ETS pickup swap?

[Asa Brosius]

Has anyone changed the pickup on an ETS? Looks like it might require removal of the neck.

[Julian Goldwhite]

Hi Asa,

I believe the pickup on the ETS is just held down with double-sided foam tape. The neck shouldn't need to be removed.

All the best,

Julian

[Asa Brosius]

Great news- thanks Julian

[Billy Carr]

Correct on the double sided tape. If pu is mounted(bolted to plate with machine screws) it'll change the tone and won't have a full mellow sound. The tape mount is much better. Got that from ex-uncle, the late Bobby Bowman. He had mounted a pu and went back to the double-sided tape. Good luck. The ETS guitars were/are very stable, I think due to the aluminum body and of course, Bud Carter.

[Peter den Hartogh]

Al Brisco told me that by gently rocking the old pickup up an down, you will be able to work it loose.

[Jay Jessup]

I would be interested in other's opinion on Billy's comment about the tone difference using foam tape. It never occurred to me that you could just stick a pickup on with foam tape and the fact that it may have a tone difference is interesting too. I don't have an opinion but would like to hear from others who have experience with this?

[Bruce Derr]

I've never experimented with it but have sometimes wondered how pickup mounting techniques affect tone. If you think about it, the vibrations being transmitted through the body vibrate the pickup very slightly at certain frequencies, which might, at those frequencies, have a cancelling or aiding effect upon the notes, and the harmonic spectrum, of the signal being picked up from the strings. If the pickup is tightly fastened to the guitar body the effect would, in theory, be maximized. Perhaps foam tape isolates the pickup somewhat from those body vibrations.

On another note, I have a Carpsteel with a foam-mounted pickup, and sometimes it falls off while the guitar is up-side-down in the case. I'll pull the guitar up out of the case and find the pickup sitting on the underside of the strings.

[Asa Brosius]

here's the reason for the post: i've been playing a friend's ETS (checking it out before i buy one)and i like the george l 10-1 pickup- i find i can dig in a bit more-quite punchy and touch responsive. however, a lot of pedal noise is coming through the pickup. It's not bad enough to ruin a gig, but way too much for recording. Any ETS owners experience this? or is this pickup simply microphonic?

[Charlie McDonald]

I've had two lapsteels (acoustic) with a baby humbucker mounted with sticky tape and it's smooth to my ear, certainly less microphonic.
Isolation from mechanical vibration does have its effect, and I'm sure it has its plusses and minuses
depending on the tone you desire, as Bruce Derr describes.

[Eric Dahlhoff]

My ETS does not have any pedal noise coming through. I would guess that the pickup on yours must be touching the cabinet.

[Julian Goldwhite]

Asa - My ETS is extremely quiet and recording friendly. Not sure what the issue is with your friend's. I haven't heard of George L's going microphonic, but changing out the pickup might be a good place to start.

All the best,

Julian

[Dennis Russell]

I have an ETS and I don't get pedal noise through the pick-up, but I did find out when I did some recording last year, that I was picking up the sound of the pull rods in the undercarriage moving. As I've seen others do (not only on ETS but other makes of guitars), I used some foam between the undercarriage rods to help keep the pull rods from hitting each other and to help deaden any vibration. The foam helped diminish the rod noise quite a bit.

[Asa Brosius]

Great- just what I wanted to hear.