The Steel Guitar Forum

Still got the original pups' on my 73 PROII.
Sound as good as ever.When they die Ill have them re-animated.(re-wound)

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Sho-Bud ProII
"there's been an awful murder, down on music row!"

Seriously thinking about it... haven't pulled the trigger yet.

hard to know how much noise there is actually going to be in all the interference here in New York... having played through single coils on someone else's guitar in a relatively quiet, uncrowded neighborhood sounded great, but I'm concerned how it'll be with loads of electrical gear around.

Bob I had 14k in my 67 PP, did not want to get to heavy with 18+ so split the difference at 16K. I really like the clean sound I am getting. I have been getting brighter and brighter as time goes on to cut through my band. Some have said they play to make themselves happy on stage. That is what I did for 35 years, but I also want everyone to hear the steel so if I am too muddy and or too loud I am not in the PA mix and the other side of the club can not hear the steel as it is not in the system.

So down goes my volume, up comes the brightness and the Emmons, TT's, VF-1, Hilton, Webb can now be heard everywhere in the club. Still experimenting.

Larry Behm

My MSA Universal Millennium came with a George L. Since it is so easy to replace pickups in this guitar (it takes about 10 seconds, start to finish), I thought I'd get a TT. I find that the TT requires more power to get the same volume. That might be neither here nor there, but I really find the TT, though having a clean sound, has a brighter, one might even say, thinner sound. I guess I like having them both and I use the TT every once in a while, but most of the time, I play the George L.
Perhaps I'm missing something....

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Alan Pagliere
MSA Millennium S12 Universal

THIS IS MY OPINION ONLY! But it seems to me that somewhere along the road we got into this "horsepower" war with pickups. Someone said, "My pickup has 12 thousand ohms." Then someone else said, "Oh yea, mine has 14 thousand." And so on and on.

My 67 Emmons has 14.83k and the tone is as fat as it can be. My new Zum has 17.5k and it's very close to the Emmons. However the wire is wound a little tighter on the Zum's TT pickups, therefore the width of the field is about the same. All things being equal, like the gauge of wire, magnet size and material, tightness of the wrap, ect. More ohms equals more bass response. More is not always better.

The more bass response a pickup has, the more you need to boost the highs, and when you do that, you add "white noise." To me, I'd rather have to add bass to my sound than highs. It sounds cleaner to me that way.

YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY !!!

Randy,
After hearing your new Zum with the TT 17.5 pickups on it. I decided to change my Zum's pickup, from a BL-912 to TT-19.5 Jerry recommended the 19.5, because of the extra length of the pickup. And, I have to say that,the TT has made a definite difference in that the string sounds are cleaner and more separated.The highs also seem to last longer and the bottom end is not so muddy.There was nothing wrong with the BL-912, I was just looking for a different tone from my Zum

I guess I am one of the 4. I've been thinking of trying them in my Carter but don't know know how many ohms would be the best. On E9, I pretty much like an even balance of highs and lows. C6 a little more an the bassy side.

Any recommendations?

Richard I asked Jerry what he recommends for a Carter and he said 18.5k for the E9th and 19K for the C6th.

Zum 18k E9th, and 18-19K for C6th - although he also commented that a lot of guys go with both necks the same !!

Richard, after trying most of the pickups Carter had to offer I dropped a set of old 18k Emmons single coils in my Carter. That was the end of my pickups changing days, they sounded great. I am sure Jerry's recommendation is a good one, you will not regret the move.

Randy, the more wraps the more bass is exactly the reason I went with 16's, if I want bass I will add it with the bass knob. My line has always been, you can color a clean pickups to your taste, but you cannot clean up a muddy pickup. Mud is mud, it might be made into a latte, but it will never be spring water.

Larry Behm

Has anyone plotted frequency response curves as a function of pickup resistance? I, for one, would like to see something objective on the subject.

My TrueTone pickup is awesome!

I play a 2002 Emmons D-10, 8f/5k. I was very unhappy with the response from stock pickup on the C6th neck...muddy, would be a good word for it. The E9th stock pickup is great. I talked to Jerry about it and he assured me he could "fix it".

Well, he certainly did! I played my first big gig with it this weekend...a three-fiddle Western Swing jam session...lots of C6th. So we stretched out the C6th and the TrueTone for 3 hours. It is truly incredible the difference it makes. Clarity, response throughout the range and all strings.

I'm now going to order an E9th replacement, on the basis that it can only make it better.

Thanks, Jerry for great service and a great pickup!

Best regards,

bUd

I have one, but for that kind of tone I prefer the Bill Lawrence 712. No hum.

The 18.5K TrueTone I recently put in the E9 of my MSA D-12 improved it fairly subtly, I like it better, but it didn't turn my guitar into a p/p, or a simulation of any other modern sounding steel, unfortunately. Top end is a little nicer, there wasn't as much improvement in the low end as I hoped for, maybe should've gone for lower resistance to make up for the dark sound of a wood neck guitar. So: no complaints, just wasn't quite as dazzled os many others here, a lower rewind would probably fix that. Jerry is great to chat an work with. And I think the pickups LOOK way better, very cool!

I would say that Randy Beavers 17.5 TT's have very little hum as do my 18.5's and I never thought of it that way Randy I think I might have to go to a 17.5 to loose more hum and bring up the bass to get rid of the white noise, your a smart boy.
However this post is old and I have switched guitars from a Zum to a Williams and the Williams pickup couldnt get beat out by the TT . It may just be the guitar but Bill makes a killer pickup along with everything about his guitar is killer. I might have to ask bill to make me a 17.8 or something like that and get rid of the white noise like you say Mr. Beavers.
But I still stand behind Jerry's TT's as being the overall best pickup on the market and like was said before YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY
RANDY CARSON

Randy I am not sure you will hear any significant changes from 18.5 to 17.8. The late great pickup guru Danny Shields felt that you had to be over 1K difference, and then with the band blasting, the crowd loud you might be lucky enough to hear your amp at all let alone a small change like that.

Larry Behm

I play a S12 Millenium and have the True Tone, E-66 and George L playing thru a Web amp. I like the George L quite a bit better than the other two!

Just got in a Carter U-12 with the Trutone. Love the sound but I cannot tolerate the 60 cycle hum. I will be changing it out ASAP. I am hoping the Bill Lawrence 912 will do the trick. I must say the tone of the Trutone is fantastic, but I just do not care for the hum! I recently went to Bill Lawrence pickups for my Tele. I am very pleased with them, no hum at all and a great tone. I hope the 912 is as good.
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Ken Fox on 12 April 2004 at 09:03 AM.]</p></FONT>