Recently I've been thinking about changing out the pu's in my std mim strat but i just have a few questions first. I'm mainly looking for good cleans/smooth leads from the neck, good cleans from the middle, and as I never really used the bridge single coil i figure i'll just put a single coil sized humbucker there so I can use it for more rock/metal type stuff. The pickups i'm thinking about are Lace Sensor Blue(N), Lace sensor Silver(M), SD Hotrail(B) and as i've never changed pu's before my questions are:

1. i know usually with humbuckers its best to use a 500k pots instead of 250k, would this be the case with the hotrail as it is essentially a single coil sized humbucker? how would that affect the lace sensors?

2. would there be any kind of mismatch as far as using these pickups?

thanks

Welcome!

Apparently you have decided on Lace pickups. Premising this, if I were you, I'd put a Gold in the neck and the Silver in the middle. I found these to be the nicest combo for what you are trying to achieve. I did try a Blue in the neck and found it a bit, "farty".

The Hot Rails pickup was designed under the premise that most players would be installing it into a guitar with 250K pots so I wouldn't worry about changing any of the pots. Besides, there's no, "in stone" rule which demands all humbuckers to use 500K pots.

The Hot Rails (HR) is a really, "over the top" type pickup. So, you'll have a totally different sound than the Laces. And yes, the HR will be a lot louder. As many people put full sized humbuckers in the bridge of their Strats, I wouldn't call it a mismatch but no way will it sound like any kind of Strat pickup unless you wire up the HR to where you can split the coils.

In lieu of the HR, you might want to consider a Lace Red. This is a 'kind of' "over the top" pickup, not as extreme as the HR but it'll get you in the same tonality area and naturally, it'll look more homogenous.

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thanks, ya i've thought about the gold too. how does it compare to the blue? Ive liked the clips of both that i've heard but i dont have any experience with either.

i kinda decided against the red after reading some reviews..I never seem to use the bridge pu on my strat much anyway so I figured with the hotrail i would at least be able to use my strat for what i normally play (hard rock/metal) than with the lace red and then with the blue/silver (or maybe gold/silver) id still be able to get the cleans/more "strat-y" tones i need.

The Gold is supposed to mimic a Pre-CBS Strat pickup and the Blue is supposed to mimic a PAF.

If hard rock/metal is the norm of what you would play off the bridge pickup, IMO, the HR would be the best choice for that single coil slot. Again though, if you want any kind of Strat tones out of the HR, you'd have to additionally wire it with a push/pull pot or mini-switch so that it can be switched to parallel and/or single coil mode(s).

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alright thanks...after reading some reviews of the gold it does seem like it will sound more like a traditional single coil than the blue so I may have to go with a gold instead...so now im actually thinking about 2 golds (for neck and mid) haha so how does a silver compare to a gold for the mid position?

The Silver has a little more 'beef' to it. It is a bit more powerful than the Gold while still retaining the Strat sound. However, it doesn't have the 'sweetness' the Gold does.

FWIW, when I was using Laces, G/G/S was my choice in my Strats.

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If you haven't made up your mind about Lace Sensors, you might want to look into Samarium Cobalt Noiseless pickups.
They come in a set, with precut wire lengths. I just put a set in my Strat and I'm really liking them. Very quiet, but hot enough to get a lot of different sounds.