Previous owner of my '97 Clapton Signature had swapped out the Lace Golds for VN's to keep the thing up to date, unfortunately binning the original Laces. I thought it sounded just fine, same as the Standard Strat I fitted the mid-boost and VN's to a few years back.
But for the sake of accuracy I hunted down the appropriate Gold Laces and spent a while this morning putting it back to spec. OMG. Why did they change them? (apart from the usual boring commercial reasons) It is sooo much better in every way, so good in fact I took the VN's out of my other one and replaced with a set of Fender Lace Blue/Silver/Red I had for another project. Now the Golds are good, but that combo with the mid-boost is something else.
Apologies for the ramble, just sharing the happiness!

_________________
Standard Stratocaster w/mid-boost & Lace Sensors
Am. Standard Stratocaster FSR Daphne Blue
Tele-bration Mahogany Telecaster
Fender Pro Junior w/custom 2x10 tweed cab - nice!
Koch Twintone 2
The odd Parker and PRS

Having owned several guitars with Lace Sensors including Gold, Blue, Red and a double wide Red Humbucker, both Strats and Teles, I came to appreciate the Vintage Noiseless as an improvement over Lace Sensors. I found the Samarium Cobalts to be a step backward from the VNs. I have not tried Fender's latest Noisless creation. Currently I find the Kinman Mark III to be the best Noiseless I've tried but I have some DiMarzios on order and am looking forward to testing them.

_________________

Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

How was the dual red Lace Sensor? I'm thinking about putting one in my guitar. Did it have a good thickly distorted metal sound?

Yes, yes, yes.

I didn't enjoy Lace Sensors when I tried them, for a good while too. The Samarium Cobalts I despised with a passion so huge, I scared myself. The VNs I had in my old Deluxe were OK, but not brilliant. Either way, better than Lace or SCN.

Apparently the N3s are amazing, but I'm reserving judgement. To be honest, for the extra character, I'd rather put up with some added noise!

_________________
'01 American Deluxe HSS Strat.
'87 Japan HSS Strat.
'11 Custom Shop FMT HSS Strat.

"Without music, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines and dates by which bills must be paid."

Didn't intend this to be a 'Laces are best' thing. Just a personal revelation that IMHO the Laces suit the Clapton electronics better than the VN's. I briefly had a mk1 Telecaster plus with the Lace Blue in the neck and Red Dually in the bridge. It was alright but the Laces didn't impress enough to make me want to keep it. I fitted the VN's into another decent Strat and they are OK, but do lack a bit of character. I have a brand new Deluxe with the N3's, certainly more organic sounding than the VN's (haven't tried the SCN's so cannot comment), the best way of thinking is it sounds like a Strat with very good pickups should and absolutely no noise - just what it says on the box.

_________________
Standard Stratocaster w/mid-boost & Lace Sensors
Am. Standard Stratocaster FSR Daphne Blue
Tele-bration Mahogany Telecaster
Fender Pro Junior w/custom 2x10 tweed cab - nice!
Koch Twintone 2
The odd Parker and PRS

I own a Candy Green EC Strat from just before the swap to VN and an '87 Strat Plus. I really love the Lace Sensors. They have a beautiful clean tone as well as working well with the mid-range boost.

In my humble opinion I feel that the EC Strat is the very best guitar on the market, but tastes may vary.

_________________
1975 Sunburst Stratocaster rosewood finger board
1979 Stratocaster with roseowood finder board
2001 Candy Green Clapton Stratocaster
2007 Andy Summers Inspired Telecaster
2007 '51 P-Bass
2012 Taylor 110
2015 Mystic Ice Blue Deluxe Stratocaster Plus

The red dually was fairly hot. That's about all I can say about it. I found it to be an unremarkable humbucker. There are a ton of better choices for a hot humbucker. Quite honestly I am becoming more and more skeptical about the wisdom of using hot humbuckers for that kick in the butt kinda tone. I'm leaning more and more toward using lower ouptput pups and getting the grind from the amp's power section by pushing the amp harder rather than the preamp section by driving the preamp hard with hot pups and stomp boxes.

Nevertheless if you feel the need to go that route there are hot pups out there that are classics and are still hard to beat for their intended purpose. The Seymore Duncan Pearly Gates and the DiMarzio Super Distortion are both great pickups for the bridge position, each with it's own strengths. For a Strat I think the Gates would be a better choice as it is EQ'd more in the mid range where the Super can be kinda boomy.

_________________

Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

True. I've owned both EC's with Lace and VNs. I thought the VNs were okay. The Lace Golds however, are a different animal. They can be adjusted as close as possible to the strings for superior sustain and have more bite. But, as you said, the Lace are better in conjunction with the MDX than the VNs. This is easiest to tell in positions 2&4. On the VNs with the MDX cranked the 2&4 positions are virtually unusable unless you have the TBX near full-out to clean up the flabby bass and lower-mids. With the Lace Sensors, every position is beautiful. The 2&4 positions are infinitely more authentic on the Lace. I personally was experimenting today with:

Vol: 10, TBX: 0-1, MDX: 10, positions 1 and 2 give great cocked wah sounds. Positions 3 and 5 are awesome at these settings with the TBX approaching 3. Tons of variations on the humbucker theme.

My '89 EC will always be my favorite guitar.

Well there you have your two cents worth from the Clapton fanatics club of which I am a member. I don't know that I can add much more to the pros and cons or, as I am often known to write: "You can please some of the people, some of the time, all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time,'' other than I used to own a '93 Tele Plus which had a Blue LS at the neck and a Red Dually at the bridge and thought it was an awesome guitar. I traded it for a mint '93 Black Clapton, and have regretted letting it go ever since.

Now to your question, and this is from Mike Eldred, the question having been put to him by me, my ear being more in line with yours.

"We sent him a set and he liked them.'' That's all there is to it.

{NB:I have always had a suspicion that Fender, in their quest to move forward, was looking to end their dependence on Actodyne Industries...the outfit which makes the LS's.....once the Plus line was discontinued. The old Buddy Guy Artist Series guitar, which used them, is gone, too.]

Now..to further complicate your tone quest, when the VN's went in, the TBX came out of his stage guitars in favor of a standard tone pot. Apparently he found the TBX too muddy. NFT's remarks above seem to support some of that.

For your continued interest, there's a recent thread in which one of our members stripped down the TBX pot, and reconfigured the circuitry into what he considers a far better component, and might just correct some of the objectionable findings NFT comments on.

Doc.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

Thanks for your continued input and comments/opinions.

In a quest for authenticity in my constructed Clapton-esque Standard I took out the TBX and replaced it with a regular CTS 250K, and it was better with the VN's. BUT, when I put the Laces into it I put the TBX back in and it just works that much better.

Not to be too nit-picky, but if Mr C doesn't have the TBX in his personal guitars, why is it still in the production ones?

_________________
Standard Stratocaster w/mid-boost & Lace Sensors
Am. Standard Stratocaster FSR Daphne Blue
Tele-bration Mahogany Telecaster
Fender Pro Junior w/custom 2x10 tweed cab - nice!
Koch Twintone 2
The odd Parker and PRS

As far as we could discern on that one, for it too occupied quite an extensive thread several years ago, the Artist Signature Series guitars are supposed to be what Eldred calls a 'snapshot' of the stage guitar.[Keeping in mind that, at the outset...1988....the Signature Series guitars the factory produced,[ albeit the fact that he played the red and pewter prototypes,] were essentially one and the same. That since has evolved as the line evolved and differentiated. So even though Eric changed the pickups and pulled the TBX, they kept the TBX when the VN's went into the factory production line guitars.

Now, with regard to the Custom Shop. Guitars built by more than one builder used to be denoted as 'Teambuilt'. This has now devolved into Custom Shop built. At one time the Clapton guitars built on that level did not have a TBX. A couple of years ago that changed, in that they put it in, and the confusion which spawned the thread was that the catalog specs had not and one of us contemplating a purchase, was a victim of the confusion, until we got it sorted out. In addition, the available colors are different on the CS guitars, and the signature, now on the back of the headstock, is different from that on the Artist Series guitar which remains the original design, on the face.

Masterbuilt Clapton guitars are the only one's built to artist spec as used on stage. No TBX and...if you want to be spot on.....have it without a signature, Eric having requested that same be removed from his personal guitars, years ago.

As an example, one of us, within the past two years, had a replica of the guitar used in the Cream Reunion concerts built, the key factor here being the neck wood.

The interest in the fanbase's pursuit of the artist's gear resulted in the Limited Edition Daphne Blue and EC Gray guitars, which were initially released in England in 2009 and later, due to demand, I expect, in the US in 2010, to run only 12 mos. EC gray is the Ferrari paint color grigiosilverstone. I expect there's a copyright issue which obliged FMIC to give the paint its own Fender name. There wasn't anyone on the Forum who acquired one who wasn't totally blown away with what the shop turned out.

On a personal note, and not withstanding his websites, and public relations organization, when it comes to his gear, he's always seemed to keep himself just on the other side of the line from his adoring fans with regard to their specs. The only artist I can quote wanting to be able to walk into any guitar shop on the planet and pull off the wall the same guitar he used on stage was Van Halen.

Time will tell with these new signature amps of his and, if he doesn't tweek them just a tad to suit his purposes. His time tested '57 Twins were all supercharged and hot rodded beyond the specs of what the company sells because the load he was placing on them was causing them to overheat. There's detailed notes in the Bonhams' catalog about how Cesar Diaz did that in the mid-80's, along with other modifications. FMIC's John Suhr built four replicas of that amp in 1997. It took them three years to dope out everything they needed on those. ECT 2 and 3 were sold at the Bonham Auction and they are slightly different from each other. ECT 1 was kept by EC and #4 was a gift to BB King.

Ya'll gets ta loin a lodda crap when ya hangs out here.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"

Thanks ZZDoc, this is exactly why I keep coming back here.

I was intrigued by the new range of amps. I am English (and not too afraid to admit it!) and in the town where we used to live there is a boutique amp maker by the name of Denis Cornell, who made a whole series of tweed amps especially for Mr C which I know were widely used (naturally I wanted one but they were way beyond my humble pocket) . Does anyone know if Mr C is actually using the new Fender amps?

_________________
Standard Stratocaster w/mid-boost & Lace Sensors
Am. Standard Stratocaster FSR Daphne Blue
Tele-bration Mahogany Telecaster
Fender Pro Junior w/custom 2x10 tweed cab - nice!
Koch Twintone 2
The odd Parker and PRS

Dennis Cornell and his work product are a known quantity. The two amps, designated DC-1 and DC-2 which he built for EC were used by the artist between 2002-2004. The DC-2 was sold at auction at Bonhams this year. The discussion around this new signature amp issue has also looked at whether or not we are going to see them on stage with him.

Time will tell.

By the way......when one get's into reading some of the specs on these items, one begins to appreciate how far from stock much of an artist's gear is. Those Cornell amps were the product of his modification of some VibroKing amps which Fender gave to Clapton on their introduction. They were the Custom Shop's idea of the kind of an amp they would build for Eric Clapton. Not withstanding, Eric had Cornell modified the amp to improve the midrange. Subsequently, and based on this work, Cornell build two amps for Eric in the tradition of the '57 Twin Tweeds. Eric hears in his head his own particular tone from heaven. It took Fender three years to build those Twin clones to his satisfaction. Perhaps it took Cornell a year based upon what he had already gleaned from his work on the VibroKings. We petty people are trying to chase an artist's tone with gear out of a manufacturer's shipping carton. I know it can be done, to a point....close, but no cigar.

_________________
"Another day in paradise!"