Tony. Thanks for the compliments.
The Bill Lawrence 705 and 805 hot-rail style pickups are no longer being made. I've had a couple of sets of these that I've kept around for quite a while to try them out in different guitars I've had. Although Bill Lawrence does indeed make some great pickups for steel guitar, (i.e. L-710, L-910, etc.) these particular pickups just happen to work out in my ZumSteels better than most others I've tried, and especially so on this all natural birdseye maple guitar. Bruce wasn't sure himself how these pickups would work on this guitar, but after playing it for a couple of days, he agreed that these particular pickups were a fantastic combination for this guitar, and of course, they are quite. This is an absolute must for me in the recording studios, as well as on many live events. We have plenty of problems already trying to keep this hiss and hum down on our amps sometimes, and having a quite pickup indeed does help aleviate some of that frustration.
The Jerry Wallace True-Tone picks are very good too, and in fact, Bruce uses these on a lot of the guitars he builds. Although I do like the True-Tone pickups, they are a bit noisy for my taste. However, they are better than many of the other factory offerings in single coil pickups. The single coil pickups do provide a certain sparkle to the tone that I do like, unfortunately, you have to sacrifice the hum.
Bill Lawrence was making a pickup some time ago, (an L-610,) which was a single coil pickup sound, without the hum. I liked this pickup too, but it wasn't quite as hot as I liked to give me the strong signal to the preamp like the "7" and "9" series pickups do.
As you've probably noticed, the same pickup in an identical guitar may or may not have quite the same tone when compared to each other, and hence, it's really a matter of experimenting with different pickups till you get what you think you're looking for.
In essence, the pickup doesn't necessarilly provide the "tone" so to speak, but rather, amplifies what the guitar and strings are putting out. Although brands of guitars indeed do differ, both in tone and quality, in my personal opinion, I believe most of the perverbial "tone" is really in the hands of the player.
Anyway, thanks again for the compliments, and I hope this info helps.
