Steel Guitar Builder

Hi fella's, Here goes my first stupid questions. I want to put a humbucker and a single coil pick up in the steel that I am going to build. I think I can put the humbucker about 1 3/4"- 2" from the bridge but where should I locate the single coil and should I leave it strait or slanted? I have looked at a couple pics with this setup and it looks as though it is almost against the fret board.I went and bought my wood today so I would like to start real soon.One other thing that I just thought of is how deep is the hole routed for the pick ups?All or any help is very appreciated...Jim

Hi, is it a pedal steel or lap steel?, i use the same distance as Emmons does that is 1 7/8" from the center of the bridge to the center of the pickup on a pedal steel and i would guess it is the same for a lap steel ,if you're putting two pickup it would all depends on what kind of sound you're after...the further away from the bridge makes the sound more mellow and darker, i'm not a big fan for a 2 pickup on a steel...the steel guitar has it's own sound and timber and IMO one pickup should be enough, but that's my opinion and everyone should do what they think it's best for them ect.., about the dept of the pickup is something i've done alot of testing of and i've found that most single coil and humbucker pickup sound better with a distance from the string at about 1/8" to 3/16", one way to get the right height is to get the pickup as close to the strings without having a distortion in the sound.

hope this help

Pat

Hey Pat,thanks for the reply. Which do you like better humbucker or single as far as tone goes. I noticed your 10 sting in a video has a humbucker and it sounds beautiful.I've listened to both and the reason that I decided to do the double pickup thing is that some songs sound so much better mellow and other songs need that bright tone from a single coil. I don't know anything about this stuff other than what my ears tell me.LOL I may be wrong about my entire concept.I am going to build a six string console no peddles. Also I love your picking, I have listened to all the videos that I could find of your music and loved them.Again thanks... Jim

I could not make up my mind between "bright" and "mellow", so I put a movable humbucker on my modified PSG. Humbuckers are more mellow than single-coils by nature, so the movable range for the HB is between around 1 1/2 to 2 1/3 inch from bridge - 20 millimeter movable range to be exact.
This "movable humbucker" arrangement covers the tonal range I want, and I see no advantage in putting two PUs on a steel if one movable PU can be used.

Hey Jeebo, i prefer a single coil cause it has a cleaner and better tone and you can hear the strings separation alot more than a humbucker, i also like the humbucker don't get me wrong...but there's a few little things i've noticed about them is the small amount of distortion, compression and the lack of the frequency range as oppose to a good single coil but it's really a small difference, the good thing about a humbucker is your guitar will be quiet and won't pickup noise if you happen to play somwhere with bad electricity wirings cause a single coil sometimes will pickup noise, if you want to have a more mellow tone you can always pick the strings a little farther away from the bridge IMO, either pickup sounds good it's all up to you what kind of sound you're looking for, once again playing further from the bridge will give you a nice mellow tone and you can control the tone by moving closer or away from the bridge.

Pat Comeau wrote:Hi, is it a pedal steel or lap steel?, i use the same distance as Emmons does that is 1 7/8" from the center of the bridge to the center of the pickup on a pedal steel and i would guess it is the same for a lap steel ,if you're putting two pickup it would all depends on what kind of sound you're after...the further away from the bridge makes the sound more mellow and darker, i'm not a big fan for a 2 pickup on a steel...the steel guitar has it's own sound and timber and IMO one pickup should be enough, but that's my opinion and everyone should do what they think it's best for them ect.., about the dept of the pickup is something i've done alot of testing of and i've found that most single coil and humbucker pickup sound better with a distance from the string at about 1/8" to 3/16", one way to get the right height is to get the pickup as close to the strings without having a distortion in the sound.

hope this help

Pat

What was your method to make it movable?

Jeebo -

If you've read any of my posts, you'll know that I readily acknowledge that thing called "personal preference".

An Alumitone pickup by Lace is essentially a single-coil pickup BUT, because of the way that it's constructed, it is void of the usual noise and hum attendant to the garden-variety single coil.

I'm quite happy with mine. Don't think that I'd use any other.

Richard

I have to agree with Richard. I was looking for a clear but mellow tone, bright but not twangy. I paid a very good and long experienced Luthier to make one for me. It had a tone I liked very much but still not the separation I wanted. I installed an Alumitone and now I have what I was looking for including long sustain and no noise when not playing.

Ferman

My first 2 cents