Lace Sensor Gold bridge pickup tweak

[Erikk Von Hyde]

I wanted to poll the masses here for opinion on a regular Lace Gold bridge pickup, bear with me...

I've had this set of Lace Golds for a while, always loved the tone but the 'polite' character didn't really carry over well into higher gain situations when it came to playing harder rock music and the bridge pickup's lack of beef... to be expected w/Golds. I tried Hot Golds some years ago as an alternative and, while they were very cool, the hotter wind vaporized a good deal of the Strat flavor in the process and they soon fell out of favor, the bridge position especially sounded like overdone arse to my ears. My dilemma is how to tweak/filter/? the existing normal Gold bridge pickup I currently have to get rid of some of the harshness/spiky treble and possibly bolster the sound a bit for a touch more attitude. The Gold neck and middle are great in any situation, how do I get the bridge to do its job better?

I have e-mailed a few times directly with a tech at Lace about this and, although the guy was very nice, there didn't seem to be any clear way to go about this and all he could offer was setup adjustments or buy a different pickup - Not interested in doing either, don't wanna cop-out just yet and the adjustment difference won't accomplish what I'm looking for anyway. The 1st thing that came to mind was a baseplate like what you tend to have under the more kickin' Tele bridge pickups (after some research and seeing tutorials from Fralin) but the back of a Lace Gold pickup doesn't allow for that since they're nothing like the uniform backside of a normal single coil pickup (attached)

*It's a curiosity to me since I've never tried a baseplate and honestly do not understand how it enhances lows/trims highs/etc.... is it the extra mass under the pickup? Is it the parts of the pickup the plate touches? Is it the electrowhateverthehellyoucallit benefits that come from the steel/brass/copper metal itself? Is it the seal you create with the wax that comes on the plate after you heat it up? Anybody ever experimented with a baseplate? PLEASE reply if so, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts, screwed as I am for putting one on a Lace Gold anyway.

So back to the Lace - Would utilizing a 5ook or diff value volume pot instead of the usual 250k be of any benefit as far as walling off some high-end frequencies or enhancing low end? Something in the Tone control area? *I tend to cut tone controls out of my circuit completely and keep as little as possible in the way of the signal but am open to options on this one.

*For reference as far as the overall tone I'm going for, these Golds are going in a Ritchie Blackmore Signature model I've recently acquired, definitely not after the milk & cookies sound

[P A U L]

When I bought my strat back in 1992, the 1st thing I did was pull out that bridge pickup & installed a SD Hotrails. From then on, I basically used positions 1 & 4. The bridge humbucker made for a nice tight beefy sound, while the mid/neck gave me the best clean tone ever. Very David Gilmour'ish. The bridge though very Yngwie. Volume-wise, they seemed to match pretty well.

When I did the switch, I wanted my guitar to look 100% stock, so I removed the Lace from the cover (it's epoxied in) & ground the bobbins on the hotrails to fit, so it looked stock, but was hotrodded...

Here's a pick of it modded:

[matt3310]

I have tried a few different things on a lace sensor. All I did was ruin a good pickup.

But for what you want, have you experimented with different caps on the bridge pickup? Its very easy to do.

[surfnorthwest]

So back to the Lace - Would utilizing a 5ook or diff value volume pot instead of the usual 250k be of any benefit as far as walling off some high-end frequencies or enhancing low end? Something in the Tone control area?

IMO No.

[P A U L]

If you do like Matt prescribed, add resistance, then you will roll off the top end. You will not enhance the bottom. You could add a preamp, or active tone to the pickup, or whole guitar. Just buy a new pickguard & customize it.

I have a few pickguards for my strat, so if I want to change it to _______, I just swap out the pickguard & have a different setup. But, I went w/ humbuckers in the bridge for all my pickguard configurations.

[sikter]

I can hardly see guitar on that picture

[Papus]

I've got a Strat loaded with Lace Golds.
I'm a big Blackmore fan, love his high-gain Lace+Engl tone.
You need a treble booster to slam the preamp tubes in your amp - the Golds are vintage output levels which allows for better dynamics and articulation at the expense of output level.
I use a Blackstar HT-Boost to slam all of my amps.
I've got many demos on this site, check 'em out. :)

[Papus]

Strat with Lace Sensor Golds into Blackstar HT-Boost and HT-5 into 4x12, I'm playing all instruments (I'm not a real drummer by the way):

[youtube][/youtube]

[Erikk Von Hyde]

Dude that sounds pretty effin' good to me, I like that recording also for its overall coolness

Guess we'll try 'em straight with a 500k volume pot for starters and maybe tailor from there, really tired of that Blackmore just sitting in its case.