The Lace cybercaster was a USA made electric guitar from the LACE Helix series. The overall styling is a combination of Fender Jaguar, with a pointed Gibson SG horn coupled with a dash of Gibson Explorer. The transparent butterscotch finish on the two piece ash body brings the Gibson Flying V to mind.

The unusual body shape, however, is not the main selling point of this guitar. That honour belongs to the unique 10.8 twist in the neck, a feature on all guitars in the Lace Helix range. This torsional twist (imagine twisting the neck around its long axis) reduces the amount of wrist flexion required to fret the strings and less resulting stress on the joint and reduced chance of Repetitive Strain Injury.  The 21 fret bolt on neck and finger board on the first Cybercasters were finished in maple, later (non USA made?) models have a rosewood board.

The Lace head-stock is also finished in maple, with 3-a-side chrome finished Gotoh tuners, the Lace aluminium logo. The electronics consist of two Lace Hemi Humbuckers, three-way pick-up switch, tone and volume controls, which are located at the bottom of the pick-ups and surrounded by the graphite scratch plate. The through body string bridge and pick-up guard are well secured, and also give the Cybercaster a hint of vintage Telecaster (any classic guitar designs not mentioned yet?).

Sean Bown reviewed the original USA cybercaster for music mart magazine in 2003

I started off with my trusty Trace Elliot - with tone controls set for current favourite axe - a Fender Toronado. We’re talking quite a raw overdriven sound, with a tad of reverb and chorus - so let’s fire up the bridge pick-up on the Cybercaster to compliment that.

The first thing that impressed me was the fact that this guitar was perfectly set up, it took me nearly two months and a lot of playing around to get my Fender to sound this good, the Cybercaster however was spot on for my requirements straight out of the box.

The sound of the Cybercaster is slightly bigger and fuller than the Toronado - itself, essentially electronically a souped-up Telecaster. I think this is mainly due to the length of the body and the thru body bridge system, which gives this axe a shed load of natural sustain - great for big screaming guitar sounds and ringing clean tones.

Talking of tone, think very warm and fat - the Two Lace Hemi pick-ups give a nice vintage feel to the whole thing. This is where the Cybercaster can stand some comparison to Leo’s finest - those beautiful G&L ASATs, specifically another guitar in my rack - their Blues Boy. Having said all of this, you can literally get a ton of different guitar tones out of this guitar - from heavy riffing metal-ish to warm smooth clean blues sounds.

When you move to a clean sound, this guitar will reveal some of its true qualities - warmth, smoothness and sustain - making one note melt into one another. This is fantastic - Inspiring country twangs and mournful arpeggios ‘til the sun sets over Bradgate Park. Also worthy of note, is that when you back the tone control off, making the middle frequencies more dominant, it results in a tone that will remind you of a Gibson Les Paul.

The Cybercaster retailed at $1600 / £1195 around 2003. Although it received good reviews for both the overall guitar and its neck design, Lace Music Products removed the Cybercaster from the market. Sometime after 2007 Lace reissued the cybercaster with some differences (6-a-side tuners, different body woods and construction) and a much lower price point ($700), suggesting Far Eastern construction.

References:

Music Mart Magazine, August 2003

http://www.lacemusic.com/guitars/cybercaster/cybercaster_series.php

http://buildingtheergonomicguitar.com/2007/01/lace-cybercaster-electric-guitar-guitar.html