Recording a guitar fitted with single‑coil pickups can lead to noise issues, especially where high‑gain distortion or overdrive is in use. That’s why some companies developed so‑called ‘stacked humbuckers’, which are made to fit into the existing pickup aperture. The thing is, some of these are more effective than others when it comes to preserving the essential tonality of their single‑coil counterparts, and the more successful ones tend to be quite expensive.

British manufacturers Tonerider design their pickups in the UK and then have them built in China, to keep costs down, and it’s a formula that has worked well to date — their existing range of replacement pickups strikes a very good balance between performance and price, and they come with a five‑year warranty. Now, after some years in development, Tonerider have turned their attention to hum‑cancelling, stacked‑coil pickups, and the Apex Plus set that’s reviewed here are designed for the Fender Stratocaster. There’s also a Classic version of the Apex pickups, but the Plus version produces a slightly overwound sound that might be better suited to some blues and rock players. (An HSS set is also available for those wanting an even hotter bridge pickup sound.)

Just 3mm deeper than a standard single‑coil Strat pickup, the Apex Plus set is built around alnico V rod magnets, with a slight bevel, and its scatter‑wound coils are wax potted so as to reduce microphony. Scatter winding lowers the self‑capacitance of the pickup windings, so should also help preserve high end. Apparently, computer‑controlled machines are used for winding the pickups, so even the scatter‑winding pattern is consistent. The published DC resistances and inductances for each position are as follows: neck pickup 9.9kΩ/3.7H; middle pickup 10kΩ/3.9H; bridge pickup 11kΩ/4.38H. This might suggest a hotter, more mid‑focused voicing than vintage‑spec single coils, though the actual resistance measurements came very close to these.

Alnico V magnets are reputed to deliver a lively top end, so although these pickups have more midrange push than usual, they’re designed to retain the bright edge that characterises the Strat sound. A metal baseplate plus some strategic internal metalwork allows the noise‑cancelling coil to be wound with fewer turns, which in turn should help preserve the single‑coil tonality while avoiding the midrange honk produced by some noise‑cancelling designs. Overall, the construction of these pickups inspires confidence, and their modest increase in depth means they should fit the vast majority of S‑type guitars without having to increase the cavity depth.

The pickups are offered with right, left or flat stagger options, with covers available in white, black or warm white (standard), and they are labelled according to their position. The standard pole spacing means that existing Fender covers will also fit. Each pickup has three connecting wires, representing a coil start, a coil finish, and a ground. This means that if any phase issue is encountered when matching a single Apex pickup with another manufacturer’s pickups, the polarity of the Apex can be easily reversed. An extra eyelet on the Apex pickup can be used to split the two coils (essentially removing the noise‑cancelling coil from play) so as to only use the top string‑sensing coil closer to the strings. According to Tonerider, this could come in useful when trying to get a hum‑cancelling combination with, for example, one coil of a split humbucker. The vast majority of users won’t need that feature, but it’s good to have it included just in case you’re into fancy switching.

Testing

To test the Apex Plus set, I decided to fit them to one of my own guitars, which although good‑sounding, suffered badly from hum pickup. It had old‑style Mexican Strat pickups with dual ceramic magnets of almost exactly the same depth as the Apex Plus pickups, so there was plenty of space. Fortunately, the fitting instructions are very straightforward, so as long as you can make a decent soldered joint you should have no problems. As with vintage Fender pickups, rubber tubing is provided in place of springs for mounting. I kept the same strings on to maintain a level playing field, so had to unbolt the neck to access the pickguard. An hour later, I was all set to play. Though, as with any pickup, you’ll need to adjust the height below the strings for the best balance and tone.

The real surprise was the high end, which retains all the edge and snap you’d expect from a Strat, with perhaps even a hint of Telecaster twang.

With coil resistances almost double those of vintage Strat pickups, you might expect lots of mid lift coupled with tamed highs, but that is not the case. In comparison with those old Fender Mexican pickups, the Apex Plus set deliver a less compressed sound with a more subtle sense of weight than I’d expected, and without the mids sounding obviously hyped and with no hint of nasal tonality. The real surprise was the high end, which retains all the edge and snap you’d expect from a Strat, with perhaps even a hint of Telecaster twang. Switch positions two and four nail the classic tones available from those positions, and backing off the tone and volume controls very slightly got me close to the sound of the old pickups, but with no trace of hum, even at high‑gain levels and standing very close to the amplifier.

In conclusion, I’d offer that Tonerider’s low‑noise pickups compare favourably with their rather more costly competition. The Classic set might be more appropriate for those wanting the sound of vintage, lower‑output pickups, but this Apex Plus set covers pretty much all requirements both live and in the studio.