Lap steel - new turf for me

[Mark Hammer]

I picked up an old Goya lap steel yesterday. A real beater. The pickup is exactly the same as I've seen in so many other Japanese guitars from the 60's. Same iron base (with the little indent for the wires to come out). same ceramic bar. Same soft plastic bobbin slid over a cast iron slug with those slot-head screws. Same as these, from all outward appearances:

The pickup measures about 5.8k DCR. I haven't strung it up yet since there is a bit of repair work needed on the nut. But I'm wondering if this is a pickup worth leaving in its native state, as opposed to "amending" with some extra turns, or perhaps even a new coil or altogether different pickup.

The instrument itself is, of course, little more than a slab of wood with tuners, bridge/pickup assembly and the where-am-I simu-fret plate screwed to the "neck". Visually, the instrument bears a strong resemblance to this one, except that mine has the cheesy pickup, and the bridge is essentially a piece of hard plastic screwed to the body. Same cover-plate shape, though.:

I guess there are two things that leave me scratching my head. One is that the scale of the instrument (and I guess many lap steels in general) is decidedly shorter than a regular guitar, so I don't have a feel for what such an instrument "needs" in the way of a pickup (as opposed to what the maker had on hand and simply slapped in). The other is that the cover-plate/"pickguard" it came with is stainless steel, attracts magnets, and will have those weird properties that a steel Tele bridge plate will have.

This is all decidedly new terrain for me, so I am open to all suggestions.

As well, I was pondering redoing the electronics, such that the output jack would be relocated to the other side of the bridge, and a rotary switch for tone settings situated where the butt of my picking hand would go. My reasoning is to get the jack out of the way such that I might be able to use cables that had non-90-degree plugs. Again, since I am brand new to lap steel, is there a reason I would want to have the tone control on the other side, and the jack on the player side?

[Sweetfinger]

No need to start fixing the pickup until you have a good idea that it is lacking. I have a Guyatone steel which is a copy of a Fender Stringmaster. It sounds great. The thing to remember about lap steels is that it won't sound like the records unless you back off the volume somewhat and back off the tone. You'll find a sweet spot where it sounds like a steel should.

[Mark Hammer]

After someone on another forum drew the typical string gauge to my attention, I realized I probably had no intuitive sense of what it would probably sound like. Ergo, wait until the thing is strung up before forming an opinion.

[Gibsonman63]

String guage will definitely effect the tone. Since you are not fretting and the neck is really beefy, you can go much heavier than you would with a fretted instrument. Your selected string guage may change based on the tuning you pick. Also, there is a huge difference in the sound of a glass slide verses a metal slide. A friend of mine who is a very accomplished slide player uses a deep well socket, but I prefer glass myself because the heavier slides feel awkward to me. Also, the picks make a big difference. I have seen some guys play with thier fingers alone and others play with metal picks for the thumb and fingers.

So, I am singing with the choir. Play around with it a bit before you change anything.

[SlideOn]

Hey, Mark - steels generally have a scale of 22.5" or 24", although shorter and longer are around, too -- Supro/National/Oahu steels are often 23", and there are some 26" ones out there. So, yes, that usually means heavier strings (depends on your tuning -- I'm an Open G or D man, myself - check here for a gauge chart: John Ely's Steel Guitar Web - String Gauge Chart).

As for pickups, the earliest Fender steels used what became the Broadcaster/Tele pickup. A lot of makers used/use P-90s, and Asher uses humbuckers that would work on a regular guitar. Fender Stringmasters used pickups specially designed for that clean, singing tone, and then of course there are Rickenbacher horseshoes and Supro string-throughs (the greatest electric pickup of all time).

My main axe is a custom job with a split-single that measures around 8 ohms. In any case, a standard guitar pickup will do, unless you are trying for something in particular.

Re: the tone control thing - there were a bunch of steel designs that had the volume on one side and the tone on the other side of the bridge -- some players liked to hit a note and spin the tone control fast -- it gives kind of a wah sound (real steelers call this the "boowah"). Other guys work the volume knob like a volume pedal, for swells. But I'd think you can do that if the controls are both on the same side, so I'm the wrong guy to ask about this.

Anyway, I'll bet that Goya pickup makes some really cool sounds. Can't wait to hear what you think of it.

Peter