SUSTAIN

[Ken Byng]

I was asked by a member this morning if an aluminium neck on his pedal steel guitar would make any difference to the sustain on his guitar. He said that the notes above the 12th fret just 'choke' and die quickly. This subject has been discussed many times on the US forum, and I have had many conversations with different players and manufacturers about it over the years.

Bobbe Seymour once told me that he carried out extensive testing on several guitars to see if the neck material made any difference. He took the necks completely off of a Sho~Bud and an Emmons guitars, and his view was "It made not a cent difference in tone or sustain". He did say that over-tightening a neck connection to the body will affect sustain, especially on an Emmons. I told Jeff Surratt of Show Pro Guitars once that my aluminium neck Sho~Bud doesn't quite have the sustain that I would like above the 12th fret. He said straight away that it was because it has a scale length of 24". He said that is was long known that a 24.25" scale would greatly improve sustain.

Aluminium necks - now that is subjective. Tommy White prefers aluminium necks while Lloyd Green prefers wood necks. Both guys have great tone. I like the tone of my wood necked Show Pro very much, yet also like the tone of my metal necked Emmons and Infinity guitars. All 3 guitars have a 24.25" scale. I would be interested to hear the views of others.

[elparkirio]

Me too

[Zebedee]

As far as I know, the only Emmons which had continuous contact between the changer and the neck was the short-lived 'bolt on'.

Despite the allegedly better tone and sustain with this type of construction, it was discontinued due to tuning problems caused by the aluminium neck expanding/contracting when the instrument was exposed to fluctuating temperatures.

Nearly all steels now have the changer disconnected from the neck, so I am going to go out on a limb and say that the neck material is not critical to sustain, but the tightness of the neck to the body is

If the neck screws are tightened to 'as tight as they'll go' it inhibits the vibrations in the body, and tone/sustain suffer.

Many years ago I released the tension on the neck screws of my Emmons push-pull (aluminium neck) and now they are just 'snugged up', much to the benefit of the steels tone/sustain.

When I rebuilt my Marlen, I experimented for hours with the neck screw tightness, till I got it just right (and that's got a wood neck)

The only steel I've had that had the changer bolted directly onto the aluminium neck was my Denley, and that had good sustain.

So in conclusion, changer bolted directly to aluminium neck (which is only lightly bolted to the instruments body) = good sustain, albeit with dodgy tuning stability.

Changer bolted directly to body, surrounded by but not in contact with the neck (whether wood or aluminium) = less sustain, but better tuning stability

[Tony Smart]

I'm trying to get an answer on this from Jack Strayhorn on the SGF.

According to Bobbe's logic, if having no neck makes no difference and having it done up over-tight affects the sustain, then it would seem it doesn't matter how tight the screws are as long as they're not over-tight.

Everyone has a different view on this. I've tried slackening and tightening the screws - I couldn't notice any difference. (then again, I can't tell Stork from Margarine)

Thinking about Bobbe's idea, if having no neck makes no difference, then (in his way of thinking) the whole idea of wood or ali. necks is immaterial ????????

Hopefully we'll see what Jack has to say.

[Ken Byng]

Richard is right about the sustain of the Denley. However, I used to use a hair dryer on the necks of my Ormston (a Denley predecessor) to minimise tuning instability caused by mounting the changer onto the one piece metal neck.

I have a cut tail Emmons push pull, and I am more than happy with the tone, sustain and tuning stability. Buddy Emmons had protested to Ron Lashley Snr about the bolt-on design, but Lashley went ahead with it anyway. Not long after this, Buddy dis-associated himself with the Emmons guitar as he knew that the obvious tuning problems that a one piece aluminium neck would produce counteracted any tonal improvement.

.............Thinking about Bobbe's idea, if having no neck makes no difference, then (in his way of thinking) the whole idea of wood or ali. necks is immaterial ????????..................

Tony - Bobbe's view was that the necks made little or no difference in the guitar's tone. He didn't divulge to me whether he had a preference of ali over wood, although he used an Emmons push pull with cut tail and ali neck for the bulk of his steel playing career.

[Jif]

Would it not be possible to measure this? I'm thinking that for example. you could screw the neck up tight and record a waveform of a strum over the neck, loosen the screws and record another waveform and compare how long it takes for each the waveform to decay below a certain point. The same could be done by swapping between wooden and aluminium necks.

Of course it would depend on the force of the strum being more or less equal for both instances, perhaps some kind of apparatus could be used to keep this constant, but I would think you could get it pretty much the same manually, probably enough to show consistent results one way or the other.

I'll try this on my Carter, (neck tightness), when I get a chance, bit busy at the moment but it would be interesting to have a look at this. I have a storage oscilloscope but I would think this could just as easily be done by just recording the strum into a computer and examining the waveform

[Tony Smart]

Ken, I too had an Ormston. Got it from Gordon and Nigel in about '68. I made a cut each side of the neck where the pickup was to isolate the changer.
I didn't find it that good for sustain. However, the sound wasn't too bad and it worked.
Again, just my opinion.

The Denley came out about 4 years (if I remember) before the Ormston, but you could only raise or lower a string - not both on the Denley.
Thus I wouldn't buy one.

Let's remember that guitars vary. My p/p has a good sound, but I played an Emmons single-10 years ago that was absolutely out of this world. I also played a Sho-Bud single-10 at Eric Snowballs that had a fantastic sound. So for me, the best sounding guitars seem to have been single 10's.

Gone a bit off topic here, but lets have some more opinions on the original thread.
Don't be frightened to post in case someone slags you off, just say it's your opinion.

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

This was my reply to Matt just my humble opinion......

Matt, I think it would be a waste of time and money to mess with that Bud if you did find a difference it would be negligible, work on your vol.pedal technique and holding the bar to improve sustain.
The longer scale length debate is IMHO not going to make a great deal of difference either,
yes its true you will get more twang from a long string than a short one but quarter of an inch!! GTFOH!
Lloyd can get as much sustain as he wants anywhere up the neck..... you know it so do I.....

Regards, John

Another great topic might be "Questions people ask that have not been playing very long "

I could start that off with a silly one I asked Gordon when I moved from my ZB D10 to my first Emmons D10
The first thing I noticed was the tuners being so close to the nut on the Emmons about an inch away as opposed to the ZB that must have been at least 2 " so I ask "How am I supposed to play my F chord or Bb with the tuners right on top of me??"
He shut me up with two words "Emmons manages"

[Willie Gamble]

Matt, I agree with JD, I played an Emmons Black Rock 10 for 30 odd years with a wood neck, which is lower than most necks, and I never found any trouble playing F or Bb right at the keyheads, it is true to say that you get used to anything except hanging.
I now have the sheer and utter joy of playing a lovely Mullen SD 10 royal precision, and I dont see much difference in sustain, the trick is deffinately the volume pedal usage, that is where your sustain comes from, learn that art and you wont have to worry about sustain

Asleep at the steel

[Ken Byng]

.......
The longer scale length debate is IMHO not going to make a great deal of difference either, yes its true you will get more twang from a long string than a short one but quarter of an inch!! GTFOH! Lloyd can get as much sustain as he wants anywhere up the neck..... you know it so do I........

Lloyd has had both David Jackson and Jeff Surratt do considerable work on his LDG over the years. Lloyd's touch is probably as good as anyone who has ever played. If you go to this page http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... b11ad1fbfb you will see that one poster is of the opinion that Lloyd's guitar has a longer scale length.

Re the 24.25 scale - the vast majority of modern steel manufacturers use the additional quarter of an inch, as did the Emmons company for many years. I take Jeff Surratt's opinion over most people. He has forgotten more about pedal steel construction than most of us will ever know. The fact is - my Sho~Bud's sustain does diminish above the 12th fret - NOTICEABLY!! Jeff immediately told me what the problem was when I mentioned it to him. I can't compare the sustain on his Show Pro in Hughey Land with my Sho~Bud and a lot of 'Buds that I have played because you can't. No contest.

No amount of volume pedal usage will make up for a quickly decaying note - end of story. Matt notices the problem as he has a good ear, and simply is trying to find out what he can do about it. Apart from moving the machine head assembly left by a quarter of an inch and putting a replacement fretboard on the guitar, he is stuck with the problem. Rittenberry, Infinity, Emmons, Mullen, MSA, Show Pro, Jackson, Zum, Williams, Promat, JCH, Justice etc etc - they all use a 24.25" scale length, and all have really good sustain above the 12th fret. There must be something in it, or else they would all use a 24" scale.

Let's see what Jack Strayhorn's response is on the other forum. I don't mean to belittle your post or opinions out of hand John, or make rude remarks about them, and I am grateful that you have pitched in with a point of view. However, you might try contacting any of the pedal steel manufacturers above that are currently in production and tell them that they have it all wrong, and that the additional quarter of an inch is a waste of time. I'm sure they will appreciate your opinion.