Pickup coil issue?

[Joseph Poff]

I have a ShoBud Maverick. I'm super new to the Pedal Steel. I know it's a student edition. Got it (:

It seems fine for me at this point. Stays in tune, pedals work fine. The pickup 'seems ok' -- it outputs fine.

Tuning is more complicated than I thought -- good grief!!! But getting the hang of that thanks to tips on this forum.

Not really knowing how it should sound (except obviously have watched some videos), each string seems to come through. Now, the potential issue.

I've read in the forum about getting an ohm reading from the pickup. When I do that, it says "OL". I've moved the ohm range up and it always says "OL". If I try this on my electric guitar in the same manner, I do get a reading. So, my process seems ok, but the Pedal Steel pickup isn't showing a reading. I've used my ohm meter for decades, but that doesn't mean I'm an expert.

Again, in the forum I've read that some have said that the inability to get an ohm reading is an indication of a broken coil but may still work because of the internal proximity of the broken wire to other winding wires in the coil. One comment was that if basically I compared my pickup to another one that didn't have this issue, the sound would be different.

I seem to get too much high frequency from the pickup when compared to what I'm kind of used to with a regular guitar or I would have expected. But that may be normal.

I also noted that I can get artifacts perhaps at some fret positions. That might relate to the pickup or perhaps my playing style as I am a beginner. It also may relate to the strings as I haven't changed them yet and I'm sure they need it. (Trying to get up my courage ha ha).

I saw several people said Jerry could rewind it, but he seems to have passed away.

Any thoughts? It could be it sounds like a normal ShoBud should sound. But after experimenting I'm beginning to wonder.

[J Fletcher]

Hi Joseph
Yep , sure sounds like your pickup coil is open , and needs to be rewound . This is not uncommon , has happened to me a few times . Jerry ( not the Jerry that rewinds pickups )

[Jon Light]

Look for Nick Fryer here on the forum for the rewind.

Hard to know what you are referring to re: 'artifacts perhaps at some fret positions' but ..... there is so much stuff to learn. One is the proper muting of the strings behind the bar. Letting strings ring behind the bar at certain node points will give you extraneous sounds. No idea if this is what you are hearing but...maybe.

[Joseph Poff]

Great. Thanks guys.

[Joseph Poff]

As a follow up to this -- I contacted Nick Fryer on this forum and he did an 'awesome' job of rewinding the coil. Great to work with.

My Pedal Steel really has 'great' tone now. The coil was definitely the issue. Problem solved!