaustive list without leaving some underdog out, so if that's your choice, you’ll have to sort out your particular color code swizzle.

In Seymour Duncan's standard, red & green are one coil while black & white are another. Specifically:

Black is the Start of the North coil, White is the North coil Finish.
Green is the Start of the South coil, Red is the South coil Finish.

Stratocasters® are historically SSS (three single coil pickup) configurations, but when an "S" is replaced by an "H", a Hum-cancelling pickup replaces the single coil. An example is the Hot-Rodded Humbucker Set. While it won't fit the orignal SSS body routing or the SSS pickguard, it is electrically compatible. Our first Fender® conversion was on an HSH Player Strat®, so it was a drop-in replacement.

Here are some pickups I've installed in prototypes, so they're a safe bet. These all fit the single-coil profile but are in fact dual coil. The term "Noiseless" is a legal substitution for the trademarked "Humbucker". Another virtual synonym is "hum-cancelling".

DIY Electronics

There's a slight commitment getting into DIY electronics. While similar items like the ones on this list can be found elsewhere for less, this is a good place to start.

If you have a good friend or relative that already has these and can supervise you while you're using their lab, that's another way to get started.

* Prices effective as of 7/21/2025

FENDER®, STRATOCASTER®, STRAT® and SQUIER® are registered trademarks of Fender Corporation.

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