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Topic: Single or dual pick ups? |
Ian Fleetwood
From:
South Australia, Australia
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Posted 20 Jul 2017 2:56 pm |
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Still looking into my first lap steel purchase. Some offer single others dual pick ups?
Be interested in hear what you folks think on the two variations? Is two better than one?
Cheers,
Ian |
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Brad Davis
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 20 Jul 2017 7:51 pm
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I don't think it's better per se, it's an option, at an added expense. Like any electric guitar you can have a neck and bridge pickup, typically wound differently, offering different tones. Usually they can be individually selected or blended together. It may give you a wider array of tone options in combination with the tone control(s). You can vary tone on a single pickup using the tone control and adjusting where you pick the strings, how you attack, control the bar, etc. I'm not sure people often use a lot of different tone settings, they find the one that pleases their ear and then work their picking technique to finesse unique tones out of it. Plenty of exquisite music made with a single pickup. YMMV.
For your very first lap steel I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you get bitten by the bug you'll probably be buying more anyway. |
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Roman Sonnleitner
From:
Vienna, Austria
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Posted 21 Jul 2017 6:01 am
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I like two pickups - but not wired like on a "Spanish" electric guitar (with a 3-way switch) - I prefer the Stringmaster setup: bridge pickup always fully on, neck pickup on a blender pot; that way you start with a bright, trebly tone, and can dial in as much fullness and warmth as you like.
I use that blender pot on my homemade steel to slightly vary the tone during a gig: bright and trebly for honky-tonkers and Hank Williams-style stuff, and fuller and warmer for bluesier, more swinging tones. |
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Miles Lang
From:
Venturaloha
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Posted 23 Jul 2017 9:03 am
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| Roman Sonnleitner wrote: |
I like two pickups - but not wired like on a "Spanish" electric guitar (with a 3-way switch) - I prefer the Stringmaster setup: bridge pickup always fully on, neck pickup on a blender pot; that way you start with a bright, trebly tone, and can dial in as much fullness and warmth as you like.
I use that blender pot on my homemade steel to slightly vary the tone during a gig: bright and trebly for honky-tonkers and Hank Williams-style stuff, and fuller and warmer for bluesier, more swinging tones. |
Me too. Plus the 2 pickups cancel the hum |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 23 Jul 2017 11:24 am
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The pickup or pickups don't have much to do with if it is a good steel or not.
My favorite steels are Clinesmith, Rickenbacher and Supro . All one pickup steels.
The old fenders are great and all had one pickup except the Stringmaster. The old Gibson steels had one pickup also.
More is not better when it comes to steels.
In other words it is not an issue.
_________________
Bob |
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Joe Elk
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 23 Jul 2017 1:17 pm
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Miles
Any explanation for noise cancelation? Is it noticeable. I was looking considering a 8 string build.
Joe Elk Central Ohio |
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Tony Lombardo
From:
Alabama, USA
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Posted 23 Jul 2017 6:12 pm
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| I like one single coil pickup on a lap steel. |
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 23 Jul 2017 11:09 pm
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| Joe Elk wrote: |
Miles
Any explanation for noise cancelation? Is it noticeable. I was looking considering a 8 string build.
Joe Elk Central Ohio |
The famous humbucker pickup (Google humbucker for more info) features two coils wound in opposite directions next to each other and this stops it from picking up noise and interference - single coil pickups can be prone to picking up noise from lighting rigs etc.
The two Stringmaster pickups are wound opposite from each other and so in full blend mode they act as a single humbucker.
This only works with a pair of opposite wound pickups and the replacement ones are either sold in pairs or as north or south polarity (you need one of each). 2 Identical pickups will have no hum cancelling properties. |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 24 Jul 2017 8:50 am
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| Jeff Mead wrote: |
| Joe Elk wrote: |
Miles
Any explanation for noise cancelation? Is it noticeable. I was looking considering a 8 string build.
Joe Elk Central Ohio |
The famous humbucker pickup (Google humbucker for more info) features two coils wound in opposite directions next to each other and this stops it from picking up noise and interference - single coil pickups can be prone to picking up noise from lighting rigs etc.
The two Stringmaster pickups are wound opposite from each other and so in full blend mode they act as a single humbucker.
This only works with a pair of opposite wound pickups and the replacement ones are either sold in pairs or as north or south polarity (you need one of each). 2 Identical pickups will have no hum cancelling properties. |
This actually is not true. The north south thing is a myth and builders let it go because then you need to have a whole long conversation that is not worth the trouble. Its all about phase cancellation. The more identical the coils are the less hum. Also the less interesting tone. Anyway go on reading the internet and blogs and believe what you want. Or you can go to the trouble to actually test it yourself. On standard humbucking pickups it makes no audible difference.
Jeff , Go ahead and experiment. It's easy, just switch the hot and ground wires at the jack. Doesn't do a damn thing.
_________________
Bob |
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Jeff Mead
From:
London, England
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Posted 24 Jul 2017 10:33 am
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Fair enough - I don't know enough about pickups to argue with you and, yes just got my info from the internet - for example from Seymour Duncan who sells Stringmaster pickups in North and South pairs -
http://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/antiquity-stringmaster-bridge-3
But the main point I wanted to make is that you can't just combine any two guitar pickups and have them work together as a humbucker. |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 24 Jul 2017 2:27 pm
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Jeff,
It's weird . I don't know why they write that stuff. Pickups are butt simple. The coil is just a long wire wrapped around a magnet. I've pulled apart a bunch of them and experimented like crazy.
At a convention I had one builder ask me very seriously how much it helped my pickups when I wound the coils different directions. I said that I don't think it does anything and he laughed and said not to tell anybody.
I think it is just an easy thing to talk about compared to the inductance issues which get confusing.
_________________
Bob |
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Ian Fleetwood
From:
South Australia, Australia
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Posted 25 Jul 2017 1:09 am
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Thanks for the feedback.
Finished up going for a dual pick up system. Figure i have two switchable singles or a mix of the two.
Interesting times ahead.
Cheers,
Ian |
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Lee D Kaiser
From:
California, USA
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Posted 25 Jul 2017 1:47 pm
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As a shade-tree pickup maker, I thought I'd weigh in here.
See here for a discussion on combining two single-coil pickups: http://www.planetz.com/pickup-magnetic-polarity-and-phase/. Depending on the two pickups, you can be in phase or not and you can have hum cancelling or not. You probably want in phase and hum cancelling, for which you'll need a pair of PUs that have 'reverse polarity.' Regardless of the direction of the winding of the pickup, you can achieve 'reverse winding' by connecting the leads properly.
For one single-coil PU, it doesn't make much difference which end of the coil you connect to ground, except that for some PUs if you connect the lead from the end of the coil to ground, you'll get a buzz through the speaker if you touch the magnet. Not a big deal, but it can happen.
You can determine the orientation of the magnets with a compass (duh!). You can also tell the direction of the winding of the coil with a bar of iron and a volt-ohm meter. See the link above for how to do that.
Lee |
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Mark Helm
From:
Tennessee, USA
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Posted 25 Jul 2017 6:36 pm Your Steel?
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Ian: Who's building your steel?
And congrats!
_________________
Remington Steelmaster S8 w/ custom Steeltronics pickup. Vox MV-50 amplifier + an 1940's Oahu cab w/ 8" American Vintage speaker. J. Mascis Fender Squire Jazzmaster, Hofner Club bass, Ibanez AVN4-VMS Artwood Vintage Series Concert Size Acoustic Guitar. 1920s/30s Supertone Hawaiian-themed parlor guitar. Silvertone parlor guitar. |
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Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
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Posted 26 Jul 2017 5:12 pm
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I got an email asking me to comment ... and since I have the Schrodinger equation tattooed on my arm ... I felt abliged to do so 
"Hum cancellation" is all about destructive interference ....
If you are not familiar with wave equations and really don't want to deal with the math ... take a look at this page ... scroll down to "constructive and destructive interference" and watch the animation.
http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/superposition/superposition.html
If you have a coil of conductive wire ... no magnets ... no strings ... just a coil ... with the "start" of the coil connected to the hot of a 1/4" jack and the "finish" of the coil connected to ground of that jack ... and plug it into an amp ... you will pick up electromagnetic radiation (RF , whatever) ... if you bring that close to a fluorescent bulb, for instance, you'll hear a great deal of noise.
If you take another coil ... wound in the opposite direction as the first ... same # of turns, same dimensions, etc ... and connect the first coils "finish" to the second coils "start" ... and then connect the second coils finish to the ground of the 1/4" jack/amp ... the electromagnetic "noise" will be greatly, if not totally eliminated ... via destructive interference.
If the second coil is wound in the same direction as the first ... you can achieve the exact same destructive interference ... ala "hum cancellation" ... by connecting the first coils "finish" to the second coils finish" ... and connecting the second coils "start" to the 1/4" ground.
To recap :
Case 1 : Two identical coils ... no magnets or strings ... wound in opposite directions (one clockwise, one counterclockwise) ... start of coil one to hot, finish of coil one connected to start of coil two, finish of coil two to ground = destructive interference of EMR entering coils ... "hum cancelling"
Hot --- S1 ------ F1 ~ S2 ------ F2---- Ground
Case 2 : Two identical coils ... no magnets or strings ... wound in the same direction (both clockwise or counterclockwise) ... start of coil one to hot, finish of coil one connected to finish of coil two, start of coil two to ground = destructive interference of EMR entering coils ... "hum cancelling"
Hot --- S1 ------ F1 ~ F2------ S2 --- Ground
That's it ... as far as extraneous EMR entering into a series of coils.
Now, you want a guitar pickup ... magnets and ferromagnetic strings ...
The physics of "hum cancellation" remain unchanged from the above ( cases 1 and 2) ..
But to generate a signal indicative to the plucked strings frequency ... magnets become involved ...
Case 3 ... A "Dummy Coil" ... used in " stacked humbuckers", etc ... coil 1 has magnets (either north up or south up) doesn't matter and coil two has no magnets ( and is "shielded" from coil ones magnets) ... sounds similar to a single coil pickup ... but magnetic shielding is much more difficult to achieve ( field line diversion is a better term) ... so there is some destructive interference in the "signal" ... but as long as the dummy coil in an acceptable plane relative to the signal generating coil ... hum cancelling is achieved.
EMR entering the coil series ... has nothing to do with the signal generating mechanism ... but the greatest destructive interference of the EMR is achieved if the two coils are in close proximity to each other and are in the same plane in three dimensions ...
Case 4 : Conventional Humbucker ...
Coil one has magnets and generates signal ... coil two has magnets and generates signal.
This is where magnet polarity comes into play.
If coils are arranged in a hum cancelling series (Case 1 or 2) ... the magnets in coil one must have "opposite" polarity than those in coil two. ... meaning one coil must be north up and the other coil must be south up ...
This sets up "constructive" interference in the signal of a vibrating string ... while retaining the destructive interference of the EMF.
If the magnets in the two coils have identical polarity ( both north up or both south up) ... there will be destructive interference in the signal as well as the EMF ...
It is prudent to point out ... since the two coils are "reading" the strings at different points ... their will be a small amount of destructive interference in the signal (not complete constructive interference) ...
Case 5 ... the Supro string thru
The most common have two coils ... in the hum cancelling configuration ( case 1 or 2) ... and the external magnet array produces a single dipole ... i.e., north up or south up ... doesn't matter. But the two coils are reading different sets of three strings ... so destructive interference in the signal is kept to a minimum ... while EMR is still pretty much eliminated.
Hope that helps ...
I quickly looked over that chart that was linked to ... its #4 and #8 are incorrect
As far as pickups being simple and not a big player in the guitars sound ... that's not been my experience 🤓
My best unit has two coils ... 90 degrees to each other ... and a magnet array that ... well let's say .... took some serious math to get right.  |
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Rick Aiello
From:
Berryville, VA USA
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Posted 26 Jul 2017 6:16 pm
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Belated Father's Day present ... The time depedent Schrodinger equation for a nonrelativistic particle in 3 dimensions 🤓
That was the first day ... Swelling has gone down some now ...
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Garry Vanderlinde
From:
CA
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Posted 26 Jul 2017 7:34 pm like the bow-tie
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Rick, I see that you shaved off your beard.
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Jimmy Gibson
From:
Cornwall, England
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Posted 26 Sep 2017 2:44 pm
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I like the option of having two pickups,for the contrast of tones .
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