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Topic: guitar pickups on a 12 string? |
Karlis Abolins
From:
(near) Seattle, WA, USA
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Posted 20 May 2005 12:33 pm |
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Has anyone mounted a pair of 6 string tele or strat pickups on a 12 string steel. They would have to be angled to get the spacing right. I am wondering whether it is possible to get a tele twang or strat crunch by doing this.
Karlis |
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Paul Arntson
From:
Washington, USA
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Posted 20 May 2005 6:19 pm
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| I believe Framus used to do this on their non pedal steels. To get a similar tone to a strat you'd have to have all the other things that go into the tone, like pickup position, body resonance etc etc. But it would be a really cool experiment. I bet you could get to sound really good even if it didn't mimic a strat or a tele. |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 26 May 2005 7:44 pm
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| My first Franklin (1981) had two 6 string guitar pickups, Lawrence 705s. The sound was really nice, even tho somebody mounted them backwards with the high string pickup closer to the changer. It was in a block of epoxy so I couldn't change it. |
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Pete Burak
From:
Portland, OR USA
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Posted 27 May 2005 7:43 am
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I've always thought it might be cool to modify the pickgaurd assembly off of a Strat (keeping all the electronics intact), change the 6 string pickups out for three single coil 12-string PSG pickups, and slap that onto a PSG.
Three 12 string pickups with the Strat style 5-way selector switch and vol/tone knobs intact.
I would probably use a 7-way selector (bridge, middle, neck, b/m, n/m, b/n, all-on) and 3 volume pots, no tone pots.
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jim milewski
From:
stowe, vermont
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Posted 27 May 2005 8:40 am
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| As Earnest said, have the pickup for high strings 1-6 which are unwound strings further away from the changer for less high thin sound, and stagger the other pickup closer to the changer to bring out some highs seems like an ideal 2 pickup system....in theory |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 27 May 2005 9:15 am
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| You could even amplify and EQ the 2 sides differently. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 27 May 2005 3:11 pm
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Yes, that is exactly what I want, the wound string pickup near the changer for more bite and definition, and the unwound string pickup further from the changer, for a more mellow sound. You could use two 6-string pickups even on a 10-string steel. The extra pole pieces would be outside the outer strings. Some people have long claimed you need that so that the outer string pole pieces have a pole piece on either side, the same as all the others, although I'm unclear what difference that would make. You could also just slant a regular 12 or 10-string pickup.
The only problem is that unless you ordered a pedal steel like this from the manufacturer, you'd have to butcher an otherwise pristine pedal steel. Youch! |
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jim milewski
From:
stowe, vermont
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Posted 27 May 2005 4:30 pm
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| somebody ought to try the 2 pick up system, it shows great possibilties, but dave makes a good point on the opening up the cutaway....sigh http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum15/HTML/009432.html [This message was edited by jim milewski on 27 May 2005 at 05:32 PM.] |
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John Daugherty
From:
Rolla, Missouri, USA
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Posted 28 May 2005 4:57 am
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| You can also vary the tone by connecting two pickups in series and parallel. The series connection will give the fullest sound. You can also connect them in parallel, out of phase, and get a "nasty" sound. It is my understanding that 6-string pickups are much lower impedance than steel guitar pickups. The lower impedance will have less output and a shallower sound that standard steel guitar pickups. |
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Karlis Abolins
From:
(near) Seattle, WA, USA
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Posted 30 May 2005 7:19 am
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I did a layout of a pair of strat pickups in the pickup cutout of my Remington Sustainmaster S12.
There appears to be plenty of room to put a pair of them and still have the correct pole piece spacing.
Karlis[This message was edited by Karlis Abolins on 30 May 2005 at 08:19 AM.] |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 30 May 2005 7:45 am
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| You could probably use 2 single coil pickups, and get some hum cancellation by connecting them with opposite polarity. I think that old double neck steel guitars used to allow both necks to be turned on at the same time just for this reason. But it wouldn't cancel hum as well as a real humbucking pickup. |
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Karlis Abolins
From:
(near) Seattle, WA, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2005 6:31 am
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Jon Light (deceased)
From:
Saugerties, NY
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Posted 15 Jul 2005 6:44 am
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While that picture is surely worth a coupla thousand words--nice execution of the layout above. good job----could you spare a few words about how it sounds? How did you wire them. Got a switching scheme? Results, please.
...................
I'm also curious to know how sensitive the field overlap is. Do strings 5 & 6 jump out with too much signal?[This message was edited by Jon Light on 15 July 2005 at 07:46 AM.] |
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Karlis Abolins
From:
(near) Seattle, WA, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2005 8:10 am
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Tech specs: alnico 2 strat pickups wound to @ 6k ohms with one being RWRP. connected thru a DPDT on-on switch as parallel or series.
My first impressions are surprising. With the pickups in series the sound is not too different form my previous sound. It is a little softer and more balanced across the spectrum. The parallel connection is significantly different. The sound of the string attack is accentuated due to the lack of oomph (for lack of a better description) in the sustain and decay. I have to play around with this for a while to get a sense of where this sound would be appropriate.
I don't really notice that much brightness inthe 5thand 6th stings but the 3rd string isn't as "shrill" as before.
Karlis |
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Bill Hatcher
From:
Atlanta Ga. USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2005 8:27 am
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What about trying some of the Tele style pickups with adjustable pole pieces. That would give you the optimum control over the balance of each string.
Nice set up. I have thought about doing this on a 12st. non pedal. |
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jim milewski
From:
stowe, vermont
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Posted 15 Jul 2005 8:44 am
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| nice job!!! |
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Al Marcus
From:
Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)
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Posted 15 Jul 2005 5:06 pm
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I built a black 12 string guitar using 2 staggered 6 string guitar pickups, with a 8 string 6 pedal multikord changer in the middle 8 strings. I played that for about 9 years, got a nice sound out of it.
I was not aware of any 12 string steel guitar pickups on the market at that time.
A picture of it on on one of my pages on my Website.....al 
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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/
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James Quackenbush
From:
Pomona, New York, USA
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Posted 18 Jul 2005 9:45 am
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| What I did to get my "Strat" type tone was to have Jerry Wallace wind me a single coil pickup with a coil tap ....He can tap in just about any strength you need....Hook up a mini toggle switch to it , and you have the full on position to whatever you have the pickup wound for , or you could flip the mini switch again for whatever strength you have ithe coil tap wound for ....Mine is set for 17.5k for full on , and somewhere around 12k for the coil tap ...You could go even lower than the 12k for a vintage type Strat tone ...Drop it down to 7-8k ....Adjust the pickup to taste ... Add tone controls if you like, and you have a pretty good single coil pickup with a LOT of character, that can go from normal pedal steel tones , to vintage Fender with the flip of a switch ....Jim |
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Drew Howard
From:
48854
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Posted 18 Jul 2005 10:41 am
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Karlis,
Brilliant!
Drew
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Drew Howard - website - Fessenden D-10 8/8, Fessenden SD-12 5/5 (Ext E9), Magnatone S-8, N400's, BOSS RV-3
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Dave Ristrim
From:
Whites Creek, TN
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Posted 19 Jul 2005 8:18 am
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You guys are sick  I try not to think about modding my steel guitars, but this thread has got my juices flowing. Damn, maybe it's time to get the router out and my box of crazy pickups and go for it.
I already have more than enough to deal with. A D12 Mullen with 2 pickups on each neck, D12 Franklin with 2 on each neck and an old push/pull D12 Emmons with 3 pickups on ea. neck!
Dave |
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