The Steel Guitar Forum

Guys and Gals ... I have a Gretsch Electromatic I bought a while back which has just been sitting while I have been Dobro-centric for the last few years ... I am thinking of upgrading the pickup ... any suggestions for a pickup choice? Any other upgrade suggestions? Thanks.

What's your budget? What type of sound do you want to get that you're not getting from the Gretsch currently? Most reviews comment favorably on the pickup as it is.

Maybe I just need to work with it more ... mainly it's noisy ... I am first gonna try some different strings to hopefully beef up the tone ... then we'll see from there ... thanks.

The routing for those pickups is pretty shallow and may be problematic with a lot of the alternatives. It almost looks like a P90 style pickup would fit, but the route depth could again be an issue. Maybe one of the Lace Alumitone P90 style would fit. http://www.lacemusic.com/pdf/aluma-P90Specs.pdf

Short of a pickup swap, check to see what the distance between the strings and the pole pieces is. If too far, it would have a thinner tone and raising it a bit could beef it up a little. A good starting point would be about an 1/8". Two nickels is about an 1/8" for a quick check. Something to note, for a beefier tone on a screw pole type pickup, it is better to raise the whole pickup than just adjust the screw poles up.

For the noise issue, the pickup in there is a single coil and more prone to noise than a humbucking design. Though, with the full metal cover, it should be quieter than most unshielded single coils. I'd check to make sure all the grounds are good and shield the controll cavity if it is not currently shielded. Lots of good ways to do the shielding if you need. Copper foil tape works very well, or my personal favorite, and what I use is MG Chemicals Nickel Super Shield. http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/pro ... ickel-841/

I'm very impressed with the TV Jones Classic Plus Filtertron pickup.

I haven't put one in a steel (yet), but I've recorded some great sounding steel tracks laying my Gretsch (with the aforementioned pickup in the bridge) flat and playing with a proper tone bar.

Tom Pettingill wrote:The routing for those pickups is pretty shallow ...

Good points Tom ... thanks ... and thanks to all others for suggestions ...