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Author
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Topic: Fender Champ ?
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Tony Harris
Member From: England
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posted 24 March 2002 03:10 AM
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Just picked up a very clean 6-string Fender Champ. Yet to check out how it sounds with new strings and through my various amps and Pod. Anyone ever improved one of these by fitting a more modern pickup? Any suggestions?
Thanks. |
Doug Beaumier
Member From: Northampton, MA
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posted 24 March 2002 08:32 AM
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My suggestion is to leave it original. ------------------
My Site | Doug's Free Tab
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Brad Bechtel
Moderator From: San Francisco, CA
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posted 24 March 2002 12:21 PM
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In my opinion, replacing the pickup with a more modern pickup would not result in an improvement in the tone. The Fender Champ lap steel has a wonderful tone of its own. These guitars tend to sound very clean and won't break up like a Supro pickup would (for example).
If the tone isn't meeting your needs, give us an idea of what sort of tone you want so we can collectively suggest other options.
Give it a bit of time and you'll probably agree.------------------
Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
Sam Marshall
Member From: Chandler, AZ USA
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posted 24 March 2002 12:41 PM
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I've got a similar question. My 6-string Champ's pickup had already been replaced with a pretty weak pickup when I bought it. I've been wondering if a Tele bridge pickup would be a good replacement? Any ideas? Sam in AZ |
Brad Bechtel
Moderator From: San Francisco, CA
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posted 24 March 2002 02:29 PM
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In your case, Sam, there should be a wide variety of pickups which could fit where the old weak pickup is. (I'm assuming you don't want to consider having it rewired since it's already a replacement pickup). I can't give you a good answer on this, since the only time I tried replacing a pickup on an old Rickenbacker, I ended up with a board with strings.
I know Seymour Duncan still has the Antiquity pickup for the 50's Fender Champion lap steels listed on his web site, but I've never seen nor heard one of these in person.------------------
Brad's Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars [This message was edited by Brad Bechtel on 25 March 2002 at 02:22 PM.]
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Mark Davis
Member From: Bakersfield, Ca
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posted 27 March 2002 12:11 AM
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Here is how the Fender Champ looks inside the body routes and pickup. Looks like a Stratocaster pickup would fit in just fine without any mods to the guitar a Telecaster pickup which has a triangle shaped baseplate would require a small route to fit.  Here is the Fender Champion Lap Steel (mine) showing the routes and its pickup. Also showing the telecaster baseplate on the Champion pickup to show how much bigger you would have you route the body to accept the Telecaster pickup.  
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Jason Lollar
Member From: Seattle area
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posted 27 March 2002 08:24 PM
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Is that copper plated baseplate original to that pickup? |
Mark Davis
Member From: Bakersfield, Ca
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posted 28 March 2002 12:13 PM
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No I added that copper base plate to the Champion steel pickup with a couple drops of wax so I could mount it in my Tele.The way the original pickup looks is in the 2 other pictures. |
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