EH-100 tone issues and what you did? Did it help?

[Mark Evans]

Greetings
I have a ‘39 Gibson EH-100 lap steel with Tone issues - overly very bright. Tone knob range remains unchanged until about ‘9.5’ (of ten) then gets rounder (about 1mm of turn)and then volume basically drops. A new cap install didn’t help.

I scanned the forum and found a few similar threads, ideas for resolution… but not much follow up. Have any EH owners done any tweaks (new cap, new pots, etc) and successfully reclaimed a better tone range?
Thanks
Mark E
(And what adventure, fishing out guts thru the pickup cavity hole) pics upon request

[Allan Revich]

Why not just use an EQ pedal, or dial back the treble on your amp?

[Mark Evans]

Why not just use an EQ pedal, or dial back the treble on your amp?

Yeah there is that approach (though the couple EQ pedals that I once owned always seemed to add unwanted noise to the chain). I believe I did kill the treble on the amp and upped bass and mid with only modest improvement.

If I was convinced by other EH owners that, well, that’s how these laps sound… it’d be different. Although somewhere someone said they were made to run thru a single knob 40’s tube amp . Compared to my Oahus (Kay made single coils), it’s downright ice picky…

[Allan Revich]

Here’s an idea that might work. Something I tried once on a guitar that was weak in the treble. I put a heavier gauge high string there to increase the magnetic signal. I wonder if using lighter gauge treble strings will decrease the treble signal and balance the output better?

[Brad Bechtel]

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/late ... -my-guitar

[Glenn Stanfield]

Speaking strictly as a long time electronics tech, not an EH owner.

The tone knob should, as I'm sure you know, for better or worse, change the tone throughout its entire movement.

If a new cap didn't have any affect the next thing I would do is check the potentiometer. If I lacked the equipment to test it I would just replace it, they are not that expensive. Check/replace the volume potentiometer while you're in there too.

[Todd Clinesmith]

Mark,
You lost grounding somewhere . I would think your tone pot/ cap is not running to ground . It's possible the pickup is not grounded as well. I would try running a ground from the pickup to the jack if the tone pot is connected to ground.

Todd

[J Fletcher]

Check that the coil isn't open . An open coil would result in the symptoms you are experiencing.

[David DeLoach]

I had an 1940 EH-185 for awhile and just couldn't bond with the tone.

Here is a video I did with it back in 2020 freakout (my intonation has improved a lot since then ) --> https://youtu.be/0SIQcWu0f5A?si=Ni1oKJYzDEURE6fU

[Mark Evans]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will explore some of these options.
Mark E
Denver

[Allan Revich]

I pulled out and played my EH-100-7 today and didn’t find it more trebly or “ice-picky” then my other lap steels. On 7 strings the highest string sits at the very edge of the blade magnet, perhaps that cuts out some treble?

[Michael Kiese]

Aloha,

Check the value of the volume pot. Sometimes people replace the original pots and stick a 500K pot in there, which would make a single coil pickup extremely harsh and bright.

Single coil pups usually have 250K vol pots to help the high end frequencies bleed to ground. This tames the shrillness of single coils.

Nothing wrong with experimenting with 100K pots or lower. Just use your ear and see what you like.

Good luck and enjoy!