Blue Stem Lapsteels

[Paul Conway]

http://www.bluestemstrings.com/

Anyone tried one? I'm thinking about starting to play lap steel, but I don't want to buy a plywood ebay plank, and these seem fairly reasonably priced (about the price of a Mex strat here)

Any other cheaper suggestions welcome in the present climate, too....!

Cheers guys!

[kimock]

http://www.bluestemstrings.com/

Anyone tried one? I'm thinking about starting to play lap steel, but I don't want to buy a plywood ebay plank, and these seem fairly reasonably priced (about the price of a Mex strat here)

Any other cheaper suggestions welcome in the present climate, too....!

Cheers guys!

That looks like a really good deal to me. Nice split coil humbucker too.
Haven't tried one, but that's as nice as I've ever seen anywhere near that price for a new lap steel.

[Paul Conway]

Thanks, Steve.

I know virtually nothing about lap steel, other than that I'm a slightly less appalling slide player when the guitar is flat on my lap, so it seemed a sensible progression...

[Quarter]

Lap steel is a kick, you will have a blast!

Randy's steels are well liked and a worthy contender. Being your across the pond, you might look into something stocked over there.
Bill Asher's Jrs are a great option and around your price point. The longer scale, 2 pickups, and the belly bar option for stand up playing are nice.
A cheaper option marketed in the EU you might like is a 2 pickup brand called Clearwate (http://stores.channeladvisor.com/THE-REALLY-USEFUL-MUSIC-COMPANY/Items/gcwls2n?sck=2976266&caSKU=gcwls2n&caTitle=NEW%20WEISSENBORN%20SHAPE%20LAP%20STEEL%20 GUITAR%20LEFT%20OR%20RH%20cwl2n)r

If you find you end up falling in love with steel guitar and are looking for something special, give me a shout and we can dial you in with a custom.

[Paul Conway]

Thanks, Tom. ;)

[dk123123dk]

If you have any guitar parts and some minor woodworking skills, you should make your own.

I made a cigarbox 3 string guitar for slide, and its a lot of fun. It was super easy to build, and it actually sounds decent.


dk

[pbrander]

I have a Bluestem lapsteel and think it's a great little steel. Although at the price they go for maybe I should say they're a steal?

Peter

[Paul Conway]

I have a Bluestem lapsteel and think it's a great little steel. Although at the price they go for maybe I should say they're a steal?

Peter

How does the maple body sound compared to say, alder?

[Paul Conway]

Also - any advice on scale length and tunings would be appreciated!

[kimock]

How does the maple body sound compared to say, alder?

Ok, I'm guessing, but it's at least a slightly educated guess.

Probably not a huge difference.

Assuming that the maple would be heavier, you could expect a little more sustain, but it would be hard to imagine from the looks of the design and the hardware that the alder could be considered sustain deficient.
I'm thinking that if it were a bigger guitar the differences would be bigger, but with that size body I'm guessing that the performance would overlap more than differ, and that you wouldn't get to a tie-breaker until you got to different scale lengths, strings, tunings, pickups, and musical application.

At that point I would suspect different folks might still have different preferences, but I bet it would get a lot easier to tell them apart.
Again, just guessin'.

All but one of my favorite 6 string single neck laps are constructed from solid 100% crap wood. It's junk basically, the Supro, Oahu, National, Valco family stuff.
Forest product wrapped in thick plastic.
Still sounds great. The one non-forest product/plastic steel that I like is an old pear shaped, hollow body Recording King. Mahogany, looks like. . .

So I took all the hardware off one of my Supro's, and had the body duplicated in mahogany. A beautiful piece of mahogany dimensionally identical in every single way, just heavier and easier to look at.
Upon reassembly it did not sound one bit better than it did in its forest product incarnation, different, sure.
Nice? You bet. Just not better.
Kinda weird.
I just went back to my regular junk.

On the other hand, I had a pair of double 6 Fender steels from the early 60's.
For whatever reason, one was a honey and one was a dog.
The good one was white, mint, clean as a whistle, played and sounded great.
The dog was a natural, walnut looking thing. Fast asleep. . .
They may have been the same wood with different finishes, but it didn't feel like that.

Anyway, just to see if I could get the dog going, I replaced the stock bridges and nuts with titanium, which wound up costing more than the guitar was worth, but with the hardware change the dog ran away from the clean one so hard that I sold the clean one and kept the upgraded dog.

So there's some reason to believe that the quality of the hardware on a plank might be more important than the plank. YMMV etc.

I can't see anything about the Bluestem hardware that looks even the tiniest bit deficient. Really pretty impressive. Kinda proper. . .

If I was getting one, and I might, I'd get the maple top 'cause it looks cool.
Beyond that, unless you had a couple examples of each in both scale lengths to compare, it's anybody's guess. Right?
Wood?
Dunno. . .:D

.02

peace

[Paul Conway]

Thanks for the benefit of your experience, Steve - that's interesting, but logical, I guess. The smaller the body mass, the smaller the sonic contribution, perhaps. There is a school of thought that says set up, hardware and pickups are more important than wood (not sure I agree entirely..) My second electric is a plastic/fibreboard Reverend with a block of wood in the middle, and it's in no way an inferior tone to a solid body. Just different, as you say.

I wonder if one of these (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RECORDING-KING-SOLID-MAHOGANY-LAP-STEEL-GUITAR-W-SLIDE-/350384069619?pt=Guitar&hash=item5194849bf3)would suffice in the short term..

It seems guitar tone is a non-linear system! Small perturbations can have large and unforseen consequences...

On another note, I've got to say that I love that sound where the player slides up to a note and the reverb causes it to swell up. Beautiful.

[kimock]

I wonder if one of these (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RECORDING-KING-SOLID-MAHOGANY-LAP-STEEL-GUITAR-W-SLIDE-/350384069619?pt=Guitar&hash=item5194849bf3)would suffice in the short term..

Yeah maybe, it's hard for me to recommend an instrument of that low quality.
First, the string spacing at the nut is visibly too narrow, I guarantee you won't put up with that for too long.
I can't reckon the scale length from the pic, but it looks pretty short.
Not ideal for either slanting the bar or single note/open string stuff down by the nut.
The single coil pickup isn't the best choice for any higher gain stuff, which is part of the fun factor with those axes.
No way to tell the accuracy of the scale etc.
It's iffy.
Who knows what's going on with that. . .

I'd go here short term: http://www.elderly.com/accessories/items/EN02.htm
the string spacing is pretty standard, action plenty high etc.

If you do go for the cheap-o steel, get the nut extender anyway.
I know you'll like that string spacing better.

It seems guitar tone is a non-linear system! Small perturbations can have large and unforseen consequences...

That echoes my thoughts. . .

On another note, I've got to say that I love that sound where the player slides up to a note and the reverb causes it to swell up. Beautiful.
:D

[Paul Conway]

Yeah maybe, it's hard for me to recommend an instrument of that low quality.
First, the string spacing at the nut is visibly too narrow, I guarantee you won't put up with that for too long.
I can't reckon the scale length from the pic, but it looks pretty short.
Not ideal for either slanting the bar or single note/open string stuff down by the nut.
The single coil pickup isn't the best choice for any higher gain stuff, which is part of the fun factor with those axes.
No way to tell the accuracy of the scale etc.
It's iffy.
Who knows what's going on with that. . .

I'd go here short term: http://www.elderly.com/accessories/items/EN02.htm
the string spacing is pretty standard, action plenty high etc.

If you do go for the cheap-o steel, get the nut extender anyway.
I know you'll like that string spacing better.



That echoes my thoughts. . .


:D

Thankyou. It's precisely these points I need to hear about!

(FWIW, the manufacturer says the scale is 23.5".)

I guess you'd be looking at doubling the cost when you factor in improvements. :crazy

Better start saving.....

[Stevo57]

I have a 57 Supro Airliner and a top of the line Clinesmith sitting next to each other on my lap stand. I paid $300 cash for the Supro and $1650 for the Clinesmith. I must say I enjoy playing both of them equally, and they both sound great, but they are different horses for different courses. My playing is more Lindley style in nature, using open E and a reso bar. It's easier, for me anyway, to play hammer ons/offs and single note stuff with the wider string spacing of the Supro.
I am trying to broaden my repetoire and learn some jazz and hawaiian music as well though, and the Clinesmith is more suited to that. It has a mellower tone and the notes really blend in a way thats pleasing for a 6th tuning. The Clinesmith has top of the line hardware and is based on the old Bigsby's.
Steve , I traded for a gutted Fender 400, which is a big hunk of swamp ash. I made a 27" scale console out of it and that sustains like a grand piano. I think the old Fenders that are swamp ash bodies are the shiznit.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v63/stevo57/400bodytop.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v63/stevo57/6508_IMG_0338_1.jpg
You may want to spend some time checking out the steelguitarforum.com and especially the Steels without pedals section. Lots of information available via the search there. It's well worth the $5 or so it costs to join.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v63/stevo57/P1030260.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v63/stevo57/IMG_0001.jpg

[Paul Conway]

Thanks, guys. A whole new world opens up...

[Quarter]

How does the maple body sound compared to say, alder?
The tone / sound of an instrument is the sum of its parts and construction. My experience is that electronics / pickup(s) will contribute the lions share to the end result, but hardware and woods play a significant part too. I think of the woods used and their characteristics as more of a flavoring or the spice in the recipe. Woods don't change the basic tone of a pickup, but do help color it and influence things like note bloom / decay, and attack.

As for maple in particular, one of my favorites is this maple neck through Deco style I built some time ago. The pickup I finally settled on is an in your face double slug HellaBucker model from BG-Pups. The original pickup as shown was a little too bright on maple.

.
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g94/quarterbend/GC-001/gc1.jpg


.
Also - any advice on scale length and tunings would be appreciated!
On scale length, it generally boils down to playability vs tone. While there are exceptions to the rule and no absolutes, a longer scale steel can have a bit bigger / richer tone with better harmonics and sustain. Another slight advantage of a longer scale is due to the wider fret spacing, playing in tune / intonation on the fly can be a bit easier.
The main advantage of shorter scales like 22.5" is that forward and reverse bar slants are easier.