Which PUs for Strat build?

[SiZi]

Hi All,

I’d love your opinion… I’m on my second build, this one is a Strat. I am wondering which pickups to try. I have a bunch of vintage spec Strat single coil guitars already, and vintage Ibanez and Tokai humbuckers too, and a P90 on my last build. So, I want to try something new on Build#2, something I don’t have. 

I was thinking Lace Sensor Gold. Any thoughts on this, or any other suggestions for me to try? 

I play SRV, Jimi, Mayer, type stuff. 

Thanks so much! 

Sia

[Bizman62]

I don't know if you'd get any major difference with the Lace Sensor Golds compared to your vintage spec ones. Their marketing speech heavily relies on the "50's sound with less noise" with "wider harmonic range" as a side note. Then again I've never used either "true vintage specs" or Lace Sensors. All I know is that even the cheap ones I've been using seem to produce the recognizable characteristic tones of a certain guitar, at least to a degree according to more savvy players.

That said even I with my sub-mediocre playing skills can tell that there's audible differences between pickups of the same type. Back in the day I tried a Strat with a much hotter bridge pickup. Most likely the previous owner had used that for boosting his soloing instead of using a pedal but it was totally unplayable for me. Noiseless sounds good on paper but how much of the characteristics of a single coil comes from the hum? You can't tell until you try!

Happy hunting!

[SiZi]

30 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

I don't know if you'd get any major difference with the Lace Sensor Golds compared to your vintage spec ones. Their marketing speech heavily relies on the "50's sound with less noise" with "wider harmonic range" as a side note. Then again I've never used either "true vintage specs" or Lace Sensors. All I know is that even the cheap ones I've been using seem to produce the recognizable characteristic tones of a certain guitar, at least to a degree according to more savvy players.

That said even I with my sub-mediocre playing skills can tell that there's audible differences between pickups of the same type. Back in the day I tried a Strat with a much hotter bridge pickup. Most likely the previous owner had used that for boosting his soloing instead of using a pedal but it was totally unplayable for me. Noiseless sounds good on paper but how much of the characteristics of a single coil comes from the hum? You can't tell until you try!

Happy hunting!

Thanks for your input. I too am suspicious about how different they will sound from my vintage spec PUs. I saw some videos that showed lace sensors to be quite different in their build and this the physics of how they work and so I wondered if that might translate to something tangibly distinct while playing. 
 

I have been looking for what else is out there as a single cool option for a Strat. If nothing I’ll probably just settle on Lace Golds. Let’s see… 

[mistermikev]

I have some lace sensors... from the 90s.  they really are good pickups but I'll tell you the skinny on them from my perspective... a single lace sensor has less hum than a typical single coil pickup... but when you combine two lace sensors or a lace sensor with a std single... they don't cancel hum at all... so they have MORE hum than typical single.  They also don't have the "magic" that comes when you combine two std singles.  for that reason... they've sat in a box.  

so... if you want some things that are "different"... here's some favs of mine...

dimarzio red velvet.  this is a great bridge strat pickup... one of my favs.  it has a brass plate on the bottom that reflects the magnetic field upward and gives it some extra growl.  It ends up somewhere between a strat and a tele pickup.  

rio grande tallboy - this is a super overwound single.  again... lots of mid bite.

for something different... you might try some of the seymour single sized humbuckers.  for me... SL59 is just a great pickup.  lower output for a humbucker but just a great sound for the bridge or neck in a strat.  similar to lace... when you split these and combine with the middle/neck... they aren't great.  I prefer combining a bridge with a std single neck and middle at the sm time.  great sound.  or you can wire up the entire guitar with single sized humbuckers.  a jb in the bridge, seth lover in the middle and 59 in the neck?  guaranteed great combo.  when you split and combine these mini hums together... since you are combining one thin coil with another similar thin coil... they sound great.  so you might go with a super switch and do split/combined in position 2/4 for a more strat like sound... and full humbuckers in 1/3/5 for more 'humbucker' sounds.  

you could go all active emgs... emgs have a sound all their own... and I'd say they aren't as good for cleans but mark knopfler sure makes them sound good.  you can see a live vid of him doing 'brother in arms' with all emg singles and it's about as good as it gets.  

just some ideas.

[SiZi]

44 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

I have some lace sensors... from the 90s.  they really are good pickups but I'll tell you the skinny on them from my perspective... a single lace sensor has less hum than a typical single coil pickup... but when you combine two lace sensors or a lace sensor with a std single... they don't cancel hum at all... so they have MORE hum than typical single.  They also don't have the "magic" that comes when you combine two std singles.  for that reason... they've sat in a box.  

so... if you want some things that are "different"... here's some favs of mine...

dimarzio red velvet.  this is a great bridge strat pickup... one of my favs.  it has a brass plate on the bottom that reflects the magnetic field upward and gives it some extra growl.  It ends up somewhere between a strat and a tele pickup.  

rio grande tallboy - this is a super overwound single.  again... lots of mid bite.

for something different... you might try some of the seymour single sized humbuckers.  for me... SL59 is just a great pickup.  lower output for a humbucker but just a great sound for the bridge or neck in a strat.  similar to lace... when you split these and combine with the middle/neck... they aren't great.  I prefer combining a bridge with a std single neck and middle at the sm time.  great sound.  or you can wire up the entire guitar with single sized humbuckers.  a jb in the bridge, seth lover in the middle and 59 in the neck?  guaranteed great combo.  when you split and combine these mini hums together... since you are combining one thin coil with another similar thin coil... they sound great.  so you might go with a super switch and do split/combined in position 2/4 for a more strat like sound... and full humbuckers in 1/3/5 for more 'humbucker' sounds.  

you could go all active emgs... emgs have a sound all their own... and I'd say they aren't as good for cleans but mark knopfler sure makes them sound good.  you can see a live vid of him doing 'brother in arms' with all emg singles and it's about as good as it gets.  

just some ideas.

Thank you so much for the great ideas! I’ll look into these 

[curtisa]

9 hours ago, mistermikev said:

but when you combine two lace sensors or a lace sensor with a std single... they don't cancel hum at all... so they have MORE hum than typical single.  They also don't have the "magic" that comes when you combine two std singles.

Is that still the case with Lace Sensors? All the sound demos I can find for the pickups do the in-between Strat thing as you'd expect any in-between Strat, and no-one mentions the poor noise performance in those positions.

OP mentions preferring SRV, Hendrix or Meyer. Certainly Jimi would've pre-dated the age of hot-hodding with aftermarket pickups, and SRV was known to use stock Strats (or at least, Strats with stock parts pulled together from various sources and eras). If you're chasing that sound maybe focus on pickups that advertise their close affinity with pickups of the period they're trying to emulate - from the 50s and 60s.

A lot of the info about Meyer's guitars seem to indicate that the specs for his signature Black Strat was based heavily on the Fender SRV model from 1996, which came with Texas Specials. Again, these were based on stock (overwound) Fender singles from the 50s/60s. Whether Meyer copied the choice of pickups into his own model..? It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that would be the case.

[mistermikev]

1 hour ago, curtisa said:

Is that still the case with Lace Sensors? All the sound demos I can find for the pickups do the in-between Strat thing as you'd expect any in-between Strat, and no-one mentions the poor noise performance in those positions.

OP mentions preferring SRV, Hendrix or Meyer. Certainly Jimi would've pre-dated the age of hot-hodding with aftermarket pickups, and SRV was known to use stock Strats (or at least, Strats with stock parts pulled together from various sources and eras). If you're chasing that sound maybe focus on pickups that advertise their close affinity with pickups of the period they're trying to emulate - from the 50s and 60s.

A lot of the info about Meyer's guitars seem to indicate that the specs for his signature Black Strat was based heavily on the Fender SRV model from 1996, which came with Texas Specials. Again, these were based on stock (overwound) Fender singles from the 50s/60s. Whether Meyer copied the choice of pickups into his own model..? It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that would be the case.

I specifically mentioned that mine were from the 90s because I'm not sure.  That said, even in the 90s... nobody but me seemed to care about that fact.  Reading through the modern literature... there is no "unlike lace sensors of the past... blah blah blah" so I suspect they are the sm but can't confirm.  It's not like you'll hear a lot of noise when you combine them... they are in fact a quieter pickup... but ime when you combined mine they aren't "totally quiet" like two std single coils are.  

SRV - op also said: "I have a bunch of vintage spec Strat single coil guitars already...I want to try something new" so I was going off of that.

lot of folks have analyzed the srv strats and like anything else you find all sorts of mojo sauce there.  I've read a lot of differing views.  I've read that he had selected 3 singles from several vintage sets and they were .2 overwound, that he had the original pickups re-wound to a slight overwind, and that they were stock with a neck pu overwound but the bridge/middle were 5.95k spec.  Fender did this "#1 autopsy" on his guitar but failed to release the actual measurements... reminds me of hiraldo rivera and the al capone vault.

Tex specials are 6.7, 6.5, and 6.2.  Funny that they are marketed as "SRV Like" but that different.  I have a set in a guitar but just can't like them, altho it might have a lot to do with the heavy stagger and the fact that the guitar they are in is not a 7.25 radius.  John Mayer sure makes them sound good.

[Bizman62]

As for SRV, it's not only about the pickups. SRV often used different amps linked together for a fuller sound. Something like a Vibroverb with a Bassman just to name one.

I have a pile of Fender Frontline magazins from the early 1990's where I recall having seen an article about just that combination along with the pot settings but couldn't find it. It must have been on the very issue which also included the instructions for a pull-push pot mod for a Strat to get the Tele combinations. Guess that mag never came back from the guy who did that mod for me.

[avengers63]

I you want to go in a different direction... I've been wanting a  Duncan Quarter Pound strat set for a coupe of years. If money isn't an issue, I'd bet that Fralin's split blades are awesome. In a COMPLETELY different direction, 3 Charlie Christian's would be interesting.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/quarter-pound-strat

https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/strat-split-blade/

https://www.mojopickups.co.uk/product-category/pickups/charlie-christian/

[SiZi]

23 minutes ago, avengers63 said:

I you want to go in a different direction... I've been wanting a  Duncan Quarter Pound strat set for a coupe of years. If money isn't an issue, I'd bet that Fralin's split blades are awesome. In a COMPLETELY different direction, 3 Charlie Christian's would be interesting.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/quarter-pound-strat

https://www.fralinpickups.com/product/strat-split-blade/

https://www.mojopickups.co.uk/product-category/pickups/charlie-christian/

Thank you so much! I think the Fralin option hits the spot - I found what I was looking for