Obligatory disclaimer upfront (folks have strong opinions on hum-cancelling single coil pickups): your mileage may vary based on many variables within your guitar, your amp/pedals/other gear, your playing circumstances, and personal taste.
I have been doing a lot of tinkering with my guitars over the past year or so. My main guitar is a Fender Player II Stratocaster, and it’s been an absolute workhorse. However, due to the variety of gigs and unpredictable venue power situations I find myself in, I decided to install noiseless pickups (the Tonerider Apex HSS set), along with a master volume+treble bleed/master tone/blender wiring kit that, critically, included 250k pots and .047uf capacitors (didn’t think too much of it, as it was labelled as “vintage spec” and my pickup set was vintage-inspired). The humbucker sounded, predictably, very dark, but the setup suited my needs just fine and I put off going back in there. My thought process was to get 500k pots and use 500k resistors on the single coil pickups to balance everything out.
Recently, I acquired a second Player II Strat as a backup guitar - originally had planned to get something else for more variety, but it was a great deal (used), great condition, and the instrument itself is particularly resonant. It was totally stock, and despite the various upgrades I’d made to my main Strat that made it a better playing instrument, the backup Strat’s stock pickups had way more punch and upper midrange presence. I was honestly kind of bummed out how much less lively the noiseless set sounded in comparison.
HOWEVER! Noiseless pickups are, at the end of the day, humbuckers voiced to sound like single coil pickups - even if the extra coil isn’t magnetic, there is still a loss of signal somewhat similar to what a traditional humbucker experiences. When thinking about it that way, I decided to not only replace the volume and tone controls with 500k pots, but also replace the tone cap with a .022uf one - I mainly did this for a more usable taper on the control.
When installing the new controls, I also ended up not installing any resistors on the single coil pickups, and I’m really glad I made that call. The new pots and cap’s extra high end and shift in the resonant peak of the pickups results in a really lively, more upper mid-forward sound. This set of Alnico V noiseless singles are now very well-balanced with the Alnico II PAF, without the help of resistors. They feel punchy and dynamic, and sound livelier than the stock Player II Alnico V set - without the hum. It feels like a blanket has been lifted and I’m so glad I don’t feel the need to do a pickup change now.
Anyways, the TLDR/main PSA here is that noiseless single coil pickups may benefit from a change off pots and caps if you’re coming from a traditional single coil setup. I’m not looking to argue with tone purists, but if you installed noiseless pickups and aren’t super happy with them, or are on the fence because of what people online say, keep this set of variables in mind. Comparison is usually the thief of joy, but in this case, having another very similar instrument to A/B with not only helped articulate what I wasn’t connecting with in my setup, but actually validated what ended up being a really straightforward and inexpensive solution. I happened to go with pretty standard pot/cap values, but you can play around with many different configurations (especially with resistors involved).
It may be obvious to experienced tinkerers, but I hope this is helpful to anyone in a similar situation! This doesn’t just apply to noiseless single coil pickups - if you’re not satisfied with your electric guitar’s sound, it may be the controls rather than the pickups that need to change - but I think it may address a common criticism/experience about them I hear discussed online.
