Lap Steel + GK

Started by Antonuzzo, January 13, 2014, 02:03:44 PM

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Antonuzzo

There have been a few posts about this...

I picked up a dirt-cheap lap steel last year with the intention of running it through a VG, and finally have it all done.  The steel in question was a 'Blue Moon' - £51 from eBay. These are also all over Amazon too.  Build wise, it is very basic - terrible single coil pickup, flimsy tuners and no fretboard markings at all, despite what the various photos show. I marked them in with chalk for now, but I'll put a proper decal on later.

The plus to this guitar is that the economy pickup means that it has standard string spacing unlike the wider board on some steels I've seen.

I scoured around for a second-hand GK and lucked out on eBay again: A GK-2A plus a GR-09 for £100 on a Buy It Now! (I had planned to sell the GR-09 on but having played with it I am now in love with the thing... I may do a review later. I'll just say it's a fantastic little unit and the tracking is unreal).

Mounting was a five-minute job. Once concern that has been raised is the curvature of the GK against the flat profile of a steel guitar. I admit to being puzzled by this as a great many normal guitars have flat bridge profiles as opposed to arched - I've used a GK on a Dean V for years with no problems. Either way, tweaking the sensitivity of the high and low strings more than compensated for the millimetre or so of difference.

In use? Fantastic. The Pedal Steel preset on the VG-8 is perfect for this, and this is a situation where the ability to switch tunings is an absolute delight. I can't wait to get this out for a few gigs.

Here's the beastie in its sickly green glory:



And a detail of the mount. It's a well-used GK, but works just fine. Later I'll secure the unit properly.


mojo thorne

Nice!  I have a cheap Rogue lap steal that I acquired as partial payment last year.  It also has a cheap strat style pickup.  I might need to measure the spacing and try this.  Can you post some clips of how it sounds?

Antonuzzo

That would mean exposing my abysmal slide playing... but yeah, I will.