• Lace pickups on Strat

  
  As reviewed by Chipster on 11/3/2009

  I must admit, I ordered the LACE blue/silver/red package for my Strat based on the buzz and I liked the look. WOW, was I surprised! The Blue pickup in neck position is my favorite, fantastic sound. More output, less noise, full harmonic, liquid tone a real transformation. These replaced stock TexMex pickups. Silver in middle and red at bridge also clear improvements and provide many new choices in sound as you mix. These pickups have completely transformed the look and tone of my strat. Fantastic tone for blues, classic rock. Crank your amp without the buzz and background noise. If you go for black and change out your knobs and switch cover, becomes a completely new look for guitar! Be ready to solder, but easy connection. Wiring diagrams on LACE web site. Highly Recommended!!

  5 of 5 people found this review helpful.
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• Exceptional!!!

  
  As reviewed by The Rakemaker on 11/14/2010

  I instaledl these in a Warmoth Strat that I just finished building. I always gauge a guitar by the way that it sounds naked and unplugged before I ever think about pluging in. I set the guitar up with some #10 DR Tite-Fit strings and so far so good. Since these pups are noiseless, and this set claims a wide range of character, I choose to use a three way switch instead of the usual five way arrangement. I used 250k pots and I used the tone pots for the neck and the mid positions to roll of some top end if the occasion called for it. I jacked into my GSP1101 and selected the "BLS" Patch and I could not believe my ears! All three pups were crisp; the bridge had a nice bite to it, the mid was a great rhythm choice, and the neck was wide open but not muddy. Then I tried all three clean with a tad bit of chorus. The bridge and the mid were full of chime but the neck pup is where it's all at! What a wonderful rich tone! And here's the best part, clean or dirty, all three pups rang with clarity, some great harmonics, and each string came through at the same volume! I've never played a Strat pup that was balanced like these are. In all my years as a guitarist I've never played such a great set of Strat pups! Never! I'm going to install a pull-pot so that I can blend the bridge and the mid together and call it good. I'm already thinking about giving one of their humbuckers a go in one of my Gibsons. I'm that impressed. These guys must put a lot of effort into their pups in order to achieve such a great tone. If you have a Strat, I would definitely consider a set of Lace pups.

  1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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• Versatile, quiet, and toneful. Not very "strat-y.\

  
  As reviewed by SnarkyGoat on 11/1/2006

  These three Fender Lace Sensor single-coil pickups are great replacement units for the Strat player looking for something other than the typical "Strat" twang. With the blue (for the neck position), the silver for the middle, and the red for the bridge, a Strat can essentially be hotrodded to dish out anything from fat, warm traditional humbucker tone to a fatter Strat sound to high-output distortion. The "blue" Lace Sensor is intended to replicate a 50's humbucker, and does so quite well, with a warm fat, and quite "round" tone that sounds good both overdriven and for clean jazz or blues. The silver pickup is supposed to have "A fatter 70's single coil sound with slightly increased output and bit more midrange" and I guess to be a compromise between the blue humbucker sound and Lace Sensor's traditional twangy "Gold" pickup. As such, the silver pickup is perhaps the least convincing of the Lace Sensor offerings. The red, of course, is intended as a high-output, distortion-oriented pickup for the bridge position and delivers as advertised, although it has little of the great single-coil bite characteristic of a traditional Strat bridge pickup. These Lace Sensors are very quiet and, as mentioned above, are great for the Strat player looking for a variety of non-Strat tones. There MAY be less expensive options out there, particularly for the player looking for a high-output humbucker the size of a single-coil pickup, but these pickups are quiet, generally deliver the tone as advertised, are very well-designed, and are quite a good deal at what breaks down to less than $60 each.

  26 of 28 people found this review helpful.
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