Lace and Esquire and Magnetism, oh my!

[SatelliteOrders]

It is my understanding that part of the wonder of the Esquire is that there's no neck pickup pulling at the strings and dampening them.

It is also my understanding that Lace Sensors have dramatically less magnetism involved. And they are less noisy.

Are these understandings correct? If so, you should be able to get a noiseless, sound with wild harmonics from those things. Near-Esquire, perhaps. Which sounds like it should sound great. But I don't see too many out there. Clearly, the world at large has not embraced these things. (But James Burton has, which is a good sign.)

Can I mix-and-match? Get a Lace for the neck and a Kinman or something for the bridge and get some of that Esquire feel and still keep the neck tone? Is there anything, besides the conservative nature of musicians ("My heroes had this setup, so I want this setup!") keeping the Lace Sensor from taking over the world? Something technical? And are those initial understandings correct?

(I have searched the archives and not found definitive answers to these questions.)

[bradpdx]

Originally Posted by SatelliteOrders

It is my understanding that part of the wonder of the Esquire is that there's no neck pickup pulling at the strings and dampening them.

It is also my understanding that Lace Sensors have dramatically less magnetism involved. And they are less noisy.

Are these understandings correct? If so, you should be able to get a noiseless, sound with wild harmonics from those things.

I doubt that the Esquire "sound" has much to do with the absence of a neck PUP. If a regular Tele neck PUP is lowered a bit, the pull on the strings is minimal; this is an experiment you can do yourself for nothing.

If there is anything that makes an Esquire different, it is the "no tone control" setting that is available. Of course that can be implemented on a 2 pickup model easily, so again an experiment you can do for almost nothing.

There are several low noise, low magnetism PUPs out there: EMG springs to mind as well, with a very powerful hi-fi sound. While they have their adherents, most players seem to dig the lo-fi sound of a regular PUPs, largely due to the resonant peaks and behaviors that are the hallmark of their sound.

Once again, technical history has shaped popular opinion. Despite the many changes in electronics and the vastly increased knowledge we have, most of us fell in love with sounds created semi-accidentally using what is now 60 year-old technology. Reverse engineering that is a feat yet to be fully accomplished.