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Topic: Another Lap Steel From DownUnder #7 |
Alan Hamley
From:
Queensland, Australia
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Posted 30 Dec 2007 3:33 am |
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Hello there everyone,
This is another Lap Steel creation made for my best mate as a Christmas present. Didn't make it in time for Christmas so it will be a New Year present.
It is made from Queensland Maple, Black Bean fingerboard and Sasafrass headface, fingerboard binding and bridge decoration. It has a 25" scale, single eppiphone humbucker and I tried some Elixir electric strings on it. Not sure if I like the strings. The sound is a bit too compressed for me. Anyway there are two very short sound clips at
www.myspace.com/ozziebluesman demo in open g and demo in open d.
Thanks for looking.
Happy New Year to all my friends here at The Steel Guitar Forum.
Alan |
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basilh
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 30 Dec 2007 5:23 am
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Beautiful workmanship and styling Alan. Is there any particular reason that you've positioned the pickup so far from the bridge ?
Is this guitar intended for Blues or Hawaiian style playing ?
Happy New Year to you and yours,
Baz |
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Tom Pettingill
From:
California, USA (deceased)
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Alan Hamley
From:
Queensland, Australia
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Posted 31 Dec 2007 2:11 am
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Basil, thanks for your comments. The last two guitars I have positioned the pickup closer to the neck. It is just that I prefer the beafier warmer tone for playing blues. The guitar responds well with some extra gain through a valve amp. Lovely tone breakup.
Tom, thank you for you kind comments also.
Happy New Year to you all
Cheers
Alan |
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basilh
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 31 Dec 2007 4:27 am
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Yes Alan, I suspected that you intended the guitar for blues playing.
Verry nice looking instrument and a warm sound. When are we going to HEAR it "Cutting Loose with a bit of Growl" ?
Baz |
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Chris Walke
From:
St Charles, IL
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Posted 4 Jan 2008 9:41 am
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| Alan Hamley wrote: |
Basil, thanks for your comments. The last two guitars I have positioned the pickup closer to the neck. It is just that I prefer the beafier warmer tone for playing blues. The guitar responds well with some extra gain through a valve amp. Lovely tone breakup.
Tom, thank you for you kind comments also.
Happy New Year to you all
Cheers
Alan |
I'm glad someone else sees a "neck position" pickup as a good thing on lap steel. Single pickup guitars tend to have the p/u placed at the bridge, so the only way to get a neck position p/u is to get a 2 pickup guitar. I prefer the sound of the neck position. Warmer, smoother. Less bite. |
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Alan Hamley
From:
Queensland, Australia
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Posted 6 Jan 2008 2:40 am
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Thanks Chris for you comments. I do like the warm tone that you get from positioning the pickup closer to the fretboard. I like to play lay back blues and the tone lends itself to that type of music IMO.
Cheers
alan |
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Chris Drew
From:
Bristol, UK
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Posted 6 Jan 2008 3:23 am
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Yeah, I checked out your new recording in the post for Basil, that's a nice rich tone for sure.
I really love the sound I get from my strat's neck pup through my old jmp half-stack or pod's amp sims.
It's just a relatively cheap 3pup set I got from Axes'R'Us, but it sings! It's that glassy single-coil sound & the placement really fills it out, harmonics can be a little harder to pull off though.
Anyway, have you thought of concealing a pup under the fretboard? You could rout a back-access cavity (oo-er!) to get to it, like on Fred's gorgeous New-Yorkers. Maybe a tele pup or one of those s/c-sized buckers. That way you can have a full 24fret (or more!) board on there & get a really clean look.
I'm really liking your work, Alan... I think your steels would look sweet with wood pup surrounds, or covers, but that's just me obsessing over cosmetics! You certainly have the tone thing down - I say it's time to get pretty, hehe!
But I guess that for a lot of us hobbyists time is the main restriction for creativity, what with the day-jobs and all...
Talking of which, I recently started work in a new job doing tec-support for a supplier of, amongst other things, laser engraving/cutting machines!! 
This means I have acces to these machines, and part of my job is also to make interesting samples for trade-shows etc, & research applications.
I'm gonna design & cut some fretboards & inlays for my 23" scale acoustic hollowneck project, but I can just as easily do prettymuch anything you could think of, designed & cut from Corel Draw software.(.cdr file)
I'm liking the idea of a laser-etched fretboard made out of black & glow-in-the-dark plastic. ( We also sell materials )
And so, yet another side-project is born! I need to timetable myself though, in order to progress with the hollowneck site. Maybe I'll get time to record some of my attempts at playing!
I'll keep you posted on what I'm up to with this...
Gotta go, wifey's doing the sunday-morning fry-up sarnie breakfast, bless 'er!
Regards,
Chris. |
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Alan Hamley
From:
Queensland, Australia
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Posted 6 Jan 2008 3:39 am
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G'day Chris,
Yes I have thought of a pickup in the neck. The idea of positioning the pickup nearer to the fingerboard came to me after playing a Cole Clark VioLap. I played one of these and was very impressed. It has a pickup in the neck like Fred's old National, a pickup at the bridge and is semi hollow also. Anyway, my next project is something similar to the VioLap. I have a slab of Western Australian Jarrah, the shape has been cut and I have started hollowing it out. Who knows what this one will sound like Chris!!!! All good fun!
Cheers
Alan |
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Greg Shadwick
From:
California, USA
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Posted 6 Jan 2008 3:12 pm
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| That guy looks fantastic. Very cool. Great job. |
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Alan Hamley
From:
Queensland, Australia
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Posted 9 Jan 2008 5:13 am
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Thanks Greg for you comments
Cheers
Alan |
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