The Alumitone Pickups have landed!!!

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 5 Mar 2009 2:06 pm

And they are chrome plated!

We'll have 3 guitars with Alumitones at the Dallas show for you to try. We really would appreciate your feedback.

Olli Haavisto · Post by **Olli Haavisto** » 5 Mar 2009 3:01 pm

You want feedback, on pedal steel pups ?

James Collett · Post by **James Collett** » 5 Mar 2009 6:02 pm

Looks cool! How do they sound as far as frequency response in comparison to other pickups?

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 5 Mar 2009 7:02 pm

I have alumitones on one of my hollow body 6 string guitars. The guitar sounds very nice. It has a very mellow jazz guitar tone, as it should, being a hollow body. But I can't say how much of that is due to the pickup and how much is due to the guitar's inherent properties.

Kudos to the Lace company for adding steel guitar pickups to their line.

Per Berner · Post by **Per Berner** » 5 Mar 2009 11:07 pm

At least they LOOK really good!

Per Berner · Post by **Per Berner** » 5 Mar 2009 11:51 pm

...naturally I'm curious about their sound, but I'm especially impressed by the way they manage to look modern and retro at the same time. And I have a hunch you like them too, McUtsi!

Per Berner · Post by **Per Berner** » 6 Mar 2009 5:38 am

They'd look great on something Bigsby-inspired with loads of yellow birdseye maple....

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 6 Mar 2009 5:49 am

The Alumitone packs lots of punch without that nasally, compressed sound you get out of many humbuckers. The pickup is even across the strings and up and down the neck. Most of the people who have tried it say it has "a lot of air". (It breathes kind of like a single coil.)

We should have sound samples in a couple of weeks. We are in the middle of re-doing all the pickup sound samples on our website.

Nathan Golub · Post by **Nathan Golub** » 6 Mar 2009 6:57 am

Interesting. I had an Alumitone in a solid body electric for a while. It wasn't the sound I was looking for out of that particular guitar, but I thought the pickup was a cool design for the right application. Never even considered that it'd be a good steel pickup. The main thing was the flat frequency response (in a good way). There was almost no coloring to the natural tone of the guitar.

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 12 Mar 2009 4:10 pm

If you are at the TSGA jamboree, Al Brisco will be playing a Carter with an Alumitone pickup Friday night.

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 12 Mar 2009 8:38 pm

I talked to Jeff Lace at NAMM about the pickups and am going to try some of the regular 6-string types on my 400 and 1000 (there are no "poles" - the whole frame is essentially part of the winding, so al long as part of it reaches the outside strings it'll grab a signal).

We Fender guys have been looking for replacements for years and may have found them...in fact I'm supposed to call Jeff and this thread reminded me!

They have terrific tone, and to voicings are very much like their "namesakes" ("P90, "humbucking" etc) but with more guts and punch.

I was told that for 10-string steel an Alumitone bass model would be excellent, as it's a full-range pickup with an even response, hot output and low noise. It was my impression the "steel" line was basically the bass pickups with different mounting, but they may have done a bit of re-voicing.

Regardless, they are amazing sounding pickups - weird looking monsters, but definitely worth a listen.

Ken Metcalf · Post by **Ken Metcalf** » 16 Mar 2009 6:20 am

I tried the Lace Alumitone Pick-up up in Dallas this week and it is in fact!! a Very Good sounding pick-up.
There is a clear difference that can be easily heard.
I am going to order one.

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 16 Mar 2009 1:33 pm

Jim Sliff wrote:I was told that for 10-string steel an Alumitone bass model would be excellent, as it's a full-range pickup with an even response, hot output and low noise. It was my impression the "steel" line was basically the bass pickups with different mounting, but they may have done a bit of re-voicing.

Actually the Alumitone Bass Bars were derived from a steel guitar pickup.

At Summer NAMM 2006 in Austin, Texas, Bill Lawrence dragged me over to hear this new pickup at the Lace booth.
Bill demonstrated the pickup to me and I found it impressive. I spoke to Jeff Lace about possibly doing one for steel guitars and he gave me his card. After many months of conversations and e-mails, I received 2 prototypes (1 12-string and 1 10-string).

After testing which included showing the pickup and letting people try it at a couple of shows, I told Jeff it sounded good but didn't have enough power for this application. We talked about the output requirements but he said he didn't think he could meet them.
2+ years later at Winter NAMM 2009, Jeff came by my booth and said he had something he wanted to show me. He took me to the Lace booth and showed me some large Alumitone pickups mounted on their display board. He said, "I did a lot of thinking about our conversations regarding the power output and I came up with a way to increase the power. These are our new Bass Bar Alumitones for bass guitar".
I asked for 2 samples (1 12-string and 1 10-string) which he gave me after the show. I brought them back and we tried them in an S-10 and Bud's 12-string. The verdict was that they were really good.
And now you know the rest of the story.

Alumitone prototype 2007

Alumitone production model 2009

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 16 Mar 2009 5:08 pm

John Fabian wrote:... I told Jeff it sounded good but didn't have enough power for this application.

I don't understand why this would be a problem, since all guitar (pre)amps have lots of extra gain available.

Per Berner · Post by **Per Berner** » 16 Mar 2009 11:19 pm

Will these be exclusive to Carter, or will they be available to anyone?

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 17 Mar 2009 6:21 am

Earnest Bovine wrote:
John Fabian wrote:... I told Jeff it sounded good but didn't have enough power for this application.
I don't understand why this would be a problem, since all guitar (pre)amps have lots of extra gain available.

The output was so weak on the prototype that it required a Goodrich Matchbox 7a as well as boosting the input on the amplifier to bring it up to a level that still didn't meet that of other pickups. We also felt it lacked the required punch we were seeking.

Alumitone Bass Bars are available to anyone.

The factory mounting system does not match any standard steel guitar mounting system. It uses 4 screws mounted through the top near the corners.

We mount the 10-string pickups to an aluminum plate that can be used on most any guitar using wide-mount pickups.
12-string pickups will have to use the Lace 4-screw method.

Rick Collins · Post by **Rick Collins** » 17 Mar 2009 11:26 am

Jim Sliff, will the pickup cavity of the Fender 1000 need further routing to accommodate the Alumitone pickups?

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 17 Mar 2009 5:14 pm

Rick - yes. It's deeper than the stock long-scale 1000 cavity. But honestly, nowadays so many have routed them out for second pickups or various replacements it's no big deal unless you have a dead-mint, kept-under-the-bed collector's item.

Ernest Cawby · Post by **Ernest Cawby** » 17 Mar 2009 5:15 pm

They looked good and sounded good.

ernie

Randy Beavers · Post by **Randy Beavers** » 17 Mar 2009 8:19 pm

The Alumitone was the biggest winner for me in the tech department. I was knocked out by this pickup. Clear tone that was fat on the bottom and sweet on top. Totally a different technology for steel guitar. None of the characteristics of a humbucker. In my opinion it may be tough to get a single coil to sound this good. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of mine.

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 18 Mar 2009 2:08 am

Has anybody compared these pickups side by side with more traditioal ones like the George L or Truetone or Tone Aligner?

Here's a link to the reviews these pickups received at Harmony Central.

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/revi ... iTone/10/1

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 18 Mar 2009 5:16 am

Mike Perlowin wrote:Has anybody compared these pickups side by side with more traditioal ones like the George L or Truetone or Tone Aligner?

This is a joke, right? Since we are the first to use and provide these pickups on steel guitars and we received them just 4 weeks ago, how many answers did you expect to get?

If not, the answer to your question is yes. We used 8 different pickups to generate sound samples. They were recorded by the same player, on the same guitar, playing the same licks, on the same song, into the same amp, using the same settings. Those sound samples will be put on our site.

Pickups used:
GL 10-1
GL E-66
GL SS
GL EON
Alumitone
Lawrence XR-16
Wallace True Tone
Tone Aligner

Song: Soft Rain

Dean Parks · Post by **Dean Parks** » 18 Mar 2009 7:06 am

The Alumitone pickup I tried was in the new black Carter SD-10 thru a Peavey 112, the same rig that Al Brisco used on his set Friday night, I was told.

This is the sweetest sound I've heard thru a 112. The highs were un-crowded and smooth. The lows were crisp, not boomy. No harshness on this pickup. It will be interesting to hear this on other guitars as well. On the Carter, definitely a "go".

-dean-