Lace Music Products Arena Dually Humbucker

Pickup features: Humbucking 4-conductor
Impedence or other specs: These won't do you any good for comparison...read on...

Model of guitar or bass: Custom Alder Body, Bolt-on Maple neck, rosewood fretboard, classic (smaller) frets, custom fixed bridge
Position: all positions
Pickup being replaced: DiMarzio Breed neck and modified Seymour Duncan Screamin' Demon in the bridge
Other pickups on guitar: None
Artists using this pickup: Probably none, with good reason.
You musical style(s): Everything- I'm a guitar designer. My personal preferences range from Classic Rock to Metal to Black Metal to Ambient/Experimental among others. I concentrate equally on solo qualities, clean tone(s) and overall balance of sound and output.
Reason for pickup change: Looking for ideal pickup combination for my future production guitars.

Perceived output level: Despite what Lace makes it sound like, these are medium-output pickups, at best. Truly verging on vintage for output, but not in tone.
Tone: Neck- well balanced, creamy highs that are slightly pulled back, but that "round" bottom end Lace is known for. Bridge- 85% of bass response of neck, but highs are pulled back even further, very midrange-intense. There isn't enough adjustment in the world to correct the shortcomings of the bridge pickup.
Sonic evaluation: The neck pickup is worth buying on its own. But, I do mean, On It's Own (as in, NOT in a set with the matching bridge pickup). It's a very balanced pickup with a tight bottom end and less pronounced highs, which gives it a high-quality acoustic sound when clean (really is impressive) and a nice solo sound, though it is still lacking in treble presence, even under heavy gain with treble EQ'd as high as it goes. You can only do so much with the essence of a pickup design, after all. Still, one of the richest rhythm sounds around. Not the friendliest pickup to heavy picking, but deep in tone and characteristic in its own right. As for the bridge pickup: It's an In-Your-Face waste of money. The output is balanced just right with the neck, as it should be, but that's where the similarities stop. This pickup is not what any player is looking for. Just take my word on it and save yourself a headache. It's not classic, it's not modern, it's not acoustic, it's not metal, It's Annoying- plain and simple. Harmonic presence is poor, the treble is pulled back so far that your loudest high note is an open B string (i.e. all upper mid-range). For soloing, the high notes and harmonics are all but gone- it is NOT an open-sounding pickup. The bass, though tight, is not as "mud"-resistant as Lace says. It's certainly workable and clean, but the focus of the response yields chords AND single-note runs absolutely lifeless. The pickup simply lacks character (and treble). Plus, the output, though matched to the neck, is not significant at all. You can "get behind and drive it" like Lace says, but the sound you get is disappointing. I rewired the pickup twice in two different guitars to verify that there wasn't a user error. I am certainly disappointed at the outcome. However, THERE IS HOPE! Look below... First, here's my Main Rig: Boss GX-700 24-bit rackmount processor through a Crate SPA-200 solid state power amp straight into the new Behringer 4x12 cab (best deal in the world- I didn't believe it until I played through it myself, now I'm hooked). My other amps are a Peavey 5150 60W all-tube Combo and a crate GX-212 240 watt solid state Combo. For testing, the pickups were wired through a single 500K volume pot and no tone or extra capacitors to inhibit the sound. This is a necessity, as any other electronics and these pickups wouldn't have any treble AT ALL.

For which styles and positions is this pickup (un)suitable: Neck- a little bit of everything. At home in Les Paul AND Strat-style guitars. As for the bridge, it's best sound comes from hitting the inner walls of a trash can.

Comments: Nobody will have the chance to destroy these, because I will be destroying them myself. Well, at least the bridge pickup. This is my third set of Lace pickups. I've tried all the newer ones- the Alumitones, Arenas and the new Drop & Gains. Now, that's where the magic lies- If you want some truly UNBELIEVABLE pickups- go for the Drop & Gains. It's the only pickup that does exactly what it claims to do and I couldn't be happier. I waited until I had test driven all of them before I came here to post this review. These Arenas were part of my prototype work and I can say that I will certainly NOT be using them on my guitars. Get the Drop & Gains and every guitar you own will be happy - it sounds too good to be true, but I have been made a believer!