Single Coil Slide Pickups..

[Twitch]

I'm starting to learn some slide guitar and am on the market for new pups (APS or SSL's) and had some questions about how different pickups effect playing slide.

1. Which would you prefer for slide, APS's or SSL's, or something else?

2. How much of a difference is playing slide with flat/staggered poles? Is one better?

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

playing slide on a guitar with single coils is pretty tough...P-90's and buckers do great but most single coils lack the output and sustain to work well while playing slide. That does not mean that you can't do it, but it i sharder. I wold go for a pretty hot/thick sounding pickup.

 

[Twitch]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

Like a twangbanger bridge?

 

[Curly]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

I'm sitting here listening to Sonny Landreth's new album, and he gets an awesome sound with his strat on this live disc. Of course, Sonny uses a Dumble and a Matchless in stereo.

if you want to set up a guitar for slide, then you probably want a flatter radius, with flat poles to match - the flat radius helps pick chords

some slide players use a compressor to give them more sustain/ singing tone - you could probably use an OD to do the same thing

the key to good slide tone is not a lot different than other good tone - good ax/ good pickups/ good amp

it helps to just listen to the good players too - David Lindley, Ry Cooder, Lowell George ...

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

I prefer the APS for slide. Mainly cuz' it's a warmer PuP. The SSL will work
but it's a tad to the bright side IMHO for slide. If your string damping is
off... The brighter the PuP you have the more like alley cats fighting it
starts to sound. I don't know what Bonnie Riatt uses's but she gets a
great smooth slide tone from her strats.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

A twangbanger would be great...Lowell George got a great slide tone from a strat, but he had a tele coil in the bridge and an MXR Dyna comp that almost never got turned off!

 

[gripweed]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

I had a similar question in a previous post that no-one could really answer. Then someone mentioned Lollar pickups. Check this out---

http://lollarguitars.com/cgi-bin/me...re_Code=LGP&Product_Code=227&Category_Code=PU

 

[gripweed]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

I prefer the APS for slide. Mainly cuz' it's a warmer PuP. The SSL will work
but it's a tad to the bright side IMHO for slide. If your string damping is
off... The brighter the PuP you have the more like alley cats fighting it
starts to sound. I don't know what Bonnie Riatt uses's but she gets a
great smooth slide tone from her strats.

I don't know what she used on earlier albums, but she uses Texas Specials now...

 

[Curly]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

I agree that APS-2 would work well, with a Twangbanger or SSL-3 bridge

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

Lots of great slide players used the stock alnico 5 pickups thier Strats came with.

Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George come to mind.

Duncan APS-2's will give you a thicker, chunkier tone with more mids than alnico 5 SSL-1's...but SSL-1's would be closer to what Bonnie and Lowell have in thier Strats.

I think you could use either if you've got the touch...

Lew

 

[Twitch]

Re: Single Coil Slide Pickups..

With all the research that I've been doing since I joined the forum I have decided on the APS single coils for neck/mid. For the bridge I'm pretty sold on the twangbanger, but not 100% yet. Next thing is to decide flat or staggered on my 9.5" radius neck.