New lap steel pickup...

[Fat Old Sun]

Hi everyone. :)

I was wondering if there was anyone here who could help me choose a good passive single coil pickup for my lap steel guitar. I want improve the sound of it, and I thought changing the electronics is a cheap and easy thing to do. I play a lot of Gilmour stuff on it, so I need a pickup that sounds good distorted and perhaps sound a bit vintage-ish.

I haven't got much experience with different pickups. I own a strat with a nice Gilmour combination (cs fat 50, cs 69 and ssl-5), and that is about it.

There is quite a few different options out there, with Fender, Seymour Duncan, Lindy Fralin, Lollar, EMG and so on. But I just don't know which is the best, hehe.

If anybody could give me some advice, I'd love to hear them :)

[Bryan T]

What lap steel is it? What woods and scale length?

[Fat Old Sun]

Thats some good questions, which I wish I could answer, but this is just a cheap guitar I bought and I have no idea what it's made of, but its not expensive wood, thats for sure. All I know is, is that "Texas" is written on the headstock.

Scale length? I have no idea.

So there you go. Here is some pics if that helps:

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l359/xNORBATTx/IMG_0374.jpg

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l359/xNORBATTx/IMG_0377.jpg

http://i328.photobucket.com/albums/l359/xNORBATTx/IMG_0376.jpg

Maybe you could compare the scale length with the Gretsch?

[Bryan T]

That is a funky little lap steel! To my eyes, it looks like it is short scale. I'd send Lollar Pickups an e-mail explaining what the instrument is like and what you're hoping to get out of it.

And here is some history about what lap/console steels David Gilmour has used through the years: http://www.gilmourish.com/?page_id=69

[Fat Old Sun]

Thanks. I'll do that :)

[OM Flyer]

I know a guy who put an American Series Tele neck pickup in his lap steel and it sounds killer.

[Quarter]

That looks a lot like a modded version of one of the SX lap steels that Rondo sells http://www.rondomusic.com/LG1na.html.
I'd say pick one of your favorite Strat pickups and give it a go. If you want something a bit more gritty, something like one of the P90 style single coils, like the Vintage Vibe version for example, would be another way to go.

And to figure out your scale length, measure from the face of the nut to the center line of the 12th fret marker and multiply x 2.

[Fat Old Sun]

Wow, it's exactly the same guitar. Probably made in the same factory in china or wherever.

I'm having a hard time trying to decide which pickup to install. I'm not sure if I want that strat kinda sound, which is rather thin or if I want more of a smooth pedal steel type of sound.

Well thanks for all replies so far, I'm going to consider all of em. I'm always open for more advices though :)

[kimock]

If you're looking for high gain, get whatever single coil sized humbucker that fits and you're probably done.
The regular single coil in a lap steel is going to bite you eventually; too noisy.


You're going to want to level and straighten those bridge saddles at some point too, same deal, it'll bite you eventually if you don't.

OK bye, good luck!