Noiseless Strat Bridge pickup options

DaveT

Junior Member
Messages
115
I bought that very beautiful blue Thinline Tele body a couple of months ago.
I suppose Warmoth routed for a Strat bridge pickup to avoid covering up that nice flame maple with a big lump of Tele bridge.
That leaves me with a pickup conundrum.
I will not use single coil pickups. I'm an engineer, they offend me.

The word is that Lace use a Blue Sensor pickup for their Tele Bridge pickup, so a Blue Sensor should do nicely then!
It doesn't.
It is a nice pickup but closer to a P90 in sound. I would fit it in the neck position.

Should I try a Gold Sensor?
The neck pickup is currently a decent cheap humbucker.
If I get the Gold Sensor then one of the Dually Sensors will go in there.

Any other decent noiseless option for the Strat bridge position?
You know the thin trebly guitar tone on Trout Mask Replica? I want to get close to that by rolling the bass off the amplifier tone controls.
The neck pickup and Tele 4-way switch will provide the 'grunt' when I need it!

(unless anybody knows what the 'special amp mods' Dick Kunc did to the amps they used...)

FYI the combination of Blue Sensor in series with a normal humbucker is loud! You get a massive boost in volume compared to just the humbucker or having them in parallel. I hope the Gold Sensor will do the same.

DaveT
 
I have a mid 90's MIM Strat that I put a Lace Sensor Gold loaded pickguard from a Strat Plus I had owned.

I have no experience with any other Lace Sensor pickup, but to me the Golds get me to the Strat sound without noise.  I am a fan of these pickups and no desire to change them.  They are clean, noiseless and they get "Stratty".

I know Lace has a variety of different sounding pickups.  If you peruse their site, there are some descriptions by color.  For me, if I were going Lace pups for a Tele, I think I'd go Hot Gold.  I'd probably go that way for a Strat as well.  From the descriptions they give, the Blue is going to be warmer
 
The Blue Sensor is the second-hottest Sensor model, the only one hotter being the Red.  The Gold is the very weakest one in the Sensor lineup, as it's their version of a 50's Strat pickup. 
 
The only single coil pups I can say blew my mind were the ones by Bill Lawrence.  I couldn't believe how good and cheap they were.  I've only used his tele pups, but they are pretty quiet.
 
Bill Lawrence is terrific, and has been since the 70's. Dirt cheap compared to the rest of the market. Fender Noiseless is also excellent, but not cheap. They are also very heavy units (if that matters to you).
 
I'm an engineer and single coil pickups don't offend me. In fact, I strongly prefer the noisy kind. I tried to like gold lace sensors and some other noiseless pickups and they all seem to cut off some key frequencies that I like. 
 
spe111 said:
I'm an engineer and single coil pickups don't offend me. In fact, I strongly prefer the noisy kind. I tried to like gold lace sensors and some other noiseless pickups and they all seem to cut off some key frequencies that I like.
That's funny!
Your age and loud music related hearing loss must be different from mine. The complaint that Lace pickups tend to be too hifi is almost  true, they often don't 'colour' the sound enough.

A good rummage around YouTube has convinced me a Gold Sensor will do nicely in the bridge position. One is on order! I'll let you know how I get on with it.
Plan B is Joe Barden pickups.
 
I haven't played a Lace pup since the 90s, my dumpling, but I remember it sounding kinda funny. Like hollow.... Or shallow. Something "- llow". It wasn't gettin me turnt. Maybe the more recent ones are better. For noiseless Strats I like the Dimarzio Injectors. PHAT and jangly with a capital PHAT.
 
DaveT said:
spe111 said:
I'm an engineer and single coil pickups don't offend me. In fact, I strongly prefer the noisy kind. I tried to like gold lace sensors and some other noiseless pickups and they all seem to cut off some key frequencies that I like.
That's funny!
Your age and loud music related hearing loss must be different from mine. The complaint that Lace pickups tend to be too hifi is almost  true, they often don't 'colour' the sound enough.

A good rummage around YouTube has convinced me a Gold Sensor will do nicely in the bridge position. One is on order! I'll let you know how I get on with it.
Plan B is Joe Barden pickups.

I hope you like them, obviously a lot of people do.
 
The Lace Sensor Gold is now fitted in the bridge position.
I like it!
It is close enough to a vintage single coil for me.
Currently playing it through an old VOX AC15 amp.
 
The Gold Sensor in the bridge with a humbucker in the neck works well.
The Gold Sensor gives a trebly bass-light single-coil sound without too much 'colouration' if you see what I mean. 
The humbucker colours the sound nicely.

So, will that Lace Sensor Gold work well in the neck?
NO!
Not with the Gold Sensor in the bridge on my Warmoth Thinline Tele.

I want the sound from the neck pickup to be a reasonable P90 or Humbucker sound. The humbucker is going back in. I might start swapping-in humbuckers from my other guitars. The Seymour Duncan P-Rails is very nice but I would miss it in the guitar it is currently fitted to!
Very disinclined to buy Yet Another Humbucker. 
 
Back
Top