Pedal steel mechanical noise

[crazydoc]

I have a Sho-Bud single neck cable-pull student model. When I record direct (or mic'd, I presume), the pickup is transmitting some mechanical noise (sort of grinding in quality) of foot pedal depression into the output signal.
1) Is this a common problem?
2) What can I do to get rid of or at least minimize it? I suppose I could try lubricating the pulleys and cables, but haven't yet.

Thanks for any input.

 

[acidrock]

I don't know jack about pedal steels,my suggestion is do a search on it and see if you can find a site that is dedicated to them.
This is a specialised and complicated instrument,a six string is a club by comparison.

 

[crazydoc]

Thanks for the suggestion, acid. It jogged my memory about a steel guitar forum, so did a search there and came up with this:
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/000361.html
Time to wax the pickup. Also suggestions about grounding the hardware to the pickup that I'll try.

 

[philboyd studge]

Steel guitar pickups are super powerful and amplify every little thing, it could be something binding resonating into the body that you'd hardly notice.

 

[crazydoc]

The pickups are electromagnetic, so I was hard pressed to figure how mechanical sound was being injected. But I guess if the wire windings are loose on the pole pieces, mechanical vibration could cause them to vibrate separately, introducing a spurious EMF.