The Steel Guitar Forum

Looking for some advice on pickups here...
My E9 neck (pictured bottom)
is consistently more likely to clip if hit the strings hard, while my C6 neck (top in pic) never does. Looking closely, I noticed that the E9 pickup isn't identical to the C6 one...see how short the border (for screws) is on it? And the magnet heads are spaced differently. So it's not the same pickup. Plus it doesn't have springs that raise/lower it. So I'm wondering if I should replace both pickups.

Rig = Carter D10 > Black Box > some pedals with clean power > Hilton volume pedal > Tone Block 202 / TT15. Doesn't matter what I do with the rig (run D10 straight to TB, bypass this or that), same result = I hit the strings kinda hard, and it sounds like my signal is clipping / not enough headroom. Definitely tried setting TB master high with gain really low, still same result.

So, two questions for the group, and big thanks for any thoughts. (1) Is it probably my pickup that's the culprit? and (2) If I'm going to change my pickups out, what do y'all recommend?
And lastly, it looks pretty easy to replace the pickups - the undercarriage of the guitar is pretty straightforward. The Carter manual doesn't have a wiring diagram, but if anyone can point me to a diagram, I would really appreciate it.

I'm sure there's no shortfall of opinions on pickup selection...thinking about George L's SS - And for reference, I'm looking for a classic sound...like Weldon Myrick on Johnny Bush's "Whiskey River" kind of thing. Big thanks for any thoughts!

Hey Brandon, your pickup is made by Bill Lawrence, some of his models have the same appearence, but chances are high that yours is a XR16 (as Carter often had them installed). Which is a very nice pickup, but it is a fairly hot wound/ high output humbucker. It is quite possible the reason your amp breaking up earlier than you like it to. If you can bring the pickup on your E9 neck further down, try that first. It sounds like ultimately you're looking for a single coil (not too hot wound) to get closer to Weldon's sound, although I don't know what pu he played back then, probably an Emmons single coil.

One more thought: on my Carter D10 that I got used, there is a XR16 on the E9 neck and a Truetone (single coil) with considerably less output on the C6 neck. If I have the pickup switch in the middle position (both necks active), my E9 neck has a lot less output then when I have the switch on the E9 neck only position. I'm not sure if this is only because my pickups are so far off in their output, or if it is the wiring. Is your E9 neck output also lower if both necks are active? Maybe it's a cure to some degree.

Could be that these are BL710 pickups. They are designed for use with a pot pedal, and might be too hot to use with a Hilton pedal. They need a large distance from the strings, so you can try to lower the pickup and see if it improves.

Been using a 710 and XR-16 for many years with a Hilton with no problems.

You’re already on to a good fix. George L’s pickups will work great for those of us who pick too hard as the magnets aren’t exposed and it adds a slight buffer for picking nuances. The SS-10 pickups are fantastic! All the bass and depth response with crystal clear highs that aren’t piercing and full rich mids. It’s the same as the 10-1 but they used stainless blades rather than iron. Finding them will be the challenge. They look and read the same as the 10-1 and the only way to verify is they’ll have SS-10 stenciled on the back. But they’re great on a Carter from my experience.

Dave

Brandon, have you tried plugged in to a different amp, or without the Hilton. My 202 will distort when hit hard with my steel. George L E66, black box, Goodrich pot pedal to TB 202.

THANK YOU to those of you who chimed in here. I really appreciate this community!

I thought they were Lawrence pickups. 710s - yes. Right.

So I think the pickup is just set too high. I put a couple of quarters on top of my pickup on C6, and they barely touch the strings - I heard that's a good rule of thumb. But then when I did that with my E9 pickup, I noticed that the back of the pickup (changer side) is too high, so the pickup is actually a little slanted. That E9 pickup doesn't have springs underneath, so I'm going to take it out and see what's going on.

Does anyone have a recommendation for where to get springs? I'm guessing that, at some point, somebody lost them and put a shim in or some junk like that. I'll check it out.

Duh! It's probably the lack of distance. That's definitely the first thing I'll work on.

I still am curious about the SS10s...may end up doing that anyway, but I have a different problem to solve first.

On my C6, I have a 710 and space it with 3 quarters. But, that's because I have an XR-16 on E9 with a switch to change it from humbucker to single coil. I prefer single coil for the E9, but it has a lower output than when it is in humbucker mode. So if I set my Amp suited more to the single coil, the C6 humbucker is way too powerful. I could put an XR-16 on C6, but I'm sure I wouldn't care for the thinner sound of single coil for C6. I'm trying out a clean boost pedal on tonight's gig to help balance the output levels of both necks.

These are on my Carter D10.

You can get springs at any good hardware. If you can, take one off the other pickup and take it with you.

Big thanks to all on this one. It's now SOLVED.

I took a look, and the springs were still in there, but the mounting of the pickup was clunky, so the springs weren't able to do their job. With some Titebond and toothpicks, I filled the holes, re-drilled holes, and now I'm able to bring the pickups down...and voila! No more clipping!

Glad you found and fixed the issue! We’ve all had to improvise many aspects, including pickups. Any of the exposed magnets will be more sensitive and both 710’s and XR-16’s are hot pickups that need to be a distanced from the strings or you’ll find the exact challenge you had to remedy. I’ve had both in different steels and XR-16 was a good match with a Carter. The 710 I’ve found to be thin and bright with the exception of installed in Mullen D-10. Both were very touchy and picked up my picking issues which I remedied by installing George L’s 10-1 and SS-10. My current longtime pickup is the re-issue black housing 705’s. Single coil favorite was Emmons wound 19 to 20K and hardly any discernible hum. Happy playing!
Dave