The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey all- First post in a long while! I'm heading out on a tour with a Saharan guitarist named Bombino (look him up, he's pretty neat!) and I'll be playing lap steel on this tour. Currently I own a Fender 51' D6 Pro which has easily the most amazing sounding pickups of any instrument I've ever owned. This guitar is really special and I'm very wary to bring it on the road with me for fear something might happen to it. SO, I'm thinking of replacing the pickup and re-wiring an old single lap steel I have.


I know the D6 has special pickups that are hard to find, but I'm curious if there's anything that sounds remotely close to how amazing they sound? I'm looking for fairly loud pickups that are bright and clear which have decent head room but can break up with a lot of attack and don't suffer from too much 60-cycle hum. Any ideas? I'm opening to re-drilling/modifying the guitar for the right pickup.

I vote for a P100... like a P90 stack. Not real cheap, but hot, meaty, bright, and humbucking... and about the same outline you've got now. I use one in my '61 SG Jr.

Looks like you're going to have to rout no matter what you install... the old (dead?) pickup is surface-mounted, right? Play a bunch of normal electric guitars and choose from there.

Thanks for your feedback. I am fairly new to the world of guitar customization and have a question about swapping pickups in a 6-string lap steel: Can you just swap 6-string guitar pickups for 6-string lap steel pickups? I'm wondering mostly because of a difference in string spacing. The string spacing at the pickup position from outside edge of the low G to outside edge of high D is 5 8/10 cm, which is wider than my gibson style schecter. Thanks for the info, sorry for the ignorance.

You're going to have to match the pole pieces unless you use a rail-type pickup... otherwise it's just the same principle, electro-magnetic transducers, so any pickup that covers the pole pieces should work, even bass guitar pickups would work fine. Find an electric guitar that sounds like what you want and locate a pickup like that that fits the spacing.

I don't know exactly what your D6 sounds like, so I can't recommend anything that matches that, but I can recommend some lap steel pickups.

I like Lollar's stuff. I have his pickups in my tele, they're great.

But I also have some custom wound ones in my lap steel. They sound phenomenal. He's got a bunch of models on his website:

http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/mercha ... ar-pickups

Check 'em out. Not cheap, but high-quality, pro sounding pickups.[/url]

For a pickup, 58 mm or about 2 9/32" is a pretty wide spacing. Short of using the mentioned rail style pickup or changing / modifying the bridge, finding a pickup to match will be hard.
Truth is that if you don't have the tools and or experience to do the work yourself, there is not a cheap and easy way to mod that old H1.

In the end, you might be happier selling the old Harmony and get something else.

I'm going to recommend that you take your Fender D6 on the road... they're not irreplaceable, and they're pretty tough to hurt otherwise. You'll be a lot happier with your perfect sound I'll bet. What's the point of having a good guitar and not using it?

Or just buy one of the many cheap lap steels... they cost about what a good pickup would cost, and would probably be better than that S6 you showed us anyway.

You might consider the P90 version of the Alumitone pickup. Loud, clear, yet warm. Quiet too. Amazing pickup.
String spacing wouldn't be an issue.

Something you might want to try is putting some sort of spacer under the Harmony's stock pickup to get it closer to the strings. I have one of these, and when I got it the tone was real anemic. I cut some circuit board scrap I had to make a spacer and it really brought mine to life.

Jason Lollar. (who aside from making some of the best pickups on the market, is a really nice guy) is in the process of making a version of the old Teisco gold foils. I have seen some videos of the prototypes and they sound grand. I think the originals were surface mount so perhaps those would work.

Thanks for all the responses and recommendations. I'm looking at the Lollar Supro pickup: http://www.lollarguitars.com/mm5/mercha ... ar-pickups

The sizing seems almost perfect for my S6 and the tone sounds great. Anyone out there ever played one these? [/url]

Though not cheap, those Lollar string throughs are very nice. I used one on my UltraP prototype below and am thinking of using one on a rosewood project thats been floating around in my head.

One thing to keep in mind with that pickup is that its very sensitive to both string height and spacing. You want the strings strait over the poles and dead down the middle of the tunnel at the recommended 7/16" height.

Dear Lord, Tom...you gotta warn a fella before posting pics like that

Thanks everyone for your thoughts/advice. Tom- upon second measurement my string spacing is damn close. At the current position of the pickup I measure 2.1875" Lollars' dimensions from center of each end pole on his Supro pickup is 2.175" by moving the position of the new pickup very slightly towards the nut I believe I could get the perfect position for this pickup without moving too far away from the bridge.

I'm still favoring replacing the pickup in this single steel I have because it is extremely transportable, and I'm not real worried about damaging the body, I just need a nicer sounding pickup, and this Lollar seems to be a pretty good match. Any other thoughts are appreciated.

Tyler