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Topic: Seymour Duncan Antiquity String Master pickups? |
Tom Snook
From:
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
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Posted 22 Mar 2013 7:15 pm |
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Are they ceramic or alnico magnets? I read somewhere that different woods work better with different pickup types.Alnico and Mahogany ,Ash and Ceramic.I'm going to dismantle my StringMesster and put the pickups in a new lap steel.So I'm wondering what kind of wood I should use.Tone is more important to me than anything,but I want it to look good with some kind of varnish .Any input is appreciated. Mahalo
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I wanna go back to my little grass shack........ |
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Stephen Cowell
From:
Round Rock, Texas, USA
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Posted 22 Mar 2013 10:10 pm Re: Seymour Duncan Antiquity String Master pickups?
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| Tom Snook wrote: |
| Are they ceramic or alnico magnets? |
They are Alnico 5.
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| I read somewhere that different woods work better with different pickup types.Alnico and Mahogany ,Ash and Ceramic. |
Fenders were ash... and had alnico pickups. Les Pauls were mahogany, and had ceramic pickups. Basically, what you've been told is wrong... you can't just associate a magnet with a wood. The pickup design, the wood design... too many variables.
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| I'm going to dismantle my StringMesster and put the pickups in a new lap steel. |
Why on earth would you do that?
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| So I'm wondering what kind of wood I should use.Tone is more important to me than anything,but I want it to look good with some kind of varnish .Any input is appreciated. Mahalo |
Let's start by finding out which tone you want... can you name an artist or guitar that sounds like what you want? What don't you like about your 'Stringmesster'?
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Too much junk to list... always getting more. |
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Tom Snook
From:
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
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Posted 23 Mar 2013 6:23 am Stringmesster
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There's a reason I call it a Stringmesster,the only thing Stringmaster about it is the pickups.I don't know what kind of wood it is,I think it's too dense and heavy,6pounds.I guess it would be nice if it sounded more Fendery.If I knew how to post pics with my IPad I would,no big ting.Just looking for more resonance I guess.
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I wanna go back to my little grass shack........ |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 23 Mar 2013 9:32 am
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Rather than messing with (and destroying the value of) a classic Stringmaster, why not consider selling it and buying a guitar that meets your needs? Or hanging on to it and buying a different guitar that has the resonance you desire?
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Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Tom Snook
From:
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
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Posted 23 Mar 2013 11:00 am String "Messter" get it? Mess!
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I wish I had a StringMaster! No it's just something I put Duncans in,in hopes that it would in some way sound like a steel guitar.Back to the drawing board 
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I wanna go back to my little grass shack........ |
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Keith Cary
From:
California, USA
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Posted 25 Mar 2013 8:30 am Stringmaster and tone
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Here are a few variables that I've found effect tone and sustain on steel guitar and regular guitar. I personally don't believe there's one good tone that everyone agrees on. Different musicians and different styles of music demand different sounds.
Pickups, obviously. Much written about pickups, single-coil vs humbucking, etc.
Scale length. Longer scale tends to bring out more harmonics. (Here's an excellent discussion on scale length and tone: http://novaxguitars.com/info/technical.html)
Density and thickness of the wood, in the strings' path; the wood that's bearing the pull of the strings. The "wings" of the guitar, on either side of the strings' path have less to do with tone and sustain. Denser woods tend to give more sustain and highs. Lighter woods tend to sound "warmer" and sustain less.
The anchoring of the ball ends of the strings. Through-the-body tends to give more sustain and highs. Some mountings are intrinsically loose.
The bridge and nut and how they're mounted. Some of the current cheap lap steels have thin little pressed metal bridges that give microscopically and soak up the energy of the strings.
I've been a guitar repairman and instrument builder for the last thirty years.
Keith |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 25 Mar 2013 6:32 pm
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| Through-the-body tends to give more sustain and highs. |
Do you have a source of evidence you would cite? I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I do build some of my own and I'm interested. Gibson makes the same claim for their stop tailpiece, the TonePros used to claim their locking bridge and stop bar increase tone, sustain etc - until enough people tried the simple experiment of un-locking them - no difference.
There are a number of instrument bridges that allow for both string-through and top loading, mostly bass but a few for guitar, and the builders I've talked to say nada, nein, ...no difference in tone and sustain of topload vs. string-through unless you're dealing with a downright floppy, squishy bridge. String composition and the length of nut-to-bridge or fret-to-bridge determine string tension, brightness, and sustain.
This is an old advertising claim that keeps popping up, but in order to increase string tension, you have to turn the tuning peg. |
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Stephen Cowell
From:
Round Rock, Texas, USA
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Posted 25 Mar 2013 9:44 pm
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I have found that with the Stringmaster style of string anchor the tone is very dependent on the four big Philips screws at the back... these can get loose, causing tone suck, especially since there's a cavity underneath the plate string anchors. Mike Stevens does all his Guit-Steels through-body... he has his own ferrule piece that he sets into the back of the guitar. Note that the Deluxe 8 lacks these screws... note also that the Guit-Steel has them. This means the Deluxe 8 is *very* dependent on the plate screws at the back... and that it will probably never sound as good as the D8 and T8 SM's without what Mike calls a 'hot rod' job (string-through).
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Too much junk to list... always getting more. |
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Tom Snook
From:
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
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Posted 26 Mar 2013 11:50 am
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Fender,Magnatone,Rickenbacker,Supro, National,Gibson even Teisco have their own somewhat unique tone.Some are identifiable by their sound alone.I'm just trying to get a better sound than I get now,It's worth a shot,can't sound any worse.I hope 
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I wanna go back to my little grass shack........ |
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Tom Snook
From:
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
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Posted 26 Mar 2013 1:03 pm
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A guy at Radio Shack once told me,"there are no stupid computer questions".Let's see if that's true with lap steel pu questions.Is it possible for me to make my pair of Duncan Stringmaster pu's into one Humbucker?Not that I would do that.
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I wanna go back to my little grass shack........ |
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Stephen Cowell
From:
Round Rock, Texas, USA
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Posted 26 Mar 2013 6:49 pm
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| Tom Snook wrote: |
| A guy at Radio Shack once told me,"there are no stupid computer questions".Let's see if that's true with lap steel pu questions.Is it possible for me to make my pair of Duncan Stringmaster pu's into one Humbucker?Not that I would do that. |
That's the way they come in a Stringmaster... they're reverse-wound, reverse-polarity (RWRP) if they're done right. You can test this with a small magnet... it will attract one pickup and repel the other when held the same way. Check your set and make sure it's a pair.
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Too much junk to list... always getting more. |
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Iestyn Lewis
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2013 4:43 am
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I just bought a pair for my latest project. Tom, you should have one pickup with black and white wires, and the other should have black and yellow. If you followed the wiring instructions that come with them, I can't see how the kind of wood you have on your current guitar is going to make them sound BAD. If you happen to have 2 of the same kind (both black and white or both black and yellow), and you wired them according to the instructions, then I could believe that you wouldn't be getting much out of them. Have you tried just wiring one of them straight to the jack to make sure all is well with each pickup?
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Iestyn
http://facebook.com/trcguitars |
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Tom Snook
From:
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2013 6:48 pm
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What if I screwed the pickup directly to the wood instead of using the the adjustable springs,like the G.E.Smith Telecaster,wouldn't that pick up more vibration thus enhancing the tone?
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I wanna go back to my little grass shack........ |
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Stephen Cowell
From:
Round Rock, Texas, USA
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Posted 27 Mar 2013 7:34 pm
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| Tom Snook wrote: |
| What if I screwed the pickup directly to the wood instead of using the the adjustable springs,like the G.E.Smith Telecaster,wouldn't that pick up more vibration thus enhancing the tone? |
On a Stringmaster the pickups are held by screws with surgical tubing for springs... to the plate that the strings are anchored to. I don't think that the pickup gets much tonal information from the body... I think the body affects the strings, which the pickup then picks up.
I also feel that the bridge affects tone more than the wood... a nice solid piece of steel rod will go a long way to making tone.
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Too much junk to list... always getting more. |
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