Does Pickup/Amp Selection Matter More than Brand of PSG?

[Mike Perlowin]

... it's difficult to produce pleasing tones with inferior equipment.

But is there any correlation between weight and quality?

Both the Quilter Steelaire and Milkman half and half amps weigh less than half as much as a Twin.

I never weighed my Millennium, but the late Al Marcus once posted that his weighed 19 pounds.

Lighter or heavier doesn't mean better or worse.

[Dennis N Brown]

finally something iknow a little about as many of yu said there are guitars and there are it all depends on the style of music what guitar amp combonation you would play for country would many times not be the best combo for rock first decide what style and sound you want THEN buy the best you can afford in guitars and amps I play a wide genera of music and I have guitar amp combos for various if you have to choose put your money in the best amp you can afford and settle for a lesser quality guitar anyway that has worked well for me in the 40 plus years I hae been making music dennis

[Ken Pippus]

Yup. The medium is, in fact, the massage.

[Erv Niehaus]

Craig,
Yes, you've got it figured out!

[Chris Grigsby]

I hear this a lot in the context of studio recording, e.g. who cares about sound quality when the audience listens to music in compressed mp3 format? Guess what, an mp3 of a great recording still sounds infinitely better than an mp3 of a poor recording.

My personal opinion is that this type of thinking is silly and, while convenient in a lazy sort of way, actually not typically the case. Audiences typically *do* care about the quality of music they are listening to, whether it be recorded or live. Does every person in the audience care or notice? No, of course not, but most do. Hell, even if one person does, that should be enough to worry about getting the best sounds possible out of one's setup, no?

You are absolutely correct, I should worry more about practicing and less about gear, but the two aren't mutually exclusive!

Best,
Chris

The question must be asked, besides us fanatics, WHO CARES?

Audiences certainly don't.

It's true that you can tell the difference between my Music Man and my Quilter amps when you play them side by side and compare them, but I've gigged with both of them, and nobody has ever noticed which one I was using. The same is true with the different pickups.

Instead of worrying about what length of cable or what gauge of picks to use, we should all (including me,) be putting our energy into learning to play better.

[Dustin Rigsby]

I hear this a lot in the context of studio recording, e.g. who cares about sound quality when the audience listens to music in compressed mp3 format? Guess what, an mp3 of a great recording still sounds infinitely better than an mp3 of a poor recording.

My personal opinion is that this type of thinking is silly and, while convenient in a lazy sort of way, actually not typically the case. Audiences typically *do* care about the quality of music they are listening to, whether it be recorded or live. Does every person in the audience care or notice? No, of course not, but most do. Hell, even if one person does, that should be enough to worry about getting the best sounds possible out of one's setup, no?

You are absolutely correct, I should worry more about practicing and less about gear, but the two aren't mutually exclusive!

Best,
Chris

The question must be asked, besides us fanatics, WHO CARES?

Audiences certainly don't.

It's true that you can tell the difference between my Music Man and my Quilter amps when you play them side by side and compare them, but I've gigged with both of them, and nobody has ever noticed which one I was using. The same is true with the different pickups.

Instead of worrying about what length of cable or what gauge of picks to use, we should all (including me,) be putting our energy into learning to play better.

I can only speak from my own personal experience. I believe your sound is a combination of factors,not just one single thing. I've owned four different guitars. Two of the same brand. They all sounded good,but each was different. Presently, I have an MSA D-10
Classic. I started out by changing pickups. In the past I have used Truetone single coils. It just wasn't cutting it for the MSA. I switched to the Telonics pickup and Marvin Born helped me dial it in. That got me part of the way to the sound I was hearing in my head. I adjusted the settings on my Digitech rp150. That got me closer. I tried several different amps and, after some experimenting,decided I needed to use my Musicman head. I had Rick Johnson build me a superbly crafted cabinet. After much deliberation and research, I decided to try the Jensen neo 300 8 ohm 15. I made the right choices, it's the best pedal steel sound I've ever had. This is journey folks have to take. Every musician has differing tastes in what they want to hear. If it pleases them, more than likely thier audience will like it too. YMMV

[Dennis N Brown]

I will say this in addition to my earlier comment it didn't take me long to figure that my regular amp afender frontman just didn't cutit for my steel I asked a steeler I knew what I needed he said if you can find one and afford it get apeavey sssions 400 so that is what I have done I may change later when I get more experienced steelwise bullheaded as I can be sometimes ido know good advise when I hear it dennsi

[Karl Paulsen]

Interesting discussion. I come from bass guitars and I wonder if there are any parallels with my experience with a Precision bass. It's clearly not a steel, but it's a single pickup instrument with just a volume and tone. I've found massive changes in tone from swapping pickups.

That is not to say a great pickup can save a crappy guitar, and having a quality amp designed for your application is essential. However, the pickup seems to be the choke point for me musically. You can have the best guitar and best amp in the world but with a crappy pup, none of that tone is heading for the speakers.

I wonder if this is less an issue with steels because there don't seem to be many "mass produced" PSG's and steel pickups. With the cheapest 10 string steels mostly going for over a grand, expectations are high enough maybe there's a threshold for pickups that almost all steels meet. Could it be PSG pickups are generally good enough that pickups aren't a often a major weak link they way they are in mass produced electric guitars and basses?

[Dustin Rigsby]

Interesting discussion. I come from bass guitars and I wonder if there are any parallels with my experience with a Precision bass. It's clearly not a steel, but it's a single pickup instrument with just a volume and tone. I've found massive changes in tone from swapping pickups.

That is not to say a great pickup can save a crappy guitar, and having a quality amp designed for your application is essential. However, the pickup seems to be the choke point for me musically. You can have the best guitar and best amp in the world but with a crappy pup, none of that tone is heading for the speakers.

I wonder if this is less an issue with steels because there don't seem to be many "mass produced" PSG's and steel pickups. With the cheapest 10 string steels mostly going for over a grand, expectations are high enough maybe there's a threshold for pickups that almost all steels meet. Could it be PSG pickups are generally good enough that pickups aren't a often a major weak link they way they are in mass produced electric guitars and basses?

Absolutely not ! Not all pickups are created equal, and what is pleasing to your ear will be different than someone else. The Telonics and the Tonealigner pickups have adjustable pole pieces, you can dial the sound in quite a bit. The Bill Lawrence pickups are also high on the list.

[Karl Paulsen]

Absolutely not ! Not all pickups are created equal, and what is pleasing to your ear will be different than someone else. The Telonics and the Tonealigner pickups have adjustable pole pieces, you can dial the sound in quite a bit. The Bill Lawrence pickups are also high on the list.

I didn't mean to imply that they were all equal. I'm sure you know better than I, but are there PSG pickups that are widely known to be of poor-quality?

I'm a newb to this, but I haven't heard many reports like that, whereas in the electric guitar world there are alot of OEM pups that are generally accepted to be not just "different" but decidedly sub-par.

[Lane Gray]

The George L E-66 has a decent tone (it was designed to make its original host guitar sound like a 66 push-pull), but its envelope (that's the dynamics: attack, release, sustain, and decay) are decidedly uninspiring. It's as if all the soul is scientifically extracted.
Is it terrible? No. That's obvious by how long it has been on the market, and the fact that many are repeat customers. But in ALMOST every instance, a guitar with them will come alive with an alternate pickup (but not literally)

[Karl Paulsen]

The George L E-66 has a decent tone (it was designed to make its original host guitar sound like a 66 push-pull), but its envelope (that's the dynamics: attack, release, sustain, and decay) are decidedly uninspiring. It's as if all the soul is scientifically extracted.
Is it terrible? No. That's obvious by how long it has been on the market, and the fact that many are repeat customers. But in ALMOST every instance, a guitar with them will come alive with an alternate pickup (but not literally)

Good to know. Do it's users have any particular qualities about it that they enjoy or is it a sort of standard choice that rides on the momentum of tradition?

[Lane Gray]

Like I said, the tone is pleasing.
And others may like the less responsive envelope.
It doesn't suck, it's just not as enjoyable to play.

[John Goux]

Erv, your first post is the best ever. You've made me a fan.

Chris, you asked an honest question, and made yourself low hanging fruit for the denizens of this site.
You can expect...

Condescension about players' skills
Long held opinions about equipment
How the Greats excelled on a variety of gear
It is in the hands
What you should spend your music time on

None of these answers your original question. But if you can plow through the agendas..
There are quality answers to had by some of the knowledgable folks here.

Here is my two cents.
Everything piece of gear matters....
And we are practically the only ones that care.
The most dramatic difference in the signal chain is made by the speaker. More than any pickups, brand of PSG, or buffer. Not that they don't all matter.

The only thing more important is the player, but then if you made it this far down the thread, you've heard that lecture many times by now.

Have fun with this.
John

[Donny Hinson]

The George L E-66 has a decent tone (it was designed to make its original host guitar sound like a 66 push-pull), but its envelope (that's the dynamics: attack, release, sustain, and decay) are decidedly uninspiring. It's as if all the soul is scientifically extracted.

Some of that is the context in which it's used. The E-66 was designed long ago, before low-cap cables came about, and it sounds decidedly better if you're not using them. It also sounds better (less "compressed") as you get it further away from the strings.

[Donny Hinson]

Interesting discussion. I come from bass guitars and I wonder if there are any parallels with my experience with a Precision bass. It's clearly not a steel, but it's a single pickup instrument with just a volume and tone. I've found massive changes in tone from swapping pickups.

Compare the two (Precision Bass and the average pedal steel) as far as the distance between the bridge and the pickup, and you'll see why a pickup change may make more difference in the PB. (This may also be the reason why Tele players are more likely to changeout the neck pickup.) A bass guitar also has decidedly more body/neck resonance than a pedal steel, so they have little in common, sound-wise and design-wise. Over 50 years of playing and listening has taught me that "night and day" differences aren't made by just changing the pickup on a pedal steel.

[Tony Prior]

along with tone , you need an instrument that you can play and can be set-up easily.

[Karl Paulsen]

Some of that is the context in which it's used. The E-66 was designed long ago, before low-cap cables came about, and it sounds decidedly better if you're not using them. It also sounds better (less "compressed") as you get it further away from the strings.

Good to know. This is the kind of stuff I can't imagine learning anywhere else but here.

Compare the two (Precision Bass and the average pedal steel) as far as the distance between the bridge and the pickup, and you'll see why a pickup change may make more difference in the PB. (This may also be the reason why Tele players are more likely to changeout the neck pickup.)

That makes alot of sense to me. On 2 pickup basses I do notice that changing the volume and tone of the bridge pup -or just changing the whole pup- does seem to have less effect on the overall tone than the mid/neck pickup.

[Dennis N Brown]

well seeing how this has drifted just a little into bass guitars I am finding out that lot ofsteelers startedout as bass players which I did also my 1 good bass was a 63 perscision from shiblevines in cape geareadu mo which isold cause ineeded money for my family turns out ishould have soldthe pldlady andkept the base the percesion bass is the best bass I have ever played and I have compared every bass I have owned and that isquite a few to it I finally have one that is very close but the percesion is number 1 in my book

[Carl Mesrobian]

Provided the guitar is functioning fine, with good sound transmission, no loose parts, etc., I think it's up to the player what sound can be "squeezed" out of the instrument.

Have two players try the same guitar and see. People underestimate the nuances involved in playing..

[Dennis N Brown]

carl I am in complete agreement with you some people just seem to put a part of themselves into their music those are the truly gifted and great artists and players dennis

[Mike Poholsky]

In reference to BE quote. One of my Steel Guitar Fantasies was:

Im playing away in my music room, at a good volume. Some how I hear the doorbell ring. Answering the door, I see Buddy and he says " I was driving by and heard you playing a Steel Guitar. Sounded pretty good. Mind if I play a little?"

He probably has picks but, without changing one setting. He sits down. I sit back and listen to the most incredible rig ever! LOL!!

Oh Well................

[Dennis N Brown]

hey mike I am toying around about getting a 12 string how do you like yours the ability to play both e9 and c6 on the same neckappeals to me do you see a advantage over a double neck or is it in my imagination yours dennis n brown Pocahontas ark a true son of the south