PSG with multiple pickups/tonal options?

John Larson · Post by **John Larson** » 6 Oct 2020 5:36 pm

Coming from the world of electric guitar I found it odd pedal steel guitars don't normally have pickup selectors or multiple pickups especially as the logic in 6 string land for slide playing was often to use the neck pickup. I see how adding a neck pickup would impede ergonomics of picking on a PSG. However a selector switch with a capacitor similar to a Fender Esquire or Gibson ES with the rotary varitone switch seems like it would be doable. Is there a reason this hasn't been done?

Marty Broussard · Post by **Marty Broussard** » 6 Oct 2020 6:49 pm

Watching

Asa Brosius · Post by **Asa Brosius** » 6 Oct 2020 7:13 pm

I've had the same thoughts-generally it seems like players and/or builders are uninterested- the market is still heavily based on chasing single high output clean bridge pickup specific sounds. Of course there are exceptions- Russ Pahl, the fender stringmaster, everything Pete Kleinow, Emmons pentad pickups just to name a few- for what it's worth, my neck pickup doesn't impede my picking.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 6 Oct 2020 7:43 pm

The builder's market has largely been driven by just a few (rather conservative) older players who form the "idol basis" for most all of those who are true devotees of the instrument. You can bet your bippy that if Buddy or Lloyd had had multiple pickups on their guitars, most everyone would have them by now, too! While it's true that we all stand on the shoulders of giants who have gone before, copycats tend to slow down progress and new developments.

Anyhow, I'm not of the opinion the a second pickup would have to be intrusive. In fact, I think that most all PSG pickups are unnecessarily large and clunky. It's just another case of "following the leaders" too much.

James Meloan · Post by **James Meloan** » 7 Oct 2020 2:59 am

I've seen a ShowPro with a neck pickup. Rich Hinman plays one. You lose a few fret markers in the higher register, but who the hell plays up there anyways

?

Aaron Johnson · Post by **Aaron Johnson** » 7 Oct 2020 3:18 am

This has been an interest of mine too. Lap steels have them, why not the pedal steel?

Desert Rose builds a steel with two pickups as an option. I was trying to convince another builder to do this but he stopped building steels.

mtulbert · Post by **mtulbert** » 7 Oct 2020 3:59 am

Mullen at one time had guitars with mulitple pickups. I believe Dale Rottacker owns one. Perhaps he would like to give us his thoughts of multiple pickups.

Also years ago Buddy had a guitar built with a pickup at the keyhead!!!. It was wild sounding hearing string pitches raise and lower at the same time.

Finally, the folks at Jackson a few years ago showed a Blackjack (might have been experimental) where you could pivot the position of the pickup to change the tone. It was amazing and it worked quite well IMHO. Not sure why it wasn't investigated further.

Aaron Johnson · Post by **Aaron Johnson** » 7 Oct 2020 4:32 am

Where is the ideal placement for a neck pickup on a steel? Is there a standard or ideal placement?

I was looking at my Stage One. If I could figure out how to remove the neck, it seems easy enough to cut the neck down some and put a second pickup on it.

mtulbert · Post by **mtulbert** » 7 Oct 2020 4:43 am

Check out this youtube video of Dale playing his Mullen with the 2 pickups on each neck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVWQylwxxk

Dennis Montgomery · Post by **Dennis Montgomery** » 7 Oct 2020 9:46 am

When I ordered my Mullen I included their tone switch circuit - an on/off toggle and knob to control the treble. Mike (or possibly Jeannette) at Mullen told me almost no one ever orders that option which really surprised me.

When I switched pickups a couple weeks ago and went with a Bill Lawrence L712, I wired in a coil tap so I could choose humbucker or single coil.

I like the option to control my sound as much as possible from the guitar itself, but it seems that's not what most modern pedal steels are designed to do. That's one of the things I really like about my old Fender 400, it has both tone and volume pots

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 7 Oct 2020 10:08 am

Dan Tyak has an awesome sounding second pickup on his Pedal Steel.

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 8 Oct 2020 3:21 am

Hi John,
Pretty much everything thought of today was explored in the 60's through the 80's...Here is a 1992 video clip with a good shot of the pickups located at 4:18

The Franklin Guitar was the first company offering 2 pickups as an option in 82...This is the 3rd dual pickup guitar I owned...It has the yellow/red front.

Buddy Emmons had a guitar featured on one of his instrumental recordings in the mid to late 70's that had more than 2 pickups (I believe it had at least 4 pickups) so he alone could imitate a synth string sound. Not sure if The Emmons Company built another one...On the Opry Weldon, Hal, and Sonny Burnett were using the boss tone distortion for accomplishing a pretty convincing string sound for the day...Buddy came up with a string machine and this guitar which essentially did the same thing from a singular player...Each pickup had a separate distortion assigned to it allowing full chords.

Anyways on my guitar I was after that strat sound option on steel. By the time this guitar arrived I had owned 3 dual pick up Franklins. My pickups could be either used singularly, in synch dually, with an in and out of phase switch option. All options were accessed by toggle switches located in the middle of the guitar...I still own this guitar and will use it whenever I go back on tour next year with Stapleton...
Paul

Jon Light · Post by **Jon Light** » 8 Oct 2020 4:56 am

Dan Tyack has a Desert Rose with a second factory installed pickup. He dug it enough to want to find a way to retrofit his Franklin with one and he used my rig.
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=232778

He dug that enough that he worked with Jason Lollar to upgrade the idea to a higher professional level.
I am not making this thing any more but the idea is easily accessible as a DIY, especially with a Jerry Sentell pickup (which was not available or known to me at the time of my creation of the product.)

I love the traditional sound of pedal steel guitar (and in fact my newest guitar, ordered last year, had other custom features so I chose not to bust chops going for the second pickup). But it was quite an ear opener, working with the second pickup, to flip it back into the single, standard pickup position and hear how very, very specific that sound is and how much broader the available tonal palette can be.
And for the record, the variable factor, by a huge margin, is not the type of pickup or the combination of two pickups but, rather, the position of the second pickup up the neck vs. snug down by the bridge.

John Larson · Post by **John Larson** » 8 Oct 2020 6:16 am

Aaron Johnson wrote:Where is the ideal placement for a neck pickup on a steel? Is there a standard or ideal placement?

I was looking at my Stage One. If I could figure out how to remove the neck, it seems easy enough to cut the neck down some and put a second pickup on it.

I would assume that taking into the factor of the 24" or 24.25" scale length common on pedal steel you use a similar method as with a standard electric guitar taking into account the harmonics. It would be cool if Lace made an alumitone single coil width humbucker for pedal steel. You could place it right next the the end of the fretboard.

Marty Broussard · Post by **Marty Broussard** » 8 Oct 2020 7:02 am

Have any of you who are using two pickups noticing any loss of sustain overall? I once owned one and there was a noticeable loss of sustain when I A/Bâ€™d it with another of the same brand.
Also, I remember that it originally had 2 E66â€™s. At one point I installed a guitar pup in the neck position hoping to get a cool Les Paul distortion thing going, but the volume decreased tremendously when I switched to that pup.

After much frustration I gave up and sold the axe. I know it could have been THAT particular guitar or it could be that I just didnâ€™t know HOW to play it. Maybe I didnâ€™t have the best pups and maybe the neck pickup wasnâ€™t in the best position. ???

Iâ€™m open minded and anxious to receive your feedback and watch this thread progress.

I have an extra guitar that I could mod if I knew the best way to do it.

Thank you!!

Dale Rottacker · Post by **Dale Rottacker** » 8 Oct 2020 7:53 am

mtulbert wrote:Check out this youtube video of Dale playing his Mullen with the 2 pickups on each neck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVWQylwxxk

Thanks Mark,

This guitar was Originally Jim Lindsey's and then later Mickey Adams... The 705's weren't the original pups in it when Jim had it, so not sure if the wiring was the same with the 705's or not.

My understanding from Jim was that you could play either p'up or put them out of phase, and even get a sim dobro effect with the 5 switches between the necks. I never fooled with them much in the 4 years I had the guitar as I've never been much of an FX user aside from Reverb and Delay. So almost 100% of the time I used the pickup closest the changer, just like everyone with a single pickup.

Guess I personally never found the usefulness of 2 pickup's vs 1

Asa Brosius · Post by **Asa Brosius** » 8 Oct 2020 9:50 am

Marty- I have a Fulawka S10 with a 705 in the back and a low-wound single coil in the front, wired for each, or a blend. Very different pickups, very different sounds-there is less sustain and volume with the neck pickup. The front pickup opens up the sonic range of effects pedals- nearly all built for the 6 string market-and often tube amps-not for a hot 705 through a Peavey 1000.
So, without a blend, you may want a different amp eq, or a different amp. Professionally, I like the neck pickup for duos/trios, or when there's harmonic space for a richer sound when recording. I'm not brave enough to use it on a country gig, or in a thicker mix. And yes, I do find I play differently with the different responses- I had the same frustration you mention at first- forced me to consider what sounds and feel I was really looking for.

K Maul · Post by **K Maul** » 8 Oct 2020 10:26 am

I had Justice rout out space for a 2nd pickup on my new S10 JR. An Alumitone is in there now but I plan on experimenting.

scott murray · Post by **scott murray** » 8 Oct 2020 10:43 am

Sierra and MSA have both made guitars with interchangeable pickups that slide in and out. there are probably other builders as well

Benjamin Davidson · Post by **Benjamin Davidson** » 8 Oct 2020 11:44 am

I found the Esquire wiring to be too dark for a Tele, and based on that experiance I'd estimate it would be the same feeling for steel.

What may provide some tonal changes would be a selector switch to shift a humbucker from series to parallel to split coil. I have had some luck with those tones being useful on 6 string, however enevitably I leave the pickup in series most, if not all the time.

The market answered this tonal variety (sort of) with the interchangable pick ups like modern MSAs, and volume/tone devices like the Goodrich Matchbox. So, how much would be truely gained by adding such a tone circuit (which most likely would be passive) or a second pickup in a method that doesnt impede with playing to a steel guitar?

Recently Seymour Duncan released "the Secret Agent" neck pickup for Esquire guitars. Now such a pickup design could be fitted into the fretboard, have the fretmarkers intact, and minimise its magnetic pull reduction of sustain. However, I havent heard this pickup personnally and I dont know how its voiced nor how to adapt it to be voiced for steel - but its contruction as a shallow single coil could be viable if one wished to pursue it.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 8 Oct 2020 12:40 pm

I never understood that either. It couldn't be due to cost as pickups and wiring are relatively cheap comparatively. Yes, there would be a set up for routing the 2nd space, but that should be templated for further production. Even cheap asian standard guitars have 2 pickups.

I think generally, it's just because steel players largely just want a single type of tone. Many steel players and indeed many steels do not even use a tone control and many never touch their amp settings once dialed in, so that should say something about that.

Even though there are differences between standard guitars and pedal steel guitars, the available sounds switching from rhythm to lead and a combination of both are obvious.

I know some console steels had two pickups, were they wired in tandem just for a single sound or were they switchable one to the other?

If anyone has any examples of 2 pickup pedal steel sounds, I'd be very much interested in hearing them.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 8 Oct 2020 2:52 pm

I started using multiple pickup steel guitars in the 70's.. My first "real" steel was an MSA Classic S10... I hogged that poor guitar out with screwdrivers, butter knives and a claw hammer...I had a BL 10-5 with 5 position switch near the bridge, a Bud coil tap with switch in the center, and the original MSA single coil, closest to the fret board... Bewildering variety of sounds on that guitar,, Sadly, the body itself was dark and dead, with NO sustain or resonance... Had a ProIII with 2 Bud pickups, that was a good sounding guitar. Had the E9 neck machined to fit the 2nd pickup.
Past few decades, I simply use single humbuckers that have multiple wires for coil isolating, and get 3 very distinct tones..
Bridge single coil sounds very close to a Fender cable model.. Not exact, but a good representation.
Neck single coil is more
"Bud like".. Still a single coil sound with good highs, but with rounder, fuller, more smooth timbre..
Center position is both coils /full humbucker. Thicker and fatter sounding, louder with somewhat more sustain..

WHY in the world, any steel player would have a humbucker in their guitar, and just tape the wires together so that its always both coils activated is beyond my comprehension.. Put a bucker in, install a tiny dpdt on/on /on switch, get your bucker sound, but with a touch totally transform your sound to single coil instantly. Most guys don't and its crazy to me, yet they might go buy another steel because it sounds different... In 44 years of playing steel, I have used either multi pickups or switched humbucker pickups on almost all of my stage guitars... bob

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 8 Oct 2020 3:29 pm

Switched humbucker. Never really explored that but it's a great idea. I guess it just seems like a lot of trouble to wire up as I'm not really that knowledgeable in doing it.

Dennis Montgomery · Post by **Dennis Montgomery** » 8 Oct 2020 3:51 pm

Jerry Overstreet wrote:Switched humbucker. Never really explored that but it's a great idea. I guess it just seems like a lot of trouble to wire up as I'm not really that knowledgeable in doing it.

It can be tricky if you're not used to messing with wiring, but the manufacturer of your humbucker should be able to provide you with the proper wiring diagram to set up a coil split. As far as actually doing it, I'd bet someone on the forum could walk you through it step by step or suggest someone near you that could do the work. You wouldn't need a pedal steel specialist, any high quality guitar repair shop should be able to wire it up.

In my case, I used the existing Mullen wiring harness connection and just inserted my new Bill Lawrence L712 where the Mullen single coil was connected. The only strange thing was my L712 only had 3 wires so I could split the humbucker, but couldn't control which single coil side was being output. At least I couldn't figure out how to choose which side if it was even possible so I just made sure the coil tapped active side was closest to the changer

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 8 Oct 2020 4:35 pm

K Maul wrote:I had Justice rout out space for a 2nd pickup on my new S10 JR. An Alumitone is in there now but I plan on experimenting.

That also looks like a perfect candidate for a sliding pickup!

Adjust for the sound you want!