Gibson lap steels and Thunderbird pickups

godofthunder · March 02, 2012, 05:21:58 PM

I have long heard that early Gibson lap steel pickups were the precursor to the Thunderbird pickup. I stopped by a local shop today and they had a 1960 Gibson pedal steel with a pickup that looks just like a Thunderbird pup but with two rows of pole pieces. A first for me! I have heard of this connection but never seen it in person. I took pics with my cell phone, never posted pics from it, I will try and post them, If not I'll go back tomorrow with my camera.

gweimer · March 02, 2012, 06:34:38 PM

Try sending the pics from your phone to your email. Then, go from there.

Dave W · March 02, 2012, 09:37:38 PM

I thought they were built like two Melody Maker guitar coils. Carlo and Steve (ThunderBucker) should know more.

godofthunder · March 03, 2012, 05:23:14 AM

opps it's a pedal steel, the unit is on legs not a lap steel.

dadagoboi · March 03, 2012, 05:29:06 AM

Quote from: Dave W on March 02, 2012, 09:37:38 PM
I thought they were built like two Melody Maker guitar coils. Carlo and Steve (ThunderBucker) should know more.

Steve's on his way to Florida, should be checking in soon.

Droombolus · March 03, 2012, 06:10:40 AM

Quote from: godofthunder on March 03, 2012, 05:23:14 AM
opps it's a pedal steel, the unit is on legs not a lap steel.

Steel guitars do have legs sometimes but they have to have pedals & levers to be an actual pedal steel .......

godofthunder · March 03, 2012, 06:35:13 AM

hmmmmmmmmmm I didn't see pedals and levers but to be honest I was looking at the pickup!

Denis · March 03, 2012, 06:50:55 AM

Quote from: godofthunder on March 03, 2012, 06:35:13 AM
hmmmmmmmmmm I didn't see pedals and levers but to be honest I was looking at the pickup!

Hahaha, makes me think of a girl in a movie I saw when she said to some guy staring at her boobs, "Uh, my eyes are up here!"

Dave W · March 03, 2012, 08:02:58 AM

A non-pedal steel on legs used to be called a table steel. Herb Remington is still making them in Houston, although he just calls them non-pedal steels.

In the 50s Gibson made a table steel called the Consolette. Maybe that's what you saw. They also made pedal steels.

Dave W · March 03, 2012, 08:06:12 AM

Quote from: Denis on March 03, 2012, 06:50:55 AM
Hahaha, makes me think of a girl in a movie I saw when she said to some guy staring at her boobs, "Uh, my eyes are up here!"

There's a perfectly good response to that.

Dave W · March 03, 2012, 08:13:07 AM

I hadn't heard of this before now, A.R. Duchossoir published a book on Gibson steels in 2009. Here's an excerpt, it mentions 8-pole humbuckers. Lowest price new on Amazon Marketplace is $29 shipped, I'll pass for now.

999 · March 03, 2012, 02:22:13 PM

I've also heard this for a long time - at least 20-25 years - first time may have been from Paul Chandler when I worked at Gary Brawer Stringed Instrument Repair in San Francisco (not certain on that but heard the same quite a few other times). Mike Lull and Jeff Ament spoke about this recently with Bass Player mag (I had mentioned that to Jeff years ago as well)

ML I was a Thunderbird fanatic back in the '70s, and I've owned a bunch of them. But I found them to always be a little unwieldy—they played kinda funny and sounded tremendous. And what says "rock" more than a Thunderbird bass? I hated the ergonomics, but loved the sound. So I put my mind to making a bass that balanced well, and sounded like the originals. It was more of a task than I thought. We designed a new bridge and tailpiece. I took a set of original '64 Thunderbird pickups apart and found out exactly why they sounded the way they did. I started making pickup covers out of a nickel-silver alloy, magnets out of alnico 4. A typical humbucker has two coils and a magnet down below. This one has two coils with the magnet standing vertically between them. The result is a thin, very high-output humbucker. The neck pickup measures 8k [resonant frequency], and the neck pickup is 9k. The steel base plate becomes part of the magnet structure. I had to have all these pieces made from scratch. In the process of researching this project, I found the company that made pickup covers for Gibson back in the '60s.
JA Those original pickups were for lap steel guitar, right?
ML Gibson had discontinued an 8-string lap steel in 1962, and they had a ton of these pickup coils laying around. They took two of those coils, stuck them to a steel base plate, and put a nickel-silver alloy cover on it, and suddenly they had a new bass pickup. So I made them just like that. The T-Bass pickup sounds exactly like the original '60s Thunderbird pickup, but they're more consistent.

godofthunder · March 03, 2012, 03:21:42 PM

Here are the pictures! It is a pedal steel, man the thing is beautiful I wish I could buy it. Sure looks like a Thunderbird pickup to me.

999 · March 03, 2012, 03:27:33 PM

Way cool. (and pedals, too) Sure does look similar - deluxe version with adjustable polepieces rather than the bar magnets.

godofthunder · March 03, 2012, 03:45:15 PM

I am just thrilled to be able to confirm this for myself. When I started at the House of Guitars in '76 they literally had piles of lap/pedal steels (really I mean piles) and I don't remember any with a Thunderbird like pup, they all had P90 looking units. I may have to go back and buy this thing, why I don't know. But with the Thunderbird connection and besides it is just so beautiful.