SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

Elfunkenstein

New member
Exactly like it says in the title, does anyone have experience with both? How are they similar? How are they different? How do they compare to other single coil sized humbuckers?
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

i've never had/used a little 59. i have used the sensor blue.

the blue is a single coil. the lil 59 has 2 coils, more like a traditional humbucker. i've used the blue in both neck and bridge. it sounded kinda "blah" in the bridge. not enough low to be warm, not enough treble to "spank", and not enough mid for a nice noticeable spike.

in the neck it was very jazzy and warm. the best single coil sized jazz neck sound i've ever had. wes montgomery in a strat (tone control is a must as well). i've seen some jazz players use a tele neck position with some tone controls as a jazz guitar. i just wish i was better at jazz!!
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

I have used both.

Used in the neck position of an ash body, screwed-on maple neck, rosewood fingerboard guitar, the Li'l '59 certainly had something of a PAF about it. Roll back the tone pot, crank those valves into overdrive and your ears would believe that they are hearing a full-sized PAF. Nice.

I have used the blue FLS on two Fender guitars, a mid Nineties Am Std Strat and a James Burton Signature Tele. IMO, the blue sensor is slightly schizophrenic. It manages to combine some of the woodiness associated with a Gibson PAF with that Eric Clapton with midboost on all the time Strat sound. NOTE: This was with a regular 250kOhm treble roll off pot rather than a TBX stacked pot.

Used in the bridge position, the blue Sensor is slightly weak. Fender used to offer this as the "vintage" bridge position sensor for Telecaster. I can kinda understand why but, in the treble position, the red sensor always sounds better.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

Thanks, you guys have been helpful. I was thinking about getting the blue gold dually for the bridge position in a les paul copy I have but now I think I'll get that for the neck and just get the red silver for the bridge.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

i had a blue in the neck of my strat, and a blue in the bridge of my tele. I dont use either anymore, but the cheap GFS rail humbucker that replaced the tele bridge was much more lively and organic sounding. I also replaced the lace strat pickups with real (full size) 59's which were just lovely. If the lil 59 is somewhere between the lace and a full size humbucker then it would be an improvement over the lace IMO.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

i would NOT recommend duallys for a les paul type guitar. IMO duallys are made for versatile strats/tele's. i could be wrong on this, but the dually's are NOT RWRP like a true humbucker is. in other words, both the coils of the dually are the same direction and phase.

if you wanna go lace, and you want some strat/tele sounds you can go hemi humbucker. i've heard those things snap and you can roll off the tone for warmer tones.

hell, i would rather have lace's cheapo "powerd by lace" humbuckers than lace dually's in a les paul type. and as gibson175 mentioned, you would have a lot of options via GFS, or you can kick it up to Duncan/Dimarzio.

IMO , you have much cooler options than duallys in a les paul type.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

yes the duallys are technically not hum cancelling, but both of the coils themselves are so silent already that it doesn't matter. Other than that is there any other reason for putting them in a les paul?

edit: the reason I want to do this is because I like the versitility which this would give me. I'm thinking red/silver bridge, blue/gold neck, each of the four coils attached to its own concentric vol/tone knob. I could really shape the tone with that.

edit: if that doesn't work then I'll get a 78 for the bridge and a gfs mean 90 neck. But that's boring :(
 
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Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

dont let me wrong. you never stated what kind of music you wanted to play. if you wanted crazy options and sounds and forge a new path that is not "boring" but different then the lace dually's may fit the bill. johnny from radiohead has used lace's with great effect.

if you want versatility, and still "boring" good tone, i would consider P Rails. i think there is a new hot version coming out. i would love to have hot P-Rails for the bridge, and normal P Rails for the neck. you would have to wire in some switches for full potential, but that pair (i think) would rock a double HH guitar.

PS when i say "boring" i mean traditional, not directly boring.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

^ they're both humbucking pickups.

my understanding is that the lil 59 is more of a traditional humbucker in it's design (obviously smaller) and that the laces have 2 offset coils and a different magnetic structure... there was a recent thread about this with good images to illustrate this.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

lace p/u's are true single coil pickups with a different build structure. they don't need to be rw/rp for noise cancellation purposes. Also, phase reversal is as simple as swapping the leads either manually or with a switch. These qualities make a guitar with laces super easy to try out different wiring schemes.
No traditional N/S magnetic properties FTW!!

I have a blue neck sensor in one of my strats. i replaced it for a while with a jb jr. neck and essentially had the same sound feel. i wound up with the blue back in. It blurs the difference between sc and hb rather nicely.
Hemibuckers are way cool, but have 2 of the same coils in each p/u and are only 7k neck and 10k bridge.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

hm...I think I'm still leaning towards the lace set, but thanks for the input.

Blue/gold neck and red/silver bridge would def be a good fit together. As people have mentioned, you will not need to worry about hum cancelling because the pups are dead silent.
 
Re: SD lil' 59 vs. Lace Blue

^ they're both humbucking pickups.

my understanding is that the lil 59 is more of a traditional humbucker in it's design (obviously smaller) and that the laces have 2 offset coils and a different magnetic structure... there was a recent thread about this with good images to illustrate this.

the Lace Blue is NOT a humbucker, is a single coil pickup with the sensor pantent. The Dually Sensors that Lace offers stock and contain a blue sensor are the Blue/Gold and the Blue/Red.
 
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