Bill Lawrence 705 reproduction Pot question

Hal Braun · From: Eustis, Florida, USA

I am having a D-8 non pedal steel made, and am going with the reissue Bill Lawrence 705 dual blade humbuckers..

I am assuming they would use a 500K ohm audio taper pots for both volume and tone, with a .022 cap.. can any verify this? all the wiring diagrams I have seen either do not show the pot value, or just show the wiring diagram..

thanks!

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Many, if not most, pedal steels (for which 705s are designed) don't have on-board volume or tone controls at all, in which case players rely strictly on an external volume pedal. I think the vast majority of pedal steel players who use a potentiometer-based volume control use one with a 500K Ohm pot. The common ones built by Goodrich, Sho Bud, Emmons, Franklin, and so on all use 500K audio-taper pots.

I myself use 705 pickups (OK, they're original 705's built by Bill Lawrence in the 80s, not the later reproductions) with 500K pot pedals, and I like that sound. If you wanted to cut back some high-end, you could try a 250K pot - it's easy enough to try out, and what is desirable for a nonpedal might be different than for a pedal steel - it depends on what you want.

Of course, many pedal steel players use either a buffer (like the Goodrich Matchbox or Sarno Freeloader) or a buffered volume pedal (like the Hilton) to avoid even the loading of a 500K Ohm volume pot into a lower input impedance solid-state amps. Again - it depends on what you want to sound like. For me, trying things and letting my ears decide is the best approach.

Hal Braun · From: Eustis, Florida, USA

Thanks Dave.. I guess I think more like a "traditionalist guitarist" ie.. my Les Paul. (except I obviously do not need 4 pots since the pickups wont be "blending").

My teacher (John Ely) thinks I might be a little crazy for getting a console with pedal steel roots.. but to me, the stringmaster he loves is a little bright. I almost always play the neck pickup on my guitars, whether it be a strat, tele or humbucker guitar.. I just like that sweeter sound.

As far as an amp, I use some fairly high end tube amps (a nice savage Macht12 with 2X10 and a custom made class A tube amp that uses 6550's)

I don't use a volume pedal very much with my guitar, and am going to have to learn that technique (as compared to rolling the volume off and on with your palm on a guitar) but playing through an Ernie Ball Jr. volume pedal does not seem to affect the tone very much on my Paul..

Bill Rudolph thinks the 705's will work great (remember this is a D - 10 body and neck and is being modified to use 8 string spacing, so the bars make it a no brainer for lining up the strings) I could play around with some of the pickups from Lollar that are 8 string specific, but not sure they would be any better and they sure are more expensive.

If the 705's can get anywhere near the tone of my 1 1/2" magnet Ricky bakelite.. I will be thrilled.. thanks for any input...

PS. any thoughts on the cap? .022 or .047?

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I'm not suggesting that there's any problem using a volume and tone pot. My point was that the Lawrence 705 is a pedal steel pickup and most pedal steels control volume via a volume pedal, not volume pot, and the typical value pot pedal most players use is 500K, not 250K.

My take - the reason is that the DC resistance (and in the case of most pickups, but not necessarily the Lawrence pickups, the AC impedance) is much higher than a typical guitar pickup, even a typical (ca. 7.8K Ohm) Les Paul humbucker. But even in a Les Paul, I prefer 500K volume and tone pots. The reason is that there is more loading going from a high-impedance pickup to a lower-impedance load, and I lose too much high end for my tastes. I don't always want a lot of high end, but I'd rather have it naturally than try to boost it actively. It's pretty simple to cut back the sparkle, tougher to add it.

On tone cap values - I prefer to use the smallest tone cap that will give me the maximum high-end cut I need. That tends to give me more sensitivity over the range of the control. But again, the exact amount is up to the ears for me - it's easy enough to try different values.

Hal Braun · From: Eustis, Florida, USA

Thanks Dave, I see what you are driving at..

Isn't there a 500K pot that I can use on the guitar that when on "10" it basically shorts and acts like there is no pot there (I know Fender had a 250K version back in the day)? That would provide the best of both worlds..

no pedal.. use the guitar volume
pedal.. set the guitar volume to "short" and use the volume pedal..

and no "piling on"

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