Pedal steel pickups

Gary Jarvis · Post by **Gary Jarvis** » 5 Oct 2019 3:20 pm

I have a fairly new Carter D10 with factory pickups (I believe).
I see numerous brands of pickups on guitars selling on this site, and wondered if anyone could describe the various tone/color of the more popular ones?
I would consider changing mine but wouldnâ€™t have an idea of what I might prefer.
Thanks in advance to anyone who would be willing to respond.
Gary

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 5 Oct 2019 10:02 pm

Carter didnâ€™t make there own pickups except for maybe the Carter starter.

My opinion about pickups at this point is that there are much more important things to deal with when it comes to tone on the steel. On an electric guitar the pickup is maybe 20% of the sound. On a pedalsteel a pickup is about 5% of the tone. You need to be able to control the sound with your hands before a pickup will make any difference. Sorta like a violin.

With that little little rant go ahead and post a picture of the pickup in your steel. We can figure out what it is and suggest something else once we find out what you donâ€™t like about the pickup you have.

Ian Rae · Post by **Ian Rae** » 5 Oct 2019 11:33 pm

I agree - a "fairly new Carter D10" will have pickups which the manufacturer believes will get the best out of the guitar.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 6 Oct 2019 8:42 am

Ian Rae wrote:I agree - a "fairly new Carter D10" will have pickups which the manufacturer believes will get the best out of the guitar.

When a buyer ordered a Carter, the owner could have any pickup he wanted installed. If the buyer had no brand preference, they would be asked what kind of sound they were after, and the appropriate pickup would be suggested.. They had no "stock" pickups outside of the one they made for the Starter.. You could even order a Starter pickup in a pro model if you wanted to. John told me it might be a good choice for the "old school" sound I was after, but I ordered a Truetone with coil tap on one carter, and a GeorgeL 10-5 on another... bob

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 6 Oct 2019 9:44 am

Here are pickup comparisons in a Carter.

If something stands out and speaks to you, there you go.

If they all sound pretty close with nothing particularly different, there you go.

As stated above, post a pic so we can tell you what you've got.

https://soundcloud.com/jolt12/sets/pickup-comparisons

Brian Hollands · Post by **Brian Hollands** » 6 Oct 2019 9:52 am

To elaborate on what Bob said (he used to make Tonealigner pickups by the way) check out this thread https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... comparison The fourth post links to a soundcloud comparison of 8 pickups. Not much difference to my ear...

Edit, same link Jon posted... beat me to it.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 6 Oct 2019 2:26 pm

Hi Gary. No Carter expert here, but I used to play them a lot at the ST. Louis SG convention. These were your generic set-up, run of the mill Carters for sale at the convention. I saw them with Geo. L's E66 a lot and also with Bill Lawrence XR-16. The XR-16 looks like this:

I'm currently playing a Carter with this pickup on the E9th neck. There is a Bill Lawrence 710 on the back neck. They look alike, but the XR-16 is my favorite of the 2 and also over the Geo. L's.

IMO, you can't do better than the XR-16's on a Carter guitar.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 6 Oct 2019 3:43 pm

Those Bill Lawrence pickups are great.

One thing to keep in mind is that the pickup cavity on a Carter is relatively small. Most will fit but make sure you double check. Also Carter uses a wide mount base plate.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 6 Oct 2019 5:20 pm

I think it's important to keep in mind that all those pickup sound clips were made using the exact same amp settings. And like a lot of players, I find the differences fairly subtle. But with judicious settings of the amp tone controls (and even more so with a graphic EQ) the differences between them could be made less significant.