Lace Red, Silver & Blue

[Van Noord]

Never tried any Lace pickups, thinking of putting a loaded pickgaurd with this set in my Strat.
Video examples sound...great. I like Fluffs youtube review.
Is the Red bridge a single sized humbucker? Can it pull off crunchy, fat high gain? Hair/thrash metal...fast tremelo picking?

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

Red is similar to a humbucker, but not exactly, and the Blue is pretty close to a P90. The Red can definitely handle metal, but it's not over the top with the heat. It's also really good with pinch harmonics. I'd say try it, it's one of their best selling sets for a reason.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

Technically the Lace sensors are shielded single coils and not humbuckers since there's no second coil to cancel hum. Instead there's shielding around the coil which has small sensing windows to read string vibration (a comb filter). Since 60 cycle hum is a longer wavelength it doesn't penetrate the sensing window and the noise is captured by the shield and sent to ground.

Lace pickups are pretty quiet and they sound excellent clean with good sensitivity. They are quiet with high volume and distortion levels, but they have a compressed quality which sounds different than most other pickups with high gain. Pick sensitivity is mediocre with high gain. Another thing you will notice about them is that their resonant peaks are in the 1-1.5K range while most other pickups are in the 2-4k range. This means that they have a strong midrange focus in a band of frequencies that sometimes sounds nasally.

One advantage they have is you can use two of them in place of a regular humbucker which gives you the option of three distinct sounds with a on/on/on switch. You can have either coil or both as a humbucker. Although if you use them together as a humbucker their combined resistance is higher than most humbuckers and their resonant peak is lower. So you get a dark thick humbucker.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

I have that exact setup. I had it one of my Strats for a very brief time and while it really sounds good it wasn't right for me...I wanted a more traditional sounding Strat, and this is not. You can definitely hear and feel the higher output, tonal saturation, and lower resonant peak. This is a good setup for many players obviously, but not for me. Besides, I have plenty of other guitar to get that tone and response.
If you want to try it out, PM me. Mine is like new and I'll sell it to you fairly cheap.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

I like them, I've played a Strat Plus Ultra with similar to that setup. Definitely not traditional; much less presence overall, far reduced chime, but I see why people who appreciate an even response or color their tone with pedals like them.

 

[gregory]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

I can see using a purple in the neck. I never liked the red; there are so many better choices these days, especially if you're looking for the tone of a side-by-side humbucker.

BC-2, Super Distortion S, Hot Rails, JB Jr: all solid choices for the bridge.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

I’ve never liked Laces period. (The single coil sized, “Color” ones) For what the Red/Silver/Blue are is advertised as I’d rather have a Hot Rails/Vintage Rails/Cool Rails or JB Jr./Duckbucker/Lil 59.

If you like what you hear in demos, you definitely should be able to find a used set at a good price, they’ve been around a long time now.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

I’ve never liked Laces period. (The single coil sized, “Color” ones) For what the Red/Silver/Blue are is advertised as I’d rather have a Hot Rails/Vintage Rails/Cool Rails or JB Jr./Duckbucker/Lil 59.

If you like what you hear in demos, you definitely should be able to find a used set at a good price, they’ve been around a long time now.

Like I said, I've got a wired Strat guard (white) with red/silver/blue essentially new...30% off

 

[Van Noord]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

Nice offer ^^^ I'm not in the US though. I saw a loaded Lace pickgaurd with this set for a good price and was wanting to put it in a second Strat.

 

[Snow007]

Re: Lace Red, Silver & Blue

I have a Fender Strat Ultra that had the red, silver and blue set. They sounded okay. I wasn't amazed or disappointed but I think their pickup descriptions were fairly accurate. If I was playing heavier music exclusively I'd rather have a real humbucker.