The Steel Guitar Forum

Just dropped a set in an 80's Emmons, drop dead quiet with the amp on 5. Loren Depping is one happy camper now.

Larry Behm

I am not familiar with tone aligners; how do they work?

Jeshua Lehman wrote:I am not familiar with tone aligners; how do they work?

The pole pieces are magnetic set screws, so you can adjust the volume of each string relative to each other.

Info Here:
http://www.bobhoffnar.net/tone_one.html

I guess now that you say that i have seen them on electric guitars. I just have never thought about a name for them. Thanks for the post.
Lehman

They are copies of the Danny Shields "crap traps" pickups developed by Jim Pitman. I took over from Jim and make them now. I'm glad you are happy with the pickup Larry.

My website is totally neglected. They fit Carters now and I just made a batch of 12st pickups. They are all pretty much custom wound these days. I make them when I have time.

I have them in my Franklin and I can't say enough good things about them.

Me too. Have them on my new Rains And I'll fight you for-em. Best Sound and no noise. Thanks Duane

Made a big difference in my Mullen SD10.

They are wonderful, they sound and look like a million bucks, and Bob is a real dude.

I use them too.I have them in both of my Millenniums. I had the stock Pickup, (I think it's a George L but I'm not sure,) and a True Tone. But after I tried out a Tone Aligner I traded the others in on a set.

As far as I'm concerned, the advantage of a modular pickup system is not that you can have a lot of different pickups, but that you can try out and compare them all, and see which one you prefer. I think every builder should have this feature in their guitars.

How do they compare to a single-coil pickup for clarity?

I am on what seems like a never-ending quest for a humbucking pickup, with the clarity of a single-coil

Jeshua Lehman wrote:I am not familiar with tone aligners; how do they work?

Larry B., maybe for the sake of clarity you could edit the topic title to say "ToneAligner pickups", not just "Tone Aligners". Unfamiliar readers might think it is referring to some other sort of device (as I suspect Jeshua may have).

I'm with Richard Burton i love the sound of a single coil pick-up wound at 17,200 ohms.How do these tonealigners stack up to the sound of a Wallace true tone pick-up?Do they have the sweetness,and brilliancy of a single coil pick-up? Marty

There is always that trade off between the low strings sounding great but the high strings being to shrill or the highs sounding smooth but the lows muddy. That being said I got a ToneAligner from Bob in St Louis a few years back, put it in my Emmons
P-P and I gotta say overall I like it better than the original pickup. No hum either.

richard burton wrote:How do they compare to a single-coil pickup for clarity?

I am on what seems like a never-ending quest for a humbucking pickup, with the clarity of a single-coil

And I must be going about it the wrong way. I am trying to make a single coil as quiet as a humbucker

I got pair and I love them.

richard burton wrote: I am on what seems like a never-ending quest for a humbucking pickup, with the clarity of a single-coil

The Lace Alumitone pickup is like that. But it does not have the capacity to adjust the volume of each individual string.

I've been told that the Tone Aligners can be made to sound thinner or fatter by making one coil louder than the other. I've not tried to do this myself.

Bent,
If you can make a single-coil as quiet as a humbucker, then that would be the answer to my quest

Go Bob Go. Glad to see you are carrying on.
The key to thier sonic character is matching the coils resistance/inductance/capacitance/tension, and even position of the winds, wind per wind. In this manner both coils make a contribution to the signal without destructive interference that can happen on other dual coil pickups. Bob's got the one and only machine that can do that yet be able to customize as well as far as I know.

I've got a ToneAligner pickup in the neck position of my Desert Rose guitar, and I can only say that it is an amazing pickup. Not only is it noise-free, but it sounds as warm and clear as I hoped it would.



-- Jan

Bob Hoffnar wrote:My website is totally neglected. They fit Carters now

Does this mean they'll also fit Sho-Buds now?

They do fit and mount properly in Sho-Buds also.

richard burton wrote:Bent,
If you can make a single-coil as quiet as a humbucker, then that would be the answer to my quest

Richard, Don't expect miracles but I am working on it.

Which seems to be the favorite? The one wound to17.8 or the one wound to 18.5