Sliding pickup system, worth it?

[James Mayer]

I think I might set up a crude sliding pickup system on my lap steel as an experiment. The pickup would have a sliding range of about 5".

Any thoughts on this. If you think it's a dumb idea or it's been tried before, let me know.

[Bill Asher]

Hey James,
When I was working with Rick Turner in '95 we had the Alembic bass in that he helped design and build while working at Alembic. That bass belongs to Jack Casady and has a sliding pickup! It worked quite well, but not so practical for live use. A switch with two pickups is much quicker and more accurate and gives you the tone differential you would mainly use. For recording though you do have some cool subtle tweaking you can find by sliding the pickup within different harmonic points.

[Jim Konrad]

http://media.photobucket.com/image/rail ... ss.jpg?o=2

[Rick Abbott]

I think that Gibson had a sliding pickup in a bass in the late 1970's. A Ripper? Also, I believe there were Miller pedal steels with a sliding pickup. It could move forward and back 3-4 inches. Steve Walz might know.

[Erv Niehaus]

I think you can get more variation in tone by moving your picking hand than by moving the pickup back and forth.
The closer you pick to the bridge, the "crisper" the tone and visa-versa.

[Max Laine]

http://www.google.com/patents?id=oBclAA ... ia+valkama

[Roman Sonnleitner]

SOme of the old German Framus lap steels had a sliding pickup system.
No personal experience with it - but I do have to say that an added neck pickup is a very useful tonal addition to a lap steel (personally, the neck pickup is the most-used one on my twin-pickup lap steel) - the warmer, fuller, "jazzier" neck PU tone is something you cannot really achieve with changing picking hand position either...

[James Mayer]

Roman, how much space do you have between your pickups? I'm trying to figure out how far the neck position would need to be from the bridge to make a significant tonal change. I may not have of enough space.

[Roman Sonnleitner]

Here's a pic:



But even a smaller distance would make a difference, just think about how different the middle PU on a Strat sounds from the bridge PU!

What I did for my first (single PU) lap steel for determining the ideal position for the PU was jury rigging something up for holding the PU above the strings, facing downwards; I did this before doing the pickup route, and could slide the contraption back and forth to find the best-sounding spot...

BTW, if it can be done easily, I think a sliding pickup would definitely be an interesting/useful idea, but I believe that you'd probably find out that there are 2 or 3 spots along the sliding range that would turn out to be the best-sounding ones (and I wouldn't be surprised if these spots were at about the same distances as the PUs on time-proven guitar designs like Tele, Strat, or LP).

[Eddie Cunningham]

The "Jerry Byrd Fry Pans" made by Shot Jackson = of "Sho-Bud" , had the horseshoe pick up that could move up about an inch and I think Jerry B. would not have had that done on his namesake steel unless he felt it would improve the overall tone !!! Jerry B. didn't make many mistakes when it came to tone !!! IMHO !!! Eddie "C"

[Alan Brookes]

When they first started making add-on pickups for acoustic archtop guitars, sliding pickups were very popular, and they made a lot of sense. The first lap steel I ever built, back in '63, I put a sliding pick-up on. I think the popularity declined when multiple pick-up instruments started appearing, because you could blend the sounds of the pickups to your own taste; a thing you couldn't do with a single pickup, no matter where you placed it. The majority of steel guitars, both pedal and non-pedal, only have one pickup, which I think is an error. Fender Stringmasters have always had two pickups.

So, my advice is, if you choose to only use one pickup, make it a sliding one. (That having been said, most of my the lap steels I've built from scratch only have one stationery pickup per neck, so I guess I don't take my own advice.)

[James Mayer]

So, I started drawing up a design that had 2 (or 3) single-coil pickups that could be wired as humbuckers (or not) with phase switching, series/parralell toggle, etc. the pickups would be mounted to rods and brackets that are already on most pickups could just be attached to the rails. Then, I found this.........

http://www.wilkesguitars.co.uk/pages/the_answer.htm

It says he has an international patent. How can you patent hooking pickups to rods?

My version might have the option to slide all the way down the neck so you can have a pickup around the first or second fret for weird harmonics. [/url]

[John Burton]

I think that Gibson had a sliding pickup in a bass in the late 1970's. A Ripper?....

The Gibson Bass was the "Grabber" I think. I actually had one for a few years. It was a decent bass, but the sliding pickup was not that big of a deal. Didn't make as big a difference as one would think. Most times I kept it about midway, or shifted towards the bridge.

Now on a lap steel? I tend to move my picking hand around more, to get tonal differences, most times my pick hand is around half way between my bar and my bridge. My hand floats. (I've worked hard to learn to never rest my picking hand on the instrument, IMO it gives me better tone and blocking, dynamics etc...Again, just my personal opinion on my own playing)
So...for me, personally I doubt a sliding pickup would be much utilized.

[Bill Hatcher]

A sliding pickup would change the sound of the instrument drastically. There is no way you can change the tone with your picking as much as you can with moving the pickup. It is that dramatic a change.

It is a great idea if you are going to use it.

I think that on instruments with more than 8 strings a split sliding pickup would be even more advantageous. If you look at recording meters you can see that the lower strings put out more than the unwound uppers. If you had a split pickup that you could control the vol on each you could balance the instrument much better.

If I ever get around to it, I want to set up a guitar like that.

Also I would advise to have a fixed bridge pickup and a sliding neck pickup with a volume control for each. You could really get some nice sounds with that set up and you would have the ability to always have a conventional bridge sound at any time.

Variety is the spice of sound.

[James Mayer]

Some good ideas here. About the split pickup. Couldn't I have four 3-string single coil pickups custom made? I'm thinking someone like Vintage Vibe could get it done. I could have volume and tone for all four pickups and combine them in any configuration with phase switches. The knobs and switches would take a lot of space, obviously. I know that the old Italian company, Goya, made the Rangemaster series in the 60's that had three four three-string pickups with crazy switching.

[Bill Hatcher]

If you have deep pockets you can have anything done!

Instead of four 3 stringers, you could easily get by with two 6 string guitar pickups with adjustable poles. You can control the vol of the low strings and the uppers and have individual tweaking also. Heck of a lot cheaper.

You could also just have two blade style pickups with vol. controls.

[James Mayer]

Well, I've currently abandoned my sliding pickup idea because I found a luthier that makes a 6 string pedal steel with dual sliding pickups and other custom mods. Take a LOOK.

I inquired about some of my ideas becoming mods and this guy is open-minded about all of them.

Mine will have two independent sliding pickups, a volume pot, and a 6 position rotary switch (series, parallel, phase reverse, etc). Jim at Lone Star is also working on my idea to add a junction box (screw clamp) for a solderless pickup connection. That way, I can quickly change and experiment with different pickups without soldering or even removing the strings.

This may be the perfect "best of both worlds" instrument for those, like me, who want to non-pedal tone with pedal steel flexibility.

The whole thing is 17lbs in the case.

[Alan Brookes]

I would be very wary of buying a 6-string pedal steel. If you want the portability of a lap steel with some pedal steel features why not just buy a lap steel and fit palm levers ?

[James Mayer]

Alan, why be wary? Please explain?

This luthier has a great rep and the palm levers are far more limited than 3 pedals and 4 knee levers that can raise an lower up to 3 semitones.

Lone Star also produces standard 10 and 12 string pedal steels.

[John Bushouse]

James,

Many of the old National New Yorker-style steels have four three-string pickups in the neck and middle in addition to the bridge pickup (they're underneath the pickguard).

My 1936 has four volume knobs: master, one for the bridge, one for the two bass-side pickups (neck and middle) and one for the two treble-side pickups (neck and middle). You could always grab one of those and mess around with the wiring.

Or get some pickups made.

[Alan Brookes]

Alan, why be wary?...

I think you'll miss the lower notes. In effect, since in the E9 tuning the first two strings are re-entrant, and weren't there in early days, you could do without them, bringing a 10-string down to 8, but below that I think you'll be handicapping yourself.

It's like lap steels. I know a lot of exceptionally good players have done wonders with 6-string instruments, and I myself have a National New Yorker with only 6 strings, but I wouldn't build one with less than 8. Then again, I usually play a lap steel in C6, which has closer intervals than E9. In my younger days I used to play a lot of blues on regular 6-string guitars with a nut riser and tuned to E or E7. I guess it's all a matter of what you're going to use it for.

[Marc Jenkins]

I did some recording at a studio owned by a former member of The Champs (you know, 'Tequila') and he was also an inventor. He built his own guitar; it was totally amazing! It had an orange lucite body, built-in stand (just put it down, and the spider legs jump out!) and modular pickups. He was an early adopter of Neodymium magnets; he had tiny tiny little pebbles holding his bills up on his fridge; he wound a bunch of pickups with different magnets/windings, and they mounted by literally just placing on a pair of rails that sat just outside the strings. You could put a pickup anywhere you wanted, and as many as would fit. It sounded amazing!

Obviously, changing where you pick will make a difference, but not as much as switching pickups...

[Twayn Williams]

Alan, why be wary?...

I think you'll miss the lower notes. In effect, since in the E9 tuning the first two strings are re-entrant, and weren't there in early days, you could do without them, bringing a 10-string down to 8, but below that I think you'll be handicapping yourself.

Open (low to high):
B - E - F# - G# - B - E

A standard 3x2 pedal/knee setup would give you about 80% of what you'd usually use on a standard 10-string E9 guitar. What you're jettisoning is the D between the low B and E, and the high G# and of course the top 2 "chromatic" strings (D#, F#.) I've actually setup my GFI 10-string like this, i.e, I removed the D and added a low E (same pitch as the 6th on a standard guitar.) It works just fine.