The Steel Guitar Forum

I have a 50’s Fender Deluxe 6 and I’m having trouble finding the “sweet spot” in the pickup blend for Hawaiian tone. I realize that a an earlier model with trapezoids is probably the better option, but I’m looking to get the most out of this guitar as I learn.

The high end either sounds too thin, or too hot depending on where the blend is set, and the chimes don’t ring on this guitar the way that they do on my magnatone student model.

All in all it’s a solid guitar, and I love the option to play standing up. Just haven’t found the “sweet spot” yet.

Thanks in advance for suggestions!

I use the blend control under the cover fully open, the tone control set to about one third or just where the treble begins to open up, and then I wind back my volume slightly. This is on a Stringmaster, mind you, but I imagine that rolling the volume off will work with the Deluxe 6 too. I have had my Stringmaster well over a year now and am still on the fence about whether it can provide the tone that I really want, so I feel you on this one. Using a tube amp with mid controls has helped me too. Good luck, Brian!

An interesting question. I've often wondered why some instruments of the same scale length are extremely difficult to coax harmonics from, while on others, harmonics come easily, using identical techniques, strings, and tunings.

I have a little Ric 100 that came stripped of everything -- body only. I reassembled it with a hodgepodge of components. Harmonics just fly out of this thing:


A while back I obtained this repainted Fender Studio Deluxe that had been stripped of its electronics. I installed new guts and the thing sounds wonderful, until you strike a harmonic. Nigh on impossible.


I've concluded a contributing factor is the Ric employs a string-through-body setup, where the Fender's strings mount directly to its metal coverplate.

Maybe you could try some different strings, flats?
Or mess with pot/capacitor values?

I have a Stringmaster triple neck and a Magnatone doubleneck. I do find the Stringmaster has a bit more of a thinner/brighter, Barney Isaacs type sound. I have -always- kept the blend pot fully on...I want both pickups on in series for the most warmth and output (like a humbucker in normal mode) and the brighter, bridge pickup only doesn't do much for me. Tone pot backed off a bit (depends on the guitar...the magnatone tone pot is a weird blend/tone knob that I barely understand, and my Clinesmith warrants a heavy dial back on tone to get to its sweet spot). And amp set for warmth...boost the bass, drop the highs, and play with mids to see what you like. Your guitar is shorter scale than my midscale T8, but honestly that shouldn't make that much of a difference. Maybe with a shorter scale it can be harder to actually hit the precise spot for a good harmonic? I don't know. Still, it should be a fairly workable guitar...lots of professionals and legends have played Stringmaster based guitars of all scales and formats and made pretty good music on them so I doubt its a structural flaw. Which isn't to say I'm putting blame onto you, and more than I would on myself, haha, just that you may find that the more you work at it, you can pull those harmonics out. And I do admit some guitars just make it feel easier. My CS frypan makes chimes just pop out...

Only other question would be, what kind of Hawaiian tone are you going for? There's a decent amount of variability there, over the decades...

I think Nic hit the nail on the head, my fender is a “brighter” tone, and my Maggie MOTS is darker. When I hit a harmonic on the Magnatone the entire guitar “sings”, I can feel the vibration.

It rings on the fender, just not like it does on that little magnatone. I haven’t experimented with the tone knob or flat wound strings yet, I’ll give it a shot. Amp is already 100% bass.

I played the fender through a few vintage fender amps last week, and it’s very well suited for Western swing...very bright, can cut through a mix.

My destiny is likely a horseshoe Ricky, or an earlier fender with a trapezoid. I’ll get there, my try something different when I pick up my first D8.

If you haven't done so already, ensure there's no obstructions between the control plate and the body preventing maximum contact between them, and that the plate's woodscrews are tight. Especially the screws directly behind the bridge.

Brian Rung wrote: My destiny is likely a horseshoe Ricky, or an earlier fender with a trapezoid. I’ll get there, my try something different when I pick up my first D8.

Two unsolicited recommendations there...the Clinesmith frypan and its horseshoe is just a magnificent sounding guitar, my favorite of all of them. It sounds a bit quieter acoustically, and a bit compressed...which translates into this smooth tone with tons of sustain, plugged in. Not inexpensive, but certainly cheaper than a Rick frypan these days.

And when you look at D8s, if you like the Magnatone sound, keep an eye out for the dual pickup model Lyric D8. Can't vouch for the single pickup model with the clear tuner knobs (Barney Isaacs played one though), but the double pickup model is the one I have and it has a nice middy tone compared to the Stringmaster, and you will often find they go for pretty reasonable prices, not having the name recognition of a Fender these days. Never gotten my mitts on a trap model Fender though, but maybe someday...

Brian Rung wrote:I have a 50’s Fender Deluxe 6 and I’m having trouble finding the “sweet spot” in the pickup blend for Hawaiian tone. I realize that a an earlier model with trapezoids is probably the better option, but I’m looking to get the most out of this guitar as I learn.

The high end either sounds too thin, or too hot depending on where the blend is set, and the chimes don’t ring on this guitar the way that they do on my magnatone student model.

All in all it’s a solid guitar, and I love the option to play standing up. Just haven’t found the “sweet spot” yet.

Thanks in advance for suggestions!

I have the Stringmaster doubleneck version of your steel. It is kind of finicky to dial in that rich Hawaiian tone. However, I use a pedal called the Nocturne Atomic Brain, whose preamp functions change the input impedance, and gives my Stringmaster a fuller sound. I know many PSG players also use an impedance matcher.

Just my $0.02

I'm playing my Fender now and just thought of something else you could try, i was using my Brozophonic stainless bullet and thought it too bright so i grabbed one of my Manaloff Bakelite's and it was perfect. Dunno what kind of bar you got but a Bakelite might help you.

Miles Lang wrote:However, I use a pedal called the Nocturne Atomic Brain, whose preamp functions change the input impedance, and gives my Stringmaster a fuller sound. I know many PSG players also use an impedance matcher.

It's not quite the same thing, but years ago as a college student I was doing the whole rock thing and had a Mexican-made Fender Jazz Bass, stock. It sounded kind of thin to me, going into a basic solidstate amp, but whenever I switched on a SansAmp Bass Driver pedal inline, the tone was warmer, deeper, and just fuller, without losing clarity. Other basses didn't need it as much as that one but I kept it on 100% of the time, usually. That makes me wonder if it might improve some of my steel guitars, as I know they tend to work well with bass amps too! I'll tinker with it, thanks for the idea!

Solved my Hawaiian problem, picked up a dual pro from a fellow forumite! Loving the trapezoids, exactly what I was looking for.

I used to have a Stringmaster double-8. Same basic gutiar as you have. I played with both pickups on all the way for the fattest sound I could get. It wouldn't do a big fat Hawaiian tone though. I imagine those older style trapzoid pickups probably sound better.

Interesting...generally speaking I've seen less trapezoid pickup guitars in use by Hawaiian players...I'm sure they were, but it does seem like Stringmasters were a bit more common of the Fenders (and then Rickenbacker was mostly king at least for a while, also some Magnatones). I've never played one...do you guys find that it is a darker tone compared to Stringmasters? I actually wouldn't have expected that since the Stringmaster is actually a double coil in series, spread further out from the bridge, and the Dual Pro trap pickup is a single coil quite close to the bridge. But different pickup design overall of course. Both shorter scale I think (at least of the ones you've shown...Stringmasters can be 24.5 and 26" as well, mine is the medium scale).

Style of play is also a major factor. Chordally complex Hawaiian with big 8 string chords and dissonance (Jules Ah See, Barney Isaacs, and Billy Hew Len spring to mind) might get too muddy sounding if you went too "fat" a tone. Compared to mostly single note, or 2-3 part harmony at most, that you'd hear from some of the earlier masters like Andy Iona, Sol, McIntire...I think there you want dark, smooth, and rich...roll the tone pot back and let it sing.

I've found that with my own guitars. I have an 8 string that I put a Lace Alumitone in, and for upper register single note playing, I find it a bit thin and without that lush "momona" (fatness/sweetness) you want for that style. My Magnatone and Clinesmith have that sound staked out. But then if I play certain arrangements in B11, making heavy use of low B bass strings and complex 9th and 11th chords...I prefer that rather cheap guitar because the clarity is there to allow that tone to come out without being muddled too much.

I find the trapezoid tone to be a bit darker, more “open”, has some air to it as opposed to my stringmasters which sound more compressed.

Also, harmonic chimes seem to ring better on my trapezoids, unless I’m playing differently and I’m just not aware of it. Wonder if it has anything to do with the pickup/pickup cover surrounding the strings?

My deluxe single necks don’t sound bad, in fact that S8 is an amazing, super clean resonant, featherweight guitar. It’s just that the trapezoids are closer to what I’m looking for. The dual pros are “lower tech” than the stringmasters, but maybe that’s where the tone come from just as it does in old Ricky guitars, magnatone. Etc.

In the right hands I’m sure that stringmasters can sound more Hawaiian than anything else, but I prefer the trapezoids. That dual pro is a joy to play.

I believe that you can pick up additional information which may respond to some of what you are striving for in your topic by going to the Forum Section:

What makes Hawaiian steel playing sound different?

https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/001975.html

Mahalo Don,

I only came to learn the steel guitar a few years ago but the archives of the late 90s, early 2000s of this forum is full of wonderful (and sometimes spirited) debates and discussions that I've loved to read. No offense to my contemporaries whose threads I also love to read, but sometimes I wish I could set my browser 20 years behind so every day I came here I'd see what Jeff Au Hoy, Jody Carver, Basil and everybody else were arguing about that day!