The Steel Guitar Forum

i'm going to be building a few lap steels the following monthes but i decided to make a 6 string 1st to cut my teeth before my double or triple neck 8 string so what would you use for the pick up of the 6 string, a guitar pick up or a lap steel pick up? not sure what the difference would be.

If I were YOU............and if you are a serious wanna-be guitar builder person, I personally don't believe you could find ANY pickup that would give you more clout for your dollar.......than one of those that Rick Aiello has had a hand in building. Superb workmanshop. You can find him here on the Forum.
Personally, I think most of the pickups that are floating around are just so much junk.
Good Luck to YOU during your search.

I second the Aiello pickup......" Slim Belly" .

Jason Lollar makes some great steel guitar pickups as well.

I think between these two guys you get alot of great choices.
Todd

I have used a variety of pickups. Like said above, Rick's and Jasons are good stuff.
Some time ago I used humbuckers from Semour Duncan with good results, and more recently some 7 string humbuckers from DiMarzio. I have used quite a few bobbins from Jason Lollar with good results.
I think one of Rick's new pickups would bring your first project to life in fine style, and they look really cool

Rick's are the way to go, if you have the $$. I like Jason's for the Chicago Steel and his P-90's as well; Lindy Fralin makes an awe-inspiring tele pickup that I have put into a couple of those cruddy Fender reissues that made them sound almost kinda not too bad...

I personally love P90 pickups for lap steel (I have a Seymour Duncan vintage model in one of my builds) - very fat and warm, with plenty of bite.

For a slightly thinner, treblier, twangier vintage Fender sound you might try a Telecaster bridge pickup (like a Fender CS Nocaster, or a Seymour Duncan Alnico II model).

I also like the Lollar Chicago Steel (I use the 8-string variety), which mimicks the sound of old Valco/Supro string-through pickups (hot, lots of bite, great for dirty, overdriven blues sounds).

But my favorite pickup winder is Pete Biltoft from www.vintagevibeguitars.com - I have his 8-string lap-steel-pickup in one of my builds, and that's my favorite lap steel sound for cleaner country-style playing (for dirty stuff I like the one with the P90).
I also have his HCC (a Charlie Christian-style blade pickup in a HB form factor) in a Tele, and that's one of the best pickups I've ever heard, for my next lap-steel build I'm definitely going to use his CC-Rider pickup - these have a HUGE, warm, full, but transparent and clean sound and should be perfect for lap steel (after all, old Gibson laps were fitted with CCs, too).
Pete Biltoft is also very responsive in building something to the wishes you describe to him, and is way less expensive than Lollar or Fralin (not that thes wouldn't be worth the money, though).

./

Basil,
in my experience, Pete's customer service is excellent, I'm sure cancelling your order will not be a problem. I always discussed my orders via e-mail with Pete before sending them out, never ordered directly through his webshop.

Frankly, his webshop isn't the best (as you mentioned, there are some discrepancies in descriptions, etc.) - I guess he puts more work into his pickups than into the webshop (I'd rather have it that way than the other way round...)

Also, he has so many custom options (like blade radiuses, pole piece heights, various finish options for his pickups, various over- and underwinding options, etc.) - it would be hard to fit that all into the regular webshop, and I'd say it's a better idea to tell him what you're looking for tonally, so he can recommend you something.

I'm sure Pete could do a slotted blade-style CC pickup with no problems at all.

PS: Oh, and I just looked: the description right next to the picture you posted clearly mentions that "The current design of the C C Rider pickup has an unslotted mild steel bar polepiece... "

I've written a couple of times about it... so, here I go again.
In the 80's a bought up cheaply a Gibson Ultratone... a mid-early model in pristine condition... white, plastic covers on both ends, see thru plastic.
It had a pickup which is today quoted as an early version of a P90. No soap box, just the bobin, quite wide but flat winding, may I add... individual poles, but without screws. It was the best electric sound I have EVER had. A presence beyond believe... purely "electric". It was so strong the band members baptized that thing "the hair blower".
I don't know, if all the UltraTone guitars of that particular vintage had that tone (I would love to hear from others who have one!), but if that was the case, THIS would be the pickup I would go for.

Here some pictures of UltraTone guitars off the web, which seem to be equal or similar:






An other pu seen on some good sounding guitars is indeed the Gibson CC pickup.

... J-D.

JD,
I'm not sure how close they are, but Lollar offers an 8-string pickup that looks similar to the one you mention - his is supposed to be a copy of the Gibson Console pickup:
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/mercha ... ry_Code=PP

Oh, and Dion, I don't know what musical style you want to play - but you might consider not only using a bridge pickup, but also adding a neck pickup to your builds!
While most vintage lap steels (with the exception of some National models, which even have 3 pickups) only have a bridge pickup (since that's the only one needed for traditional Hawaiian and Western Swing sounds), many newer models (Asher, Lapking, etc.) also have a neck pickup, which offers a darker, smoother, warmer sound, VERY useful for blues, rock, alt.country playing.
I have been playing with a singer-songwriter for a while, kind of folk-rock-music, only vocals, finger-picked acoustic guitar and lap steel, and I have to say that I use the neck pickup for that stuff 2/3rds of the time...

deleted

Basil,
this is the page I'm talking about:

http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/assemblies.html

- sorry, I'm not computer savvy enough to know how to do a screenshot , but if you scroll down to the picture of the assembly you posted, you'll find that description I quoted right next to it (and I thought that's where you got your picture from!)
Here's the full text that's next to this picture:

"Tele style PG (BWB shown) with the V V G CC-R pickup installed. The current design of the C C Rider pickup has an unslotted mild steel bar polepiece and may be ordered with either ceramic or AlNiCo bar magnets. The AlNiCo-V bar magnets when installed give a more mellow, warm vintage tone. The ceramic magnets have higher output and add more edge and bite for a modern tone."

BTW, I might be wrong, but I think the slots in the blade of the original CC pickup were intended to correct for balancing the volume in old string sets with a wound G-string; so, since these wound Gs have practically disappeared today, I don't think a slotted blade would be very useful...

Likewise deleted

Further, Pete Biltoft has just refunded my money, so at least HE appreciates the error on his site.
And of course I appreciate HIS integrity in not holding me to the commitment to buy what was obviously inadvertently misrepresented.

basilh wrote:

(and I thought that's where you got your picture from!)

Roman, I've just proved beyond doubt where I saw and bought the ASSEMBLY from, and also the omission of the full description YOU found elsewhere.
We should just leave it, EXCEPT I don't appreciate my word being doubted, It casts a slur upon my integrity.

Um... There are only two methods to get to the page of which you posted a screenshot, basil. One route is from the assembly page (that Roman linked above) showing all the available pre-wired assemblies that Pete offers. The other method is to go the page of the particular assembly you bought directly from the main site menu: Sales > Assemblies > Tele Style PG.

The first way allows you to visually look over all the different assemblies and make a choice and the second one is pretty vague. I don't know for certain which way you got there, but I know which way I'd assume.

Either way, that's just my $0.02. Not sure why you've gotten so worked up about it, tho...

Cheers,
-Bruce

Sales > Assemblies > Tele Style PG.

basilh wrote:Bruce, I won't rise to the bait

I'm not trying to bait you, basil. Seriously. I was just trying to point out the likely reasoning of Roman, nothing more. This thread had turned combative and I hate seeing that happen here. I was trying to defuse the situation, not throw more fuel on the fire.

If my post came across any other way, I apologize.

Accepted Bruce and in reciprocation I'll do likewise.

Gone

basilh wrote:OK Bruce, but you say likely reasoning, isn't the most direct route the most obvious ?
So why was his reasoning obtuse ?

I don't want to argue with ya, basil. Have you ever heard the saying "there's two sides to every story"? That's all I was pointing out - another explanation that needn't necessarily be a slur on your "integrity and honesty." The why of it, I'll leave up to the two parties involved in the verbal jousting.

Personally, I operate under the pretense of assuming the best of people until they prove, by word or deed, not to warrant such goodwill. *shrug*

Bruce, I really do appreciate you trying to pour oil on troubled waters, in my case it will make me delete all the comments.

It's nice chatting with a true gentleman, basil.

basilh wrote:Further, Pete Biltoft has just refunded my money, so at least HE appreciates the error on his site.
And of course I appreciate HIS integrity in not holding me to the commitment to buy what was obviously inadvertently misrepresented.

Cool you got that sorted out, though it does not surprise me as Pete has a stellar rep for customer service. He also winds some very nice pickups.

Dion ... lots of good recommendations here, doubt you could go wrong with any of them.

This makes a very intriguing conversation with all the editing and deletions. Coming in at the end I have very little clue as to what the discussion was about....