Steel guitar pickup for stratocaster

James Maxwell · Post by **James Maxwell** » 29 Mar 2010 2:22 pm

Anybody know of a good pickup to use for slide guitar on a strat? I want one that would drop straight in with no modification. A lap steel pickup? Anyone done this? Which position would I put it in (bridge, middle, or neck)?

James Kerr · Post by **James Kerr** » 29 Mar 2010 2:41 pm

James,
What is a Lap Steel Pickup?

James.

James Maxwell · Post by **James Maxwell** » 29 Mar 2010 2:51 pm

I meant a pickup that was designed for steel guitar tonality as opposed to normal 6 string electric guitars. Steel guitars use different kinds of pickups than other kind of guitars, right?

Tom Pettingill · Post by **Tom Pettingill** » 29 Mar 2010 2:57 pm

Steel guitars use different kinds of pickups than other kind of guitars, right?

Yes, no, maybe, and all the above. There are pickups designed specifically for steel, but lots of "regular" pickups work great too.
That said, Lollar makes his Chicago Steel pickup in a Strat size
http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/mercha ... at-pickups

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 29 Mar 2010 3:14 pm

This discussion on the Michael Messer Forum talks about Dave Hill and the "Coodercaster" (Oahu pickup on the bridge, Teisco pickup on the neck. It's a fun read.

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 29 Mar 2010 4:36 pm

It'd be nye on impossible to beat any Cooderisms on guitar, but try a Bare Knuckle 'Sinner' Strat PU, it get's real hairy, but dial back the vol and it can clean up to normal.

John Allison · Post by **John Allison** » 29 Mar 2010 5:27 pm

Dont know which pickup position you intend to use for slide, but it seems to me that the "lap steel pickup" you're probably looking for will be relatively low-output and fat-sounding. Hard to get that combination in a single coil, especially in a Strat, but you should check out Rio Grande Pickups. They make a Strat and Tele pickup called "Dirty Harry" and he also makes a lower output version called a "Dirty Harry Jr." - wound to emulate P-90 tone. Iv'e got a set in a tele and they sound very fat and juicy - very much in line with good lap steel tone.

I got them to design 8-string "stringmaster" style pickups for my console steels and they're just fantastic.

Phil Sottile · Post by **Phil Sottile** » 29 Mar 2010 10:22 pm

The post on the Mike Messer Forum was interesting, but inaccurate. Dave Hill didn't build Ry's Coodercaster, but he did build a few dozen of them, & they are wonderful instruments.

Dave is sorely missed.

Roman Sonnleitner · Post by **Roman Sonnleitner** » 29 Mar 2010 11:13 pm

Fred Stuart makes a "Lap Wrap" version of his Telecaster bridge pickup that's supposedly modelled on the lap steel pickups used in the very first Tele-/Broadcasters.

Pete Biltoft from www.vintagevibeguitars.com makes Strat-sized blade pickups - I don't know how close his Strat-sized ones are to the large CC-Rider versions, but those sound quite "lap-steely" (fat and warm, but also clear, medium output, like a cleaner P90 or a fatter Strat PU).

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 30 Mar 2010 7:00 am

Jason Lollar's "Chicago" pup is a great pickup! But it does require routing the body, and cuttin' a different hole in the pickguard. A routing template drawing is included with the pup, and I think you can buy a modded pickguard from him.

Peter Jacobs · Post by **Peter Jacobs** » 31 Mar 2010 9:12 am

Roman Sonnleitner wrote:
Pete Biltoft from www.vintagevibeguitars.com makes Strat-sized blade pickups - I don't know how close his Strat-sized ones are to the large CC-Rider versions, but those sound quite "lap-steely" (fat and warm, but also clear, medium output, like a cleaner P90 or a fatter Strat PU).

I actually have one of these that I used for several years -- as Roman said, it has a great vintage tone, clear and clean but very warm and full. I don't use it anymore, but I liked it a lot.

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 31 Mar 2010 3:31 pm

Hey James, an interesting thing that happened to me almost 40 years ago is something that this thread reminded me of. I was playing full time on lead guitar and had an old '52 Fender Telecaster (nobody wanted 'em in 1971) The neck pickup went out on the thing and I was trying to support my family on music in those days so I was pinching pennies pretty hard. I couldn't afford a new pickup but I had some spare parts in the garage and I came across an old Fender 8 pole steel guitar pickup. I took the Telecaster pickup out of the instrument and laid the steel pickup on it and took a flat blade screwdriver and a small hammer and chipped out the wood so the pickup would fit in the space. I went to the hardware store and bought one piece of peel & stick floor tile to make a new pickguard out of.

Then I hooked the white wire to the white wire, the black to the black and screwed 'er down. Then I put on the new pickguard and strung it up. It didn't look bad except for the fact that I had an extra pole piece on each side of the six strings. I tuned it up to pitch and plugged it into the amp and it sounded very nice. I flipped the switch to the rear position and it had a noticeable volume drop but that was OK. I didn't think about checking the middle position at all........

The next night I took it to the gig and after a song or two I was going for the two pickup thing and all of a sudden I had this nasal twangy thing going! It seems I'd wired the thing out of phase. I'd wired the white to white and black to black so it should've been OK but it wasn't. I just avoided that position for the rest of the set and at break time the singer/bassist asked me how I got that sound and I told him I'd fix it the next day. To my surprise, he loved it and hoped I'd keep that sound and use it on some more stuff. I left it that way until I sold the guitar a year or two later. I do remember that the neck (steel) pickup had a very beautiful sound on ballads and was much fatter than the normal Tele neck pickup........JH in Va.

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 31 Mar 2010 3:44 pm

On my Redneck Tele, I use Seymore Duncan Hot Rails in the middle and neck, (or are the DiMarzio Fast Tracks? Gotta get that axe back from Brightman!) and an old Barden in the bridge. Sounds great! Lotsa power.
Can be seen here, scroll down;
http://www.lapdancerguitars.com/news.html

Steve Ahola · Post by **Steve Ahola** » 31 Mar 2010 10:34 pm

Jerry Hayes wrote:Hey James, an interesting thing that happened to me almost 40 years ago is something that this thread reminded me of... I took the Telecaster pickup out of the instrument and laid the steel pickup on it and took a flat blade screwdriver and a small hammer and chipped out the wood so the pickup would fit in the space. I went to the hardware store and bought one piece of peel & stick floor tile to make a new pickguard out of.

Then I hooked the white wire to the white wire, the black to the black and screwed 'er down. Then I put on the new pickguard and strung it up. It didn't look bad except for the fact that I had an extra pole piece on each side of the six strings. I tuned it up to pitch and plugged it into the amp and it sounded very nice. I flipped the switch to the rear position and it had a noticeable volume drop but that was OK. I didn't think about checking the middle position at all........

The next night I took it to the gig and after a song or two I was going for the two pickup thing and all of a sudden I had this nasal twangy thing going! It seems I'd wired the thing out of phase. I'd wired the white to white and black to black so it should've been OK but it wasn't. I just avoided that position for the rest of the set and at break time the singer/bassist asked me how I got that sound and I told him I'd fix it the next day. To my surprise, he loved it and hoped I'd keep that sound and use it on some more stuff. I left it that way until I sold the guitar a year or two later. I do remember that the neck (steel) pickup had a very beautiful sound on ballads and was much fatter than the normal Tele neck pickup........JH in Va.

Jerry:

You did not wire the pickups wrong- they were out-of-phase with each other because they were never intended to be used together. However if you would have been able to wire the two pickups in series rather than in parallel you would have gotten a very interesting tone, almost like having a wah pedal kicked back and working as a bandpass filter. The sound reminds me of Frank Zappa in the early 70's.

I loved your story! If anyone is interested in getting both the in-phase and out-of-phase sound on their tele it is fairly easy. You will need to install a third lead to the neck pickup for the ground and then install a push-pull pot which will reverse the two wires. Voila! You now have both the normal sound and the thin whiny sound.

Steve Ahola
www.blueguitar.org