I have an Eric Clapton Strat that I've owned for several years. It plays great, stays in tune, as is a very solid guitar overall. The only thing that I've not liked about it is the Lace Sensor pickups that it came with. The Lace Sensors do have their good points, in that they seem to have an overall higher output than normal pickups. But they are definitely not the most quiet pickups that I've ever had, and they don't sound exactly like traditional Strat pickups. Whenever I turn up loud with this guitar the hum is pretty bad.

I decided to make the switch to some of the new Fender Vintage Noiseless pickups, since the current Eric Clapton model uses those now. I just finished installing the new pickups this weekend.

Man, I'm really enjoying these pickups. They are extremely quiet and are delivering a much more traditional Strat tone as compared to the Lace Sensors. I didn't realize how much I missed the more traditional Strat tone until I installed these.

I also l found out how to make the strat even more quiet by attaching some aluminum foil to the back of the entire pickguard with rubber cement. I learned this tip from one of my other friends. Since I had the pickguard off I did this foil treatment to make it as quiet as possible. (note: just make sure that this foil is connected to the guitar ground) This foil sheilds it from any static noise that comes from your hands rubbing against the pickguard. My guitar developed this problem recently and this foil treatment cleared that up.

Now I have a super quiet guitar that plays as great as it ever did. I'm really happy with the sound!

-- Jim