School me on Lace pickups.

[BitchPudding]

So I'm thinking of getting the classic Blue Silver Red loaded guard for my old strat, breath some new life into it. I like how the demos sound, but I would like to know if any of you have used Lace stuff in your gitfiddles and what you thought of them sound wise. Worth the money? Nah? LMK.

[The Eristic]

I have that setup in my old Strat Ultra, except the Red is a dually. I like them a lot, though the Red is a little too dark in double coil mode, I've been tempted to swap for a brighter pair. The Blue is about as hot as a P90 but very clean and smooth, the Silver is closest in voicing and output to a regular strat pickup but more even and doesn't really "spank" like a trad single coil when you pick hard, while the Red can do dark humbucker, pseudo-tele and very edgy strat bridge sound depending on which coil(s) you use. Clean/smooth/even/hi-fi are the sorts of terms you'll see a lot, and they're pretty apt. I might have some vids of that guitar, I'll see if I can find one.

[BitchPudding]

Sick, thats convincing me even more to do the thing. Lemme know if you find that vid.

[Blackened Soul]

I have a ManOwar MM style Lace Sener in my 12 string bass.. it kind has a hammer of the doom gods type thing going on

[colin]

I have an old Strat Plus that came stock with triple gold lace sensors. They're good pickups, but definitely low output. I switched to the blue silver red several years ago, really like the blue and silver, hated the red in the bridge. But I'm weird, I mostly only use the bridge pickup clean, and mostly use neck and middle anyway. So I've still got the blue and silver in and have put a gold back in the bridge. I've been thinking of getting a second silver for the bridge.

[Bartimaeus]

probably the thing people have the most trouble getting used to is how noiseless they are. you can get a really wide dynamic range from them with no noise at all. but that can make them feel sterile to some people.

also they're much more balanced sounding that traditional bright fender, which is probably why fender paired them with a tbx tone control in the plus guitars. the lace blue is even marketed as having a warm humbucker sound in a single coil shape. the tbx really helps get the most out of them.

[The Eristic]

Sick, thats convincing me even more to do the thing. Lemme know if you find that vid.

I know I've got a segment somewhere where I specifically go through all of the pickups individually because someone asked about them on stream, but I'm still tracking that segment down.

Here's a pretty shreddy sound switching between Blue and Red, you can at least hear how even and balanced they are, they don't have that strat dip or edge at all, especially the Blue: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/737706742

This is a whole stream so it's really long, but if you want to just click around, towards the beginning there's a lot of clean noodling on the Blue, then some rock/metal sounds on the Red somewhere around the 2h09' mark (I turn the TBX up after a minute or two there, you can hear the mids push up), then ambient sounds with various pickup and coil combos for the last ~15 minutes. The brightest, stringiest sound in that part is the bridge coil of the Red dually on its own. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/679160543

All the sounds are a little brighter/crispier in the room vs the mic'd sound, but not by much. Hope these help!

[Ghost Hip]

I just did this to my Strat! the classic blue silver red combo. I have the silver (neck) and blue (bridge) in my Tele. But my first experience was slapping a lace sensor blue in a MIJ Mustang bridge.

I love the Lace Sensor Blue. It sounds so tonally neutral to me, like a really flat EQ'd humbucker. I love it in the bridge because it really stays aggressive and articulate with dirt pedals. I have it in the neck on my strat and I love it there too so far.

The silver sounds more like a Fender pickup in how it is EQ'd, bit more honk and twang or whatever word you wanna use.

Red is pretty similar to Blue but its warmer and has more output. It's a bit odd feeling in the bridge position of the strat because its such a dramatic change from stock.

I'm thinking of switching my Strat so its Blue bridge, silver middle, and red neck. I have grown attached to the Blue in the bridge position over the years and how well dirt pedals process it.

[Ghost Hip]

Okay I plugged my strat into my Supro Thunderbolt and Red and I are cool now.

[ibarakishi]

I have lace gold 'single coils' in my bridge and middle, then a alumitone deathbucker in the bridge. One thing to really be aware of too BitchPudding is that all lace pickups are extremely sensitive to how high you place them to the strings. You don't need to listen to anyone in regards to how they 'should' be placed. By this i mean that i found that mine get the sound i like out of them when they are absurdly close to the strings. When i first bought them and had them put into my guitar, i was incredibly disappointed until i sat down and adjusted them myself one day. It wasn't until i put them waaaaaay up close to the strings that things began to open up and bloom a bit in both the highs and lows, which blew me away. Your results will differ obviously in whatever setup you are using, but the golds are really warm and have a lot of bottom end weight with the highs being more rounded off. The alumitone in my bridge is tonally the opposite, in that it is anything but warm and is instead ultra high fi. You hear everything, good or bad, and its incredibly transparent without any forgiveness. I love this and it has influenced my playing a lot. The alumitone has lows too, but what it cool about how i have mine set up is that there is a really nice contrast between those lows and the searing highs that you get out of it as well. Alumitones are clang gang for days. Golds are what you would expect out of a normal pickup. I have both in one guitar so that in live situations with looping i can easily get a variety of tones with different footprints that don't clash with each other. Also, overall imo probably the biggest strength of the alumitones is how they work with any time of dirt. They just have so much definition and weight, i don't understand how it works but its hard to get something to sound bad with them, especially if you are recording. They really help things cut through and don't really ever get muddy. The golds on the other hand get muddy fast with any type of dirt and are not nearly as versatile imo. Once i found out how much i love my deathbucker in the bridge position, i was done with my pickup quest from that point on for guitars. Ive tried a few things out here and there just for fun, but literally every recordings i have made or released has had them on it as it is the thing that i come back to and enjoy playing the most.

For 90% of my playing i use my alumitone with my driving notion as my 'always on' pedal at lower clang settings. If you want to hear real life examples of it, literally every guitar sound you hear on this album has the alumitones and a tiny bit of the golds in a few places as well : https://aworldwonderedfull.bandcamp.com/album/--3

[BetterOffShred]

Anyone tried an X-bar ? I was looking at the 5" for my 10 string..

[Blackened Soul]

Anyone tried an X-bar ? I was looking at the 5" for my 10 string..

I have one but havent used it yet. I'm planning on using on a 8 string bass lapsteel project

[BetterOffShred]

They are supposedly more full mids and bass than the Deathbar

[qersty]

Blues>Distortion +>?????>Profit!

[frodog]

Since it hasn't been mentioned, and this is ILF after all, let me give a shout-out to the PURPLE Lace Sensor. I have had this in the neck (replacing a mehh stock single coil) of my Squier '51 for like 10 years and it's awesome. Supposed to be their P90-type PU, but it doesn't sound like any other such I've tried. Very dark and fat, but also balanced and super detailed. I hesitate to call it scooped, but definitely leans towards a very particular, nocturnal frequency range with flat, withdrawn mids and a subtle, smooth sparkle. Lovely with any dirt. Idk, that's as accurately I can describe it now after not having played that guitar for months, and of course results may vary by guitar (mine has an all maple neck). It's also wired out of phase with the bridge HB, so in the middle pos it's all hollow and thin. Except for that trick, not the ideal pickup if you're after the clang, it's hello darkness my old friend all the way. I'll never replace it tho, just has a unique character I doubt could be found easily elsewhere.