Who or What?

[SHAKEY]

All to often you see (particularly on the American forum) who is the steel player or what steel is he playing. Now these questions are being asked by steel players, some of them professional, so if they don't know how are the normal people listening to recordings supposed to know. I say normal because lets face it steel players are not normal. What I am getting at is, I have just been looking at the new Sierra and the price is bonkers, and I agree with what BasilH says, but further than that, why do we spend so much on steels.
It seems to me that since MSA brought out the Millenium series other manufacturers have gone the extra mile and the prices have rocketed so in order for people to afford these new "SUPER" steels people are asking silly prices for their old ones.
So back to where I started, forget about the public at the local country music club because lets face it the majority of them wouldn't know the difference between a steel guitar and a T chest bass, so how many steel players would know (if you were blindfolded) who was playing what. E.g, Richard Burton playing a Marlen or an Emmons would you know it was him or what he was playing? David Hartley playing a Sho-Bud, a Rains or a Justice? When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter how much you pay for a steel you can either play or you can't and even if you are Tommy White, blindfold, I bet you would never be able to tell what guitar he is playing or for that matter what amp he is using. What we need is one of these multi-million £ lottery winners to invest with someone like Dave Wheelhouse or Ronnie Bennett to design and build a good affordable steel to encourage younger people to play. So many young people have said to me they love the sound and would love to play but as soon as you mention the price, Bye-Bye.

[Ken Byng]

This is a great topic Dave. All that I would say is that for those folks who think that today's guitars are priced sky high, allowing for inflation they are way below what companies in the USA were charging in the 60's and 70's. My first decent guitar - a ZB D10 - cost me £832.00 in 1972. That is today's equivalent of £10,816.00!!!

[mick hearn]

I remember back to my teenage years when I used to drool over a Fender catalogue looking at the strat. It cost £163/10s if I remember rightly. My wage was £3/7/6d and a good adult wage was 20 quid a week. That's just over 8 weeks wages. Now look at the price and see how much they have dropped.

Now I'm gonna say something really daft. Bring back the original ShoBud Maverick. Anyone who has ever played one will tell you that this had the smoothest pedal action ever. Everything pulled at once and the meccano and wire really worked. OK it came with one lever but I did some changes and put on extra levers to a Lloyd Green setup. Just think, no rattle from the rack and rattle system, and no notchy feel as you pushed on those pedals. I am sure everyone used to laugh when I set it up, and I hate to think of the number of times I sat behind a pro steel and thought - no this is not for me. Seems like everyone nowadays is not satisfied until they have a Crawford Cluster of levers and a Sigler pedal and a Franklin pedal. Lloyd Green proves you don't need them.

The pro steels are manufactured for a universal setup so that players can change to whatever setup they want. Do they want it? No. We all have the standard setup with perhaps one or two extras. So the question is how many changers are redundant. There are either raise or lower changers that are not being used. How many people desire an Emmons push pull. The more pieces of metal you have bolted together at that bridge must to a certain extent destroy something in the tone. Trouble is it seemed to me that a player is somewhat inferior if he is not using the steels that the pros are using.

[Danny Mitchell]

I bet you would never be able to tell what guitar he is playing or for that matter what amp he is using

Very interesting post Shakey. I had the occasion to hear Willie Gamble play a full gig on a totally different setup from his usual, Mullen/Peavey/BJS bar, rig and it still sounded just like Willie. I think you're spot on there.

And, Ken and Mick, it really is shocking to see the price of guitars, through the prism of inflation.
My god, in '72, I bought a 2 up, 2 down, back & front garden and outside lavy in Cleethorpes for less than I paid for my GFI Even my Roland Cube was more expensive than my Ford Anglia 105E Estate
Man, I had some class, back in the day

[Malcolm]

Mick, got to disagree with you on a couple of points, I owned a Fender Student ( Maverick with Fender logo) , then a Pro one, which I added levers to, good guitars for their time but not compared to the current guitars. Not everyone has Lloyd Greens capabilities, and being a not very good player, I welcome every new lever or pedal that makes life easier for me.
I own one of the expensive guitars you talk about, MSA Millenium, and got it because I needed the lightest quality guitar I could find because of back problems ( all my gear is lightweight these days.) Did I think it was overly expensive- yes, when I first got it I did, but on reflection think no.Taking into account the relative prices between the 60's /70's and now I believe the early ones were dearer than the ones available now. After visiting the MSA factory and having a long in depth discussion with Kyle, it became apparent to me that the guitar was not overpriced considering the high quality of engineering and build, this particular company build steels as a side line, their main "day job" if you like, is building aviation parts for the US government for the likes of F23 fighters and for NASA for the space program,and high end medical equipment, so you will appreciate how high quality their products have to be, and having seen the equipment used it is state of the art.Other steel builders e.g. Show Pro , Mullen, Williams etc, are now using better equipment than before thus delivering a much higher quality guitar than the early ones.
As regards the question do the pros want these, yes I believe they do, otherwise why would they have them on their guitars, ok some fingers may not be being used, but at some point down the line they could be eg added for a particular recording or just to experiment with.In my view there are two advantages to be being made with the capability to provide these changes, 1 making changer fingers and bell cranks with the extra capabilities, means they can be mass produced at a lower cost , rather than a one of special order, 2 it means copedents can be changed quickly and without a major mechanical strip down.Are they needed by the average player, maybe maybe not, but still handy to have that capability.My own Milly was 3x5, until recently when I added a Sigler Pedal ( this pulls four strings, giving a basic C6th tuning on E9th, thought up by Mike Sigler, this enabled him to take just a single neck on fly gigs).As my guitar had the extra empty holes on fingers I was able to buy kit from MSA and was very quickly able to fit it myself, did it make me a better player?,no, but it did make me think about how I could use it, as to whether the extra changers affect tone , I personally think it doesn't .About twenty five years ago I had Ron Bennett add three levers to my Pro One and it made no difference to tone of guitar, but did open up a lot of doors as to what I could do with it.
As to whether someone can tell difference between different guitars on recorded tracks, I personally doubt it, I have seen various attempts on American forum where a player would record tracks on different guitars , and amps, and try to get these "gurus"to name them, invariably most got it wrong.I have seen many top players play different makes at various steel shows,but continue to sound just like themselves.To use Danny's' example I have seen my best mate Willie Gamble play my Sho Bud, MSA, a friends Derby, Williams , and Carter, and guess what he sounded exactly like he did on his Mullen or Emmons.
There are a few good starter guitars out there, Zum Stage one, Mullen Discovery, Justice, etc, many are so much better than their older counterparts, smoother, more reliable, less cabinet drop.You pay your money and you take your choice, after all we all hear things differently, and it would be a dull world if we were all the same.

[bob adams]

We are now living with advancing technology which simply didn't exists back in the sixties and seventies, gone are the days when you could adjust the tappets, fire in a new set of points and turn the cap to set up your car, now you can't get past the plastic engine cover without getting slapped.

Lots of older steel parts were cast or stamped and not produced on £40k+ CNC machines, the cost of which simply has to be factored in to the sale price.

Like other past statements here my first pro steel was approx 100 times my weekly wage. at today's equiv, my steel would be £50k, there is no doubt that in relative terms they were seriously expensive back then and we needed to be doing two jobs to pay for them.

Do we need additional pulls... Well a fiddle player gets it all on four strings, but that is the expectation of a fiddle. Any melody thrown to a player can be played on a basic setup from a Maverick up however sometimes we want a little extra curve on the ball; could be done with a slant but may be challenging and sometimes could use a lever, is it a must! certainly not but perhaps a little wow factor! my drive for such moves is a love of harmony singing and that note that someone will produce just slightly off piste that stops you in your tracks. (But that's just me.)

I wholeheartedly disagree however on the tone issue.

Sorry Guys. ... Why do you know it's: Tommy, Lloyd, Johnston, Franklin, or any of our guys be it Richard, JD, Willie, Ken, Derek, Dave.... an endless list! It is their STYLE and preferred dialled in EQ.

Emmons, Sho-Bud, Mullen, Carter, Rittenberry, Williams, MSA never sounded the same in their life! Each have very distinct tonal characteristics, and yes Richard sound is different on his Marlen, ZB, Emmons. Hence there have been hours and hours of forum discussion over the tone of an XY or Z Steel over the years.

Our players styles and tones are the discernible factors and are instantly recognisable regardless of their amps as they dial in that sound they want, go fiddle with a guys amp and say play it now, he is not happy because it is not what [his ears] want to hear. As for additional changes affecting tone, again only a perception, a Sigler pedal will produce notes you haven't had before and signal a change to your ear but it hasn't changed the tonal output of the instrument. Simples!

Today's scenario is ironically the same as it was forty years ago! as Malc says 'you pay your money'!..... We buy what we can afford and get on with it, but there are still guitars out there more than capable for the starter player, be he young or old....

Oooops! Yesterday I had friends!

[Nick Bidmade]

Interesting!
I know tone is 'in the hands', but it must help to have the high-end guitar, the black box, the effects rack, the volume pedal with eight different tapers ( ) and the latest amp from the current favourite 'boutique' amp builder (not forgetting fitting the new whizzo speaker) and the tone is exactly as Bob says - it's the tone the player wants. His/her chosen sound, not necessarily mine. BTW - check Mike Johnson's tone on the Alison Krauss CD 'Windy City'. To my ears, it doesn't get better.
For most of us - hobby players - tone is in the best we can afford/justify the expenditure on. As we progress, we might want to change/upgrade our gear, but it's an expensive hobby. However, if you want eight different tapers on your volume pedal and five pedals and six levers on your guitar and are only a bedroom player - good luck to you. Why not?

[Basil Henriques]

Just a short comment; I have made a good living all my life with NO extra FX pedals, just basic amplifiers and guitars that have VERY limited changers; a one up and one down capability is the Fender 1000 series and so is the Push Pull Emmons, I've never had splits, and only had more that one raise or lower per string by chicanery and workarounds..AND I never had more than 3 knee levers.
Did all these limitations help... Damn right they did, they made me think and find way to overcome the limitations of my SIMPLE gear..
CLICK THIS ---->

[Malcolm]

Nick, Mike normally uses his Franklin for recording and a whole range of rack gear, live he normally uses his Emmons and a Peavey LTD amp ( with Reba he uses a high end kemper profiling pre amp direct into PA.Having said that I sat about six feet away from him at Dallas show,along with Ken Blyng, as he played a Show Pro, peavey amp , DD3, and sounded amazing, just like any Mike Johnson recording I have ever heard.

[Malcolm]

Bob, do I know you, Bob who?