What kind of pickup works best for a lap steel?

[Blue Bill]

I gotta run to band practice, I'll try to respond to everyone else asap. Thanks again!

 

[cnlbb]

Mojo, I love the look of that Rogue. I'm guessing a Charlie Chistian would sound nice, but they are also wicked expensive.

My CC lap (6 string in C6) gets a lot of play when I'm doing country, Hawaiian, or western swing. Vintage Vibe has great versions for lap steel at just over a buck and they sound damn good to me.

 

[Bob Womack]

Mmm... You'll want a pre-war or wartime Rick pickup, like this one:

Plug it into a Fender Princeton Reverb and you are D-O-N-E.

By the way, the Supro/Valco "strings-through" pickup sounds amazingly like a Tele:

However, in the case of those two above, you can't have mine.

By the way, go visit the Steel Guitar Forum. A fellow over there sells Fender Champ kits that look great, HERE.

Bob

 

[Andy B]

I replaced the extremely microphonic pickups on my Goyatone lapsteel with GFS Lil Killer Humbucker Strat blade pickups. I used the 10K version in both positions. Nice fat full sound.

 

[MickM]

Here's some more lap steel p0rn:

I have a Supro like this one with the original string thru pickup that looks a lot like the Lollar knock off below.. Also a mid '50's Champ or Champion (has 6 strings, screw in legs and the pickup looks like a bigger tele neck with white plastic cover).
Everybody is free to disagree but I think I can get pretty much the same sounds out of both of them depending on the amp settings.
image removed

 

[AmpHandle]

I don't think there is any wrong pickup you can use in a lap steel. Players skill determines everything.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Damn you Bill. There are two guitars that I haven't built yet, a carved archtop and a lap steel. I have built a couple of Weissenborns and a tricone and some other odds and ends of slide guitars, but a pure little sit on your lap steel guitar just hasn't come up on chart. Until now.

I've got a koa coffee table that someone gave me that is just the wrong size for a guitar body (and I don't want a uke) - maybe that would be a use for it. The Weissies are koa, might be a match.......

Anyway, just thinking and itching a bit - I'll be watching your thread.

 

[SlideGuy123]

Lots of pickups can sound good for lap steel, but it depends on what sound you’re going for. I love Megan’s sound, but I don’t see a Rick panda in my future. My two main steels are the blue custom one in my avatar, which has a split single pickup (sounds like a single/p90 hybrid with no hum)and a 1964 Supro Jet Airliner with a string through. They both work for me, but they are definitely different. Both give me a full sound that works for the bluesy stuff we play. The Supro has more mids.

 

[e23589]

Kent Armstrong Hot rails on my Morrell Pro 6 string lap steel is great!

 

[Blue Bill]

You can use any pickup you like. The original Broadcaster was an adaptation of the steel guitar; it was the next logical step up from the original aluminum Rickenbacker "frying pan" guitar. So a Tele bridge pickup will work great in a lap steel. A P90 also kills in a lap steel.

One of the indications that a lap steel seller knows little about how it works is when they install a bridge that has moveable saddles. Many modern lap steels (even expensive ones) have this type of bridge because builders usually start with guitars, and then one day they look at their parts and think, "hey...let's build some laps."

Intonation for each string is set by the position of the steel on the string, not the comparative length of the strings. There are no frets, so the strings are not stretched when played as on a tyipcal guitar. This stretching to fret a string is the compensation that bridge intonation provides.

There's certainly nothing wrong with using a bridge that has individual string saddles because you can set them all straight across so all strings are the same length. But that's an added expense. A lap steel bridge can be a very simple piece of hardware.

Here's the bridge on my 1955 Rickenbacker; it's molded Bakelite, and is not adjustable for height or string length:

You can make your own killer-sounding lap steel from a 30" length of 2x4, two 2" pieces of 1/2" diameter steel rod or all-thread, and a few specialty items like a pickup, tuners, and volume and tone pots and a jack. And you could even make your own tuners and pickup, and forget the volume and tone controls and go straight to the amp.

Here's a cheap lap steel that was designed by people who knew what they were doing.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z7CN8CQ/?tag=tdpri-20

Thanks Peegoo, that bridge setup looks awesome. As I said, I'm trying to figure a way to utilize the Tele bridge I already have. Considering your advice, maybe I can modify the bridge, replacing the six saddles with a single bar that spans all six strings, with a height adjustment screw on each end.

Nice..
On the green double neck I posted above, I made the bridges and nuts from aluminum angle. Replaced the saddles that were on it.
On another I did the same with the bridge, but used a old "Hawaiian nut" for the nut. These were nuts made to slip over existing nuts on acoustics to make them playable in lap style. They work great on lap steels and are usually pretty cheap.

I've seen those removable nuts at Stew-Mac. I guess I would have to install a regular guitar nut for it to sit on top of???

Gibson use to make a steel guitar version of the Charlie Christian pickup (less the three bolt bracket attach thingy). A lot of guys use to rob those for Tele neck pickups (I THINK Redd V has one in a Tele). More to your question though, Lollar makes a Tele bridge version of the CC, they call it a BS I think. It's a great sounding pickup, and I've always thought it would sound great in a lap steel. Never actually heard one in that application though...

BS huh? Hmmmmm. I looked it up, wow that even looks gorgeous, thanks Dan. I have a white pearloid fretboard I was going to use; this would match that, and fit right into the stock Tele bridge. Hmmmm.

I'd urge not angling the pickup.
Leo thought it was a good idea but many including the steel you want the sound of do not employ an angle that makes the high E brighter and thinner toned than the other strings.

A Tele bridge pickup mounted to the wood with no angle is a good choice though, since there are tons of them available and they are a known entity, you can choose a hotter one if you amp seems to respond less than ideally to the first pickup.

Are you getting a special amp for the steel guitar target sound?
If not, you may be swapping pickups to make up for the lack of the rest of her signal chain.

Hi neighbor. Not slanted, hmmmm, the Tele bridge cut out is for sure slanted. I haven't thought about an amp yet. I figure I should first learn how to play the durn thing. Megan Lovells plays an old beat-up Rick on almost every video I've seen. I think I remember her playing a Dobro on one. I'm not trying to copy her, just see if I can get some music out of it. Plus, it seems like a fun project. I was wondering what color and finish to use. Someone on TDPRI recently posted a thread about a gold sparkle finish they did, it looked great. How about a sparkle-burst?

 

[Blue Bill]

Tuning, picking technique vs bare-fingered, slide selection, string attachment hardware and signal path downstream of the lap steel all introduce so many variables that A pickup recommendation seems like shooting blind without more info.

It would also be good to know whether a player was after a dirty, bluesy slide sound or leaning more to the Western swing/pedal steel clean end of the spectrum.

I started on a Fender six-string with a pole-less single coil and beefy steel hardware. I loved looking at it but couldn’t bond with its hard, bright tonal character (lack of chops didn’t help). I moved to sort of a mystery steel, I think from the 40s, called a Roy Bert. It has a crude blade pickup with pieces of magnetite clamped between the blades and has a softer, less focused sound, and even though I play bare-fingered and try for clean pedal-steel-ish tone, I get along better with that.

Try a bunch of stuff; it’s not necessarily intuitive coming from guitar.

Hi Amarillo, sounds like good advice, I don't even know what kind of lap player I may be, if any.

Drop a Barden into it.

I am attracted to the idea of a humbucker with a coil tap, thanks for the suggestion. I also am considering the Fender Doubletap.

The tele bridge pickup was a lap steel pickup first. The original idea of the telecaster as stolen from Paul Bigsby, was a steel guitar tone from a fretted guitar.
I play a '50s Fender Champion lap steel and it has a '50s tele pickup in it,and it is great, classic lap steel sound. Instant western swing and bakersfield honky tonk tone when plugged into almost anything, and my favorite lap steel sound.
So if you are going to use tele bridge, I'd recommend a '50s style tele pickup. Don't get an overwound one. The extra treble is great for steel. Keep tone knob in the middle.

Remember not to compensate saddles for steel. Use straight saddles and line them up, or even drill and tap a single bar to replace all three saddles if you're able.

Thanks bottlenecker. I do like the idea of a single bar saddle. Is yours like this?:

 

[Blue Bill]

My CC lap (6 string in C6) gets a lot of play when I'm doing country, Hawaiian, or western swing. Vintage Vibe has great versions for lap steel at just over a buck and they sound damn good to me.

That Vintage Vibe CC looks sweet for $120, thanks cnibb.

Mmm... You'll want a pre-war or wartime Rick pickup, like this one:

Plug it into a Fender Princeton Reverb and you are D-O-N-E.

By the way, the Supro/Valco "strings-through" pickup sounds amazingly like a Tele:

However, in the case of those two above, you can't have mine.

By the way, go visit the Steel Guitar Forum. A fellow over there sells Fender Champ kits that look great, HERE.

Bob

Wow Bob, that's a nice pair. That Rick is just like the one ML plays. That kit looks great; boy that would sure save me some time and money, hmmmm. You guys have two, maybe I need two. GAS anyone?

I have a Supro like this one with the original string thru pickup that looks a lot like the Lollar knock off below.. Also a mid '50's Champ or Champion (has 6 strings, screw in legs and the pickup looks like a bigger tele neck with white plastic cover).
Everybody is free to disagree but I think I can get pretty much the same sounds out of both of them depending on the amp settings.
image removed

Hi Mick, I saw that one while searching around. It sure looks the part.

I don't think there is any wrong pickup you can use in a lap steel. Players skill determines everything.

True dat. Maybe I should just buy an off the rack one and spend more time learning to play. Hmmmm

 

[Blue Bill]

Damn you Bill. There are two guitars that I haven't built yet, a carved archtop and a lap steel. I have built a couple of Weissenborns and a tricone and some other odds and ends of slide guitars, but a pure little sit on your lap steel guitar just hasn't come up on chart. Until now.

I've got a koa coffee table that someone gave me that is just the wrong size for a guitar body (and I don't want a uke) - maybe that would be a use for it. The Weissies are koa, might be a match.......

Anyway, just thinking and itching a bit - I'll be watching your thread.

Sorry FK, GAS is contagious, and a mask won't help. Koa would be sweet. Here's a pair of speakers i built, using koa frames and veneer:

Lots of pickups can sound good for lap steel, but it depends on what sound you’re going for. I love Megan’s sound, but I don’t see a Rick panda in my future. My two main steels are the blue custom one in my avatar, which has a split single pickup (sounds like a single/p90 hybrid with no hum)and a 1964 Supro Jet Airliner with a string through. They both work for me, but they are definitely different. Both give me a full sound that works for the bluesy stuff we play. The Supro has more mids.

Hi SG, Panda is a good nickname for those! As I've said, I won't know what sound I'm looking for, until I start trying to play. I like those Jet Airliners!

Kent Armstrong Hot rails on my Morrell Pro 6 string lap steel is great!

e - I checked his site; it looks like KA has a bunch of nice pups at good prices. I'll bet the Chaos humbucker would work also, thanks.

 

[bottlenecker]

Thanks bottlenecker. I do like the idea of a single bar saddle. Is yours like this?:

View attachment 818576

Same model, yes.

 

[muscmp]

as others have mentioned, you may want to check with the steel guitar forum. this is the lap steel sub forum.
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewforum.php?f=13

here are mine. asher, gibson and national.

play music!

 

[VintageSG]

I have an Artec blade humbucker in mine. It sort of sounds halfway between a single coil and a humbucker. Sort of. ish. There's no hum, and there's plenty of high end bite but it ( thankfully ) lacks the screech the original Strat style ceramic could give. Through an angry Champ, it sounds great.


Yes, my camera is borderline potato.

 

[Blue Bill]

as others have mentioned, you may want to check with the steel guitar forum. this is the lap steel sub forum.
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewforum.php?f=13

here are mine. asher, gibson and national.

play music!

View attachment 818736

Thanks muscmp, nice collection! Someone did mention the sg forum, that will be a nice resource.

I like the National:

I have an Artec blade humbucker in mine. It sort of sounds halfway between a single coil and a humbucker. Sort of. ish. There's no hum, and there's plenty of high end bite but it ( thankfully ) lacks the screech the original Strat style ceramic could give. Through an angry Champ, it sounds great.
View attachment 818742

Yes, my camera is borderline potato.

Thanks VSG. I'll keep my eyes open fot the Artec, or one like it. I like the idea of being able to use the Tele bridge, without needing to cut it. A stacked humbucker, with a center tap may be the way to go, if such a thing exists. That steel of yours has a cool gunslinger vibe, very nice.

 

[crazydave911]

GFS has the Lil Killer Tele blade pickups in three values, I have the vintage 7k in my Tele, the modern 10k in my short scale Esquire and Strat Bass. The 15k I've never had use for. But they fit right in a Tele bridge

 

[Flaneur]

I like these....

Supro-tastic.

If you're looking for something to fit a Tele cavity, something hot-vintage would work- a good Broadcaster type would be my choice.

 

[mrfitz98]

I have one of the mid-50's BR-9's with the P90 in it. Nice and smooth until I get it over halfway, then it screams. I tend to play more overdriven stuff with it, so it's perfect for me.