Hi Fender Family ,, i just wanted to know if anyone has installed a calibrated set of "Lace Sensors Red,Silver,Blue, Calibrated Pickups in a Stratocaster ,, i want to know if they are good ,, reading the specs they are kinda hot at 14.6 bridge , and like 10.7 and 10.6 middle and neck ... ,, will i lose that stratocaster sound ??? Thanks Everyone for your input on these ,,, sincerely from D.Faze

I did this once, but I wasn't happy with them. The neck was little too muddy for me and the red was too hot.

I used to own a Strat plus with Gold Lace Sensors and I loved them.

How do you like your new pickups?

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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

Blue is supposed to emulate an early 50s Gibson P90 pickup, louder and warmer than the Gold.

Silver reproduces the beefy tone of an overwound single-coil Strat pickup from the CBS era with a tight, focused midrange.

Red is the burner of the series with lots of humbucking crunch and fat, punchy midrange into the mix!

Of course there's another calibrated set for your Strat with Emerald, Silver and Purple Lace's, the middle pickup is a RWRP version of the Silver sensor.

Thats my favorite combo on a Strat! Nothing you can't cover with that combo!

The Lace Sensor Plus and Rainbow pickup sets may be more versatile if you add TBX and MDX tone boosts (Clapton circuit) with S-1 switching. Andy Bighair has done the mods on several of his custom-made creations.

I have these along with the Clapton boost circuit and TBX installed in a Warmouth strat I built and they sound great. You can still get the classic strat sound as well as a heavier sound from the highter output pickups. You may need to adjust your amp setting slightly but for the most part this give a very versatile combination of sounds.

I will also mention that I orginally had these in the same strat without the active circuitry and liked it but feel the Lace Sensor's "come to life" better with the active circuit...IMO.

Give 'em a try!

@Sybex

Did you also tried the Clapton circuit with the Red/Red humbucking dually pickups? The boost makes the dual Red/Red Lace Sensor humbucker screaming like a wife shouting "WTF"!

There are two Lace calibrated sets for Stratocasters, the so-called "Plus" pack you're talking about and the "Rainbow" pack.

The Rainbow pack includes an Emerald Sensor for the neck, a RW/RP Silver Sensor for the middle and a Purple Sensor for the bridge.

Howdy!

I own a set and for a while they were housed in my white parts-caster.



Bellow is a copy of my post from a similar thread a year or so ago:

My preference for a good all round pup would be a set of Lace Sensors (red, silver and blue). There are as noiseless as pickups get, well designed and manufactured. They are also reasonably priced. To my ears they have a very contemporary tone.

I'd recommend trying out a set before you spend any money as they are, not to everyone's taste. You'll either lov'em or hate um!

Bridge – Red Lace Sensor - Resistance: 14.5k. Great for your Metal, Hard Rock duties etc. Loads of mid range power.

Middle – Silver Lace Sensor - Resistance: 7.1k. Good for funk and blues. Quite full sounding for a middle pup, very usable

Neck – Blue Lace Sensor - Resistance: 12.8k. Really nice deep soulful tone for blues. Quite close to a P90. Roll off the tone to get your jazz tone (though can be a bit bassy)

I've found that these pups work well in conjunction with a decent EQ pedal or active wiring (on-board pre-amp etc)!

That's pretty much everything covered!

Enjoy!

Andy

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Pending Greatness

I'd go with all of that. People get very heated for or against Sensors, some claiming they can do everything including the washing up, others saying they sound nothing like a "real" Strat.

Personally, I love the Red-Blue-Silver set for everything from big, round, warm, fulsome neck tones to ultra-aggressive lead work at the bridge. You can get great sustain by setting them low in the pickguard and unlike conventional pickups you can also take them as close as you like to the strings for even more output without getting wolf notes. To my ears they don't do "vintage" Strat sounds and maybe they're not ideal for "in between" sounds either, so I use different guitars for that stuff. But I ain't going to arm wrestle anyone over that point!

Suck 'em and see, is surely the best advice.

Cheers - C

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Howdy!

The upper latching push switch turns a rare Wilkinson Mid-boost on and off. The lower works as an on/off switch for the bridge pup.

Cheers!

Andy

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Pending Greatness

@andybighair

Did the Wilkinson preamp use the same 25dB gain boost as the Fender MDX circuit or it's weakier?

Unfortunately, I don't have the spec's for it and can't find any info regarding it anywhere.



It sounds awesome with passive pickups. It's so good that if I could find more I'd probably put one in every guitar I own!

On topic - its sounds great with Lace sensors (Red, Silver, Blue).

Andy

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Pending Greatness

Recently you swapped the Lace Ultra set for a trio of VNs in your main guitar.