The Steel Guitar Forum

I just retrieved my mica MSA from the repair shop where it was retrofitted with a Sierra modular pickup system. The wood body guitars won't accept the system, because the pickup well is within the aluminum (?) section of the guitar adjascent to the neck, but on the older mica ones guitars the wood part of the neck extends past the well to the changer, so this is not a problem.

Tony at Sierra has decided to make the system available as a retrofit for those guitars that will tolerate it. He will also liscence the system to other manufacturers so that anybody who buys a new guitar from some other builder can have this feature if they wish.

So far all I have is a George L E-66 pickup, but I'll certainly be buying more in the future. By this time next year I'll probably have a whole collection.

I think this is a great thing, and I'm quite excited about the prospect of having all the different sounds at my disposal.


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My gear: A piece of wood with some INTERCHANGABLE wires attached


<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 05 October 2002 at 05:01 AM.]</p></FONT>

Does the pickup slide it from the front or the back of the guitar, Mike?

The modular pickup system is one of the main selling features of the high-end Sierra guitars. If you like to get a variety of sounds, it's great! For gigs that don't require variety, I usually just pick one pickup and go with it, but even on country gigs it's nice to have the option if suddenly you feel the need to emulate Mooney or Chalker.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic), Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6), Roland Handsonic

It slides in from the back Bobby. We had discussed this earlier, and you suggested having it slide in from the front, but the neck had already been routed out from the rear to accomodate the systrem.

How do you like the Lace Sensors? <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 05 October 2002 at 05:00 AM.]</p></FONT>

The Lace Sensor pickup ROCKS! I'm using it when I want my distortion channel to really cut through the mix. It somehow avoids that annoying edge on top, but still has plenty of grate.

Clean, it's a little wierd. I'm not sure that I can find a use for it in the clean channel. I already have all of the bases covered there, though.

Oh, and it's HOT, like the Lawrence 712. It has more meat in the middle than the 712, though. I guess that's why it drives distortion so well.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic), Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6), Roland Handsonic