Lace Sensor Ultimate Triple Prewired Stratocaster Electric Guitar Loaded Pickguard - (Black)

I bought and installed this a bit over a year ago and play daily. I figured I'd update my review to reflect that experience. First and mainly, if you are looking for a classic Strat sound you should probably go with classic Strat pickups; This is a bit different animal... mostly. More on that in a minute. The workmanship in the wiring is impressively neat. The controls are standard Strat and work and feel like that. The pickguard itself has been very durable and resistant to wear. The sound is where things getting interesting and different. Of the three pickups the Silver is both kind of the workhorse, the most similar to a standard Strat, and the least interesting. It isn't super hot in output and the frequency response is nice and flat. It sounds great, but maybe a bit uninteresting in a good way. However it isn't a bad thing to have as a home base or starting point. There is nothing in terms of pedals or amps or effects where it doesn't just work. Moving on to the Blue in the neck position: This is perhaps my favorite pickup of all time. It has a very rich bass and mid response but does not lose anything on the highs. It really does "sing". It is maybe a bit like a P90 or PAF but not exactly. It is its own things. The volume and tone knobs are there for a reason but it has a ton of range and use. I think it is particularly nice sounding with a clean tone and some reverb like on a Fender 1968 Twin or similar. Combined with the Silver in position 4 brings about a whole other layer. Good stuff. The Red in the bridge... is the red-headed stepchild of the 3. It has a very high output but falls off steeply in the treble and has somewhat unusual intonation. It does not get along with some effect pedals and amps at all. With the Silver and Blue I have a very good idea what to expect when I strum a setup for the first time. Not so much with the Red and sometimes the results are pretty awful. On the other hand it sounds absolutely wonderful in some configurations, such as with a 57 Bassman. It can overdrive the pre-amp and produce a wonderful sort of snarl. Adding this later: Someone suggested for the Red to turn down the EQ on the initial stage so the bass is lower then the mid and that multiplied together they equal no more than 6. So like 2 on bass and 3 on mid. That really works! It takes gain and/or volume on the back-end but as a starting point that takes out the sometimes oddness of the intonation in the Red. The Nirvana song "About a Girl" is very much what the Red sounds like clean. So in conclusion, this setup does provide a very wide range of tones that range from familiar (the Silver) to expanded (the Blue) to the unexpected (the Red). It may not be for everyone but it is quite interesting and diverse.

I own close to 15 guitars and these are the best sounding pickups of any of them. Easy install with the pre wired pick guard (which is a beautiful example of perfect craftsmanship. See photo). Curling the extra wire is a thing of beauty. Perfect soldering. WELL worth the cost over buying the parts and doing it yourself. You do have to solder two grounds and the hot wire to the volume pot (easy). Great USA top quality pots and 5 way switch. Easy wiring diagram on line for the three wires (two of them go to the same place on the back of the volume pot and the hot goes to the middle tab on the volume pot). But the sound! My wife finally had to ask me to stop saying "Wow"! Deep, rich, full bodied, each string rings out, dynamic, and each pickup has a unique, tantalizing sound. And when you blend them in position 2 & 4, you get a whole new set of beautiful tones. They all respond to a very wide range on the smooth volume andtone controls. Good crunch if you want. I can see why people like Clapton and Townesand use this brand. These "puppies win "Best In Show" 11 stars.

Great product, and tremendous time-saver. I dropped this in a partscaster project build, and it delivered exactly the tone I expected. A Lace Sensor Red/Silver/Blue set today sounds exactly like it did two decades ago. I guess people who are complaining about the tone/sound of this set didn’t know what they were getting into. I tend to be put off by uber-stratty tones, and like being able to to get the “single coil but thicker” sound without having to deal with buckers. The quality of the wiring job is impeccable. It was very easy to sub in a Fender TBX tone pot on the bridge/middle. If I had any ding at all, it is that the pickup wiring may be a little too good. I could see it being a task to swap out the neck or middle pickup from the set given how tight everything is. But that’s not really a ding, is it?

Humbucker-voiced singlecoils are kind of an odd tool to have in your toolbox, but here we are. Neck pickup tone is amazing just like the neck burstbucker on a modern Les Paul, bridge pickup has that same quack as a bridge burstbucker on a modern Les Paul which makes no sense why you would even want that. In other words, this pickup set has turned my alder strat into a less loud, clearer version of a modern Les Paul. I guess there's a market for that. No hum either, so this Blue (neck), White (middle), Red (bridge) set is exactly what I would get if I wanted an HH-style tone for a Strat but didn't want to change the stock wiring or guard. Oddly enough this is the exact set of lace singles that billy corgan of smashing pumpkins used in the 1990's. Only issue is the installation. You have to do three solders to install this, and that can be a pain if you've never done it before (which is probably why you are buying a pre-loaded guard. Now that I've done it once I can do it all day long, but it was daunting at first.

I'm totally thrilled with this item. Installation was simple. The pickups each have their own qualities, and I'm getting added sustain with gorgeous harmonics. The neck pickup gives a rich, bluesy sound with some growl. The center pu is a bit hotter than the other two in my unit, but that's not a problem: you can use position 3 as a booster. Silver and red PUs both add a chime-y, ringing quality and are awesome for lead sounds. I've heard from a friend that installing the 3 pickups separately (without this prewired configuration) was a big chore, but this prewired package makes it easy. This pickguard is identical with US-made Fender Strats, it may not fit MIMs or strat knockoffs perfectly.

Quality construction, better than the original pickups. The partnership with Fender should have continued as these pickups are far superior to their own noiseless single coil pickups.

love this! great sound and easy change.

I'm a longtime user of Lace Sensor pickups. I ordered this pickguard as a (allegedly) drop-in replacement for the stock electronics on an new Stratocaster. The pickguard arrived quickly and was packed very well in a nice box. Upon inspection, I was pleased to see that the wiring job was beautiful. Everything was neat and clean, and properly grounded. Installation went exactly as expected. I soldered my bridge ground, my body ground, and the jack leads to the appropriate spots. The pickguard fir into my strat perfectly as expected, and in a few minutes I was up and running. Unfortunately, once plugged in, it was immediately apparent that the neck pickup was wired out of phase. This means that in position 4 (neck + middle pickup) the sound was thin, weak and nasal, instead of the warm quacky goodness that should come from a strat. I opened the guitar back up, and everything looked OK. I got out a meter and started testing things. The Lace Sensors have 3 leads, which perplexed me a bit, as I was expecting 2 (a hot and a ground). After a bit of research, I learned that these pickups have a traditional ground, a hot, and a case ground. I reversed the orange (hot) and the white (trad. ground), and the problem was solved. That doesn't sound too bad, right? Here's the issue. The wiring was so tightly done that I had to desolder and unwrap some unrelated grounds, and then, of course, redo all of that once the change was made. I had about an hour in carefully rewiring the pickguard. I'm an experienced guitar tech. I could have wired it from scratch in that time. I bought this "prewired" pickguard to save time, and to avoid fiddly soldering of tiny leads. In the end, I had to do it anyway. As a side note, I called Lace tech support before changing anything, but got no answer. The next day, I decided just to tackle the problem myself. Shortly thereafter, I did get a callback from Lace, and the tech was helpful and apologetic, and got some info for me, presumably for QC purposes, but ultimately he didn't tell me anything that I hadn't already figured out. These pickups sound great, and are absolutely noiseless, but the next time that I need a set, I'll just do the wiring myself.

This loaded Pick Guard really took me by surprise. It sounds far better than I could have imagined. The pickups are nice and quiet as far as noise goes, but they can rock with the best of them and can clean up like dream when need be.

i love them - love love love them. now my fender guitar sound like the 50s 60s - thank you

I love the tone I get, I find it quite astonishing.It has exceeded my expectations.

Shipping was looong as it was at least 3 weeks for them to arrive (UPS sucks), but the price was right... even after paying duty. The pickguard also didn't fit my American Stratocaster (highway 1)... but I'm glad it didn't. The Pickguard, and the hardware (screws), was sub-par to my stock pickguard and screws which are all recessed with flatter heads. Once I swapped everything over it's great!

These pups sound better than i'd hoped!! I used them in a new build, wanted a Strat Plus, and Lace Sensors are what those had. Incredible wiring, labelled and packaged perfectly, installed easily, awesome product.