go to your local shop and play a fender... thats the best way.

DylanTalksTone ridiculus nonsense answer, !!

@@antonoguba not really... you must be new here. the point of this video is not the tone.... the point is how it works. the tone is very subjective. the point of what we do is to help you understand your guitar, not tell you what to buy or make tonal comparisons . there are TONS of videos with people playing lace sensors. Those are pointless too because only you hear a guitar the way you hear it. so.... go play one. form your own opinion, and report back. That is what this community is all about.

took me zero seconds to find kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Z5thgKxkvM3aepc.html

Just found your channel. Nice description/illustration. And not surprised to find some sort of troll immediately--you know, before Al Gore invented the internet, people had to go to stores and try things out, or God forbid, order something in, install it and try in your own guitar. smh--subscribed anyway, Like your presentation.

More like listening to it, lmao

This would explain why wrapping my pickups in (grounded) copper foil did absolutely nothing to reduce EMI. Could I reduce hum using steel or ferrite to wrap the sides and bottom of a regular single coil pickup?

Thanks for doing that

thank you for your contribution to this video. very informative stuff, never seen it before.

So how did you like your lace sensors compared to regular single coils?

@@nazmoking3171 They actually were in my friend's Tele... He obviously hated them because of the low output situation. I swapped in a set of overwound single coils which made him really happy. Another case of apples to oranges.

G60syncro haha, yes we're all different animals when it comes to our guitars, pickups, etc. I've never owned the Lace Sensors. P90's are my current favorite across the board. I call them more articulate humbuckers!

dont forget jonny greenwood and his tele plus with the dually red in the bridge. I've got one too, great hard-rock guitar with crazy output that drives distortion pedals or cranked amps into smooth sustain

Lace Purple in the neck is one of my favorite.

@@DJG016 I've got the Tele Plus also, best guitar I've got, I've known it to sustain more than some Les Paul's.

@@ChrisRash Not tried the Purple, imagine it sounds great though.

Ya i love my lace pickups. I have golds in my strat.

I have a red in my Strat Bridge and it’s too much for me. Love the blue and silver in neck and middle.

Boss feedback booster bruh lol

What do you mean by feedback in this regard?

I have a Strat with the 3 color L Sensors and a L P with 496/500 buckers. Night and day difference in sounds. I agree with L S needs gain pedal to do what my Paul does easily. But the L P is limited in the # of ways to be used where the Strat with TBX and different sounds of each pup has so many easy to use tones in it. But I also have a 12 pedal board and playing through a Boogie ,these 2 guitars pretty much cover whatever needs covering. I always loved Strats but didn't ever like the original single coils.

I use my middle p/u a lot alone. L/S silver. Or combined with neck blue is 2nd spot most used. Tone control in 4-7 range. Sounds well with the 10 band on my board.

I've got a 93 Strat Plus with the golds that I bought new and love.

I have two custom warmoths and have lollars in one and the Seymour Duncan everything axe loaded pickguard with the two toggle switches (one for coil tap and the other for activating neck pickup). I love the beefy smoothness of it but just doesn't give you that strat slap sound but can get some amazing tone with it. I fingerstyle and use it for getting some nice jazzy tones and then can slap into some screamin leads too. Very versatile though I am interested in the lace sensors for a fretless guitar I'm working on currently. Should be good for that or so I hope.

Yup, also have a Strat Plus with Gold Lace Sensors - great guitar & TBX is really useful too.

I love my strat plus!they have a very sweet sound clean and a really warm tone with drive and distortion.They are not for purist, but not every body want to sound like SRV

Strat plus best STRATOCASTER every made, imho

@@horacebond9394 Don't know about the best but it is certainly overlooked by many people.

Hotblack Desiato from 1987 to 1998 that was the top of the line until custom shop. Many of techs who worked on Strat Plus’ , Strat Plus Deluxe and Ultra’s went on to the custom shop. So many technical advances that many players today seem to miss. Roller nut/ LSR completely eliminates need for string trees, which induce drag and hurt sustain. Noiseless pickups ( now everybody has those) tbx. At end of the day though it’s all opinion, we each have one and neither is wrong! 👍🏽.

The Lace Alumitone works to a different set of electrical physical principles. Unlike traditional 'reluctor' style pickups, that have a high impedence coil wrapped around a iron or magnetic core (pole pieces), that creates an voltage in the coils as the string passes back and forth through the field created by the magnets. Alumitones use an 'Eddy-current' sensing design. The shell of this pickup is an alumin-i-um 'exoskeleton' with slots, water-jet cut into it. In these slots are placed ferro-ceramic-fubber magnets (just like those found in the 'Sensor' featured here...). They create a small magnetic field above the surface of the pickup. As the string vibrates, by passing back-and-forth through the tight field, eddy-currents are set up in cirular pattern around the ally exoskeleton. Inside the exoskeleton, sit a pair of very small coils, no longer or wider than a fingernail each, that sit side-by-side at one end of the pickup. These coils, in turn, are connected to the exoskeleton, via a rectangular ring made of soft-iron laminsations, 4 in number (similar to the soft-iron laminates found at the heart of any transformer, or within electric motors....). This laminate ring, passes through both coils and around a small section of the vertical end of exoskeleton, close to the support leg. The eddy-currents (with the musical data...) circulating around the exoskeleton, are thus sensed by these two coils, the eddy-currents imparting their electrical energy (and signal) to the coil windings via the rectangular, laminated core. The DCR of these coils, are typically around 1.8 kilo ohms per coil, giving a full DCR or around 3.6k ohm. 'Deathbuckers' - the high-output variant, has typically larger DCR and other variants will differ again. The coils use a finer gauge of wire than traditional windings. I've not determined what exaclty... most likely finer than >AWG 45. Without knowing the c.s.a of the wire ( or its gauge), the number of turns cannot be calculated. These coils are thus buggers to repair or copy.... Espaecially as Lace coat them in resin and encase the lot in heatshrink sleeves. They really *don't* want you inside there... Being of lower impedance than tradtional humbuckers, means they are less succeptable to RFI, making them quieter. And of course, much, much lighter.... The wiring of these coils differs, as one would expect, from the tradional method of hookup. Green wire is 'chassis ground', this is the screen of the pickup. Each coil terminates to a white or orange coloured wire. Sealed within the *resin* the orange wire of coil one is soldered to the white wire of the coil two, putting the two coils in series. From this junction and soldered to it, a white/black striped wire forms one of the hookup wires, the others being an orange (from coil two) which is the 'hot' (signal) conductor, the white wire from tcoil one and green screen/chassis ground. If the white/black striped wire is connected to ground, the first coil becomes open circuit and the junction goes to ground, leaving the second - hot coil active. If the white wire (from coil one) is connected, then the two coils are on in series across the junction. Though not technically a 'coil-tap', it serves the same purpose. In series, the coils give maximum output, tapped effectively reduces the output of the pickup, but not its range, or with any noticeable change in the noise floor (hum, or lack thereof...). There is however, a noticeable difference in tonal cadence, between the two states. Mistakes are often made by joining the two white and white/black wires together. This will cause the first coil to be open circuit and a nasty noise will ensue.... If both the same wires are then connected to chassis, then only the second coil will be active and at reduced output. So with Alumitone pickups, only *one* white-coloured wire should ever be connected to ground, though of course both would ideally be connected to a DPDT mini-toggle (push-pull etc...) switch, to allow selection of the output level/dual-sound option. The one main downside of these Alumitone pickups, other than the cost, is that they are so clear and precise, that the can easily show up poor fingering, fudges and string slides... So they do *educate* one to be more precise in playing (which of course is really an upside ;-) ) That said, this could be one of the reasons why some guitarists give them a wide berth (that and cost of course....). They can't handle the accuracy. Personally, I like all types of pickups, from all sources. But Lace are certainly up there with other favourite, more traditional and *h e a v i e r* brands.

@@Deebz270 "If the white/black striped wire is connected to ground, the first coil becomes open circuit " - did you mean to say that by connecting the "center tap" W/B wire to ground the first coil would be shorted to ground, not an "open circuit"?

Excellent description by the way..

@@Deebz270 Thanks, I had wondered about this! I have one Strat-sized one that I bought used. Like a lot of Lace sensors, I think the high end clarity is nonexistent from mine. I also have a Lace humbucker that seems to have the same components as the Alumitone one but they are all sealed in epoxy and stuck in the case. Never could figure out how it works. Based on your description I really wonder if it doesn't do the same thing by sensing the eddy currents in the pickup cover? (And is the cover perhaps alumINUM? Would it matter what metal was used in the cover?) Regardless, with a little thought and my dmm, I was able to figure out how to wire it up like a tapped humbucker, and it too works wonderfully in this way; the 'single coil' setting is thinner and brighter than humbucker mode, even makes a better single coil sound than most tapped humbuckers, imo.

IIRC, each coil was about 1.6K ohm, read about 3.2K ohms in HB mode.

Beat me to it, I was scrolling to see if anyone mentioned the Faraday cage first.

Would it be possible to make one yourself?

@@boimesa8190 Lace sensors? Sure, I don't see why not. Lots of drawings online. Takes a bit of handiness just like anything - First time is never the charm.

@@MintStiles oh really?? Do u have links? And those are what makes the pickups noiseless right?

me too

I've got a Strat set of Golds from the mid 1990's and I ain't never giving them up! Best pups ever.

@@marekbage Yeah i got the gold laces in my 88 strat..Another level!!

I have fender gold lace in my strat... absolutely love em. Crunchy and heavy as hell if you want em to be or smooth as butter. They have a great tonal range

I like to pair hot golds with LSDs. Really nice for playing heavy while maintaining as much string clarity as possible.

while they may or may not be weaker magnets they usually, depending which model lace sensor, have quite a high output. For example, their red lace humbucker output is something crazy like 30k (two 15k red duallys). Certainly not glassy clean like fender single coils but definitely top end there. They can sound "compressed", especially the high output models, but that lends a smoothness to the sound that you may like. The output of the red lace doesnt work well with vintage style fuzzes and is overall something to be wary of when stacking gain, but it can help you push an amp or overdrive you really like in an extra thick, smooth way that sustains very well. the magnetic field does allow you to get the pickup quite close the the strings which can add to that "compressed" feel by giving even more output, but its not that much of a difference and will limit the areas in which you can attack the strings by being so close. All in all, I like them for what I use them for, but if you want a fender single coil you wont be satisfied with a lace sensor.

the different colors mostly differ in output and overall tone but i'm not exactly sure how that is achieved mechanically

Different colors do different things. Blue is supposed to be a 50s paf type sound, silver is more of a 70s middle position strat type sound, red is full on high output humbucking. Golds I believe are closest to traditional single sound.

Gold ones are meant to replicate a 50s Strat.

Purple is like a p90. Emerald is like texas special. Have not tried burgandy.

Cycfi Nu Series?