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Topic: A Lap or Console Steel with a Built-in Amplifier & Speakers? |
Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 10:09 am |
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Have you ever wanted to take a lap steel with you on a camping trip, or just casually to a party, and had to take along a resonator guitar instead, because there would be nowhere to plug in your amplifier, or an amplifier would be too cumbersome?
What about incorporating a small amplifier driven by a rechargeable battery, and a few well-placed speakers, in the body of the instrument? In a hollow-bodied console steel this would be a piece of cake, and, even in a solid body would not be too difficult, as can be attested by the fact that both Fender and Cord, amongst others, at one time used to manufacture solid electric guitars with built-in speakers. |
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Keith Glendinning
From:
United Kingdom
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 10:31 am
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Hi Alan,
I remember in the 60's, EKO built a Folk Guitar with integral Amp and Speakers that had a "reasonable" sound. With today's electronics it's possible to get tiny integrated circuit amps, battery driven, which could easily be fitted to a Console or Lap Steel. In my view decent speakers would be the problem. Good speakers that come to mind would be the Bose Cubes, but these are pricey and I don't know if an IC amp would drive them. A very interesting project though.
Regards,
Keith. |
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Paul DiMaggio
From:
Fort Nelson, British Columbia, Canada
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 3:14 pm
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I've been thinking the same thing , maybe the tuners and bridge configured like an early Harmos. Brace the end pieces with high tensile steel rod, that way the top of the box (fretboard) could be made of lighter wood. The guts of a Cube amp and a couple of 3" speakers mounted on the bottom board. 22.5"scale. The bottom board could be longer and make a lid similar to the old portable Singer sewing machine lids. It could be built to fit into an overhead bin on an airplane. Just some ideas that have been rolling around in my head. That in itself is a scary thought  |
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Noah Miller
From:
Rocky Hill, CT
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 4:15 pm
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Harmony did this with the Consolectric:
This was in the days before economically viable transistor amps, but you could easily replicate the idea today with a battery-powered amp. |
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Denny Turner
From:
Oahu, Hawaii USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 5:23 pm
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A Roland Microcube solves that problem; Has for many folks. AC or battery power. And you can use any electric guitar you might desire from time to time.
Just sayin'.........
_________________
Aloha,
Denny T~
http://www.dennysguitars.com/
Please help support humanity:
http://www.redcross.org/en/aboutus |
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Michael Maddex
From:
Northern New Mexico, USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 6:39 pm
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use with lap steel or electric guitar:
12 VDC -- use a lighter socket cord, eight 'D' cells or wall wart
only drawback is no reverb, but easily remedied with a battery pedal
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"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert." -- Arthur C. Clarke |
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Jim Myers
From:
Washington, USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 8:01 pm
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I've been working on a design for just that kind of steel. Thanks for the amp suggestions.
_________________
D8 Hollow neck acoustic.
Raised nut on a Gene Autry Melody Ranch.
ShoBud D10 The Professional.
56 D8 Stringmaster. |
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Denny Turner
From:
Oahu, Hawaii USA
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 10:51 pm
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Idea for guts to put into a steel / amp combo:
A couple hours ago it occured to me: Fender and Marshall (and others) make mini pocket sized combo-style amps in plastic cabinets that resemble their familiar amp cabinet designs; They have a small speaker ...about 2" diameter; Standard 9VDC battery powered. My first 2 years of learning real lap steel (vs 'slide' I'd been playing on a lap steel for many years), I'd go to nearby beach parks and take one of those mini Fender Twin pocket amps, a small "walkman" type CD player, a pocket size mixer, and my MOTS Maggie steel, ...to woodshed along with CD music. Point being is that mini Fender amp was quite ample and had a decent sound for it's size, ...for practice, low volume jam sessions, doodling, etc. It had a gain knob for drive > overdrive settings, as well as master volume and tone controls, and the master volume settings even had a headroom ceiling point that started to get "distortion" at about #7 volume setting, while clean below #7, give or take a number or two depending on the gain setting, similar to a bigger Fender amp. And being just a little larger than a cigarette pack, that amps guts would surely fit into a lap steel. I practiced with that amp in a number of places, even with the amp very close to my steel, and never had any EM nor RF noise, so it probably wouldn't need a complicated farday cage (if any) in a steel. Were I going to put those guts into a steel, I'd find a music store that had a variety of mini "pocket" amps and take my steel to compare them, particularly for noise (or other quirks) when sitting right up against my steel at every location and angle I could think of (reminescent of how noisy a "telecaster" et al can be at certain relative angles to an amp at higher volumes). ~~~~~~~ But then again, why not just stick one of those mini-amps in a pocket or small bag and go play anywhere, with any electric guitar, ....although battery powered amps of the Roland Microcube size have MUCH bigger / broader / louder / better sound, and the Microcube has a darn good selection of built in effects.
Click Here for a variety of such amps listed in an ebay search.
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OOPS, forgot to mention: Both static and dynamic impedence matching between many modern small amps and their speaker(s) is often very important if not sometimes critical. Maybe due to direct coupling between amp and speaker? Ain't like most old or bigger instrument amps where most of the time you just gotta match an amp's proper speaker static ohms resistance.
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_________________
Aloha,
Denny T~
http://www.dennysguitars.com/
Please help support humanity:
http://www.redcross.org/en/aboutus
Last edited by Denny Turner on 4 Jun 2015 12:50 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Roger Palmer
From:
Rossendale, UK
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Posted 3 Jun 2015 11:26 pm
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I was going to build one, bought a few second hand car stereo speakers to experiment with but then got a microcube and lost interest  |
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James Mayer
From:
back in Portland Oregon, USA (via Arkansas and London, UK)
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