Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum

Forum Ringside => Pickups => Topic started by: tomjackson on January 24, 2010, 01:22:15 PM

Title: Pickup for lap steel
Post by: tomjackson on January 24, 2010, 01:22:15 PM

I'm making a lap steel guitar and need an idea of what pickup might be best.  It will only have one pickup in the bridge position.  http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/ recommend a strat type bridge single coil but I think this might be too thin but I'm also thinking that a humbucker might lose some of the lap steel vibe.

What would you go for?
Title: Re: Pickup for lap steel
Post by: FernandoDuarte on January 24, 2010, 02:42:27 PM
A P90 or a Telecaster bridge is what I would try! But I know almost nothing about lapsteel...
Title: Re: Pickup for lap steel
Post by: Ratrod on January 24, 2010, 03:04:08 PM
A hot P90 or a Piledriver.
Title: Re: Pickup for lap steel
Post by: Tellboy on January 24, 2010, 04:10:39 PM
Piledriver !!!!!!!

The Piledriver is my take on the original Braodcaster...........these early pickups were essentially taken off lap steel guitars so were quite hot.Having said that they still have some twang in them, nothing like a lower output pickup but they've got some serious meat to them.Another option is The Boss which is solid and chunky but still has great bite too.
Title: Re: Pickup for lap steel
Post by: PhilKing on January 24, 2010, 06:46:40 PM
Hi, if you ask Tim he can wind a Lap Steel tele bridge.  He did that for me on one of the Lap steel's that Wez made for me.
Title: Re: Pickup for lap steel
Post by: WezV on January 25, 2010, 06:42:09 PM
yeah, it worked well i think - i prefer singles on lapsteels

it was about 10k so not as hot as a piledriver but quite similar tonally.   Remember you use massive strings on a lapsteel so get quite a bit more output from that

also, dont skimp on the steel.  it sounds so much better than playing lap style with a normal slide

i have one like this
http://www.guitarandampshop.co.uk/acatalog/Jim_Dunlop_JD925_5.35oz._Chromed_Brass_Tonebar.html