Must we have ‘A Brand’ ????

[bob adams]

Must we have ‘A Brand’ ????

Guilty as charged I like most think best has to be best! But is it? What is this all ‘actually about’? The Brand? The sound? The playability? The look? Or is it simply Peer Pressure?....We can’t possibly be seen to be playing an X, Y or Z? Are we cheap skates if we don’t play the ‘Top Marques’ ....Inferior in what?.....Price, engineering, stability, tuning???? I have been on the edge of contacting at least three members on here in the last week with a view to purchasing yet another PSG! What has stopped me!? The fact that what I am currently using plays and sounds pretty damn good! (Taking my playing out of this entirely) Several guys have recently said that is some sound you are getting from that thing!! So should I change it? I guess the sensible answer would be no!
Should I buy? .. The best changer! The best mechanics! The best carbon body??? Will the world think less of me if I play what I feel hand in glove with?
In this last week I have been in touch with guys I played with 30+ yrs ago, the lead singer played a Hagstrom J12 and for nostalgic reasons he is now looking to find one again! I bought a Jim Deacon (Ovation copy) years back simply to mess with! I reduced the width and girth of the neck and tried to give it telecaster playability! I love the sound of 12 strings but I hate the fat neck and painful playability, I pretty much achieved what I wanted then I dropped the damn thing out the loft! (this is a true story btw!) It bounced off the floor 10ft down! I've patched it up again this last week and it is without doubt the best playing and sounding 12 string I have ever encountered! Is there a moral here? ….. What drives our instrument choice? ……

Your thoughts!...........Do these questions sound familiar?

[Zebedee]

No matter how 'upmarket'' a pedal steel may be, it is still a plank of wood with some strings on it, and some planks of wood, even old and tatty ones, resonate just as good, and sometimes better, than other planks of wood.

That's why I still play my old, scarred Marlen, its pedal and lever action are the equal of any exotic steel, and the tone can't be beat, so I'm not changing steels any time soon

[Ken Byng]

Bob
All modern PSG's sound very good IMHO. There really isn't a duff one amongst any of them any more - even MSA (Ivor!!)

Some manufacturers hit on an ideal combination of guitar and pickup, and that can make a big difference. Before anyone says that all pickups sound the same I have to say this - they don't. Some suit lacquer guitars best and others suit mica guitars best. It is up to those folks in the market for a new guitar to seek out a winning combination.

[Dave Nutt]

Another interesting topic.
Probably not gone unoticed that I had my Le Grande up for sale, a bit of interest and of course the usual jokers.
After all that though I sat down at it yesterday,picked a few chords, and !!!!!! said to myself-'what the f***k are you selling this for. I had one steel for over 30 years, changed it a bout 4 years ago,since then all I have done is try and replicate the sound I was getting from that very steel.
Incidently my old steel was certainly not a brand, a Clark custom D10.

Guys-we are a strange breed, always on the hunt for something we probably already have.

[Malcolm]

Mine is not a plank of wood , it is a plank of carbon fibre, and a masterpiece of engineering, ( tone is also great Mr Byng! Stated on behalf of Ivor and myself, and the end plates are to die for . ) I am confused as to where I fit in,as I seem to only have half of the required package ie strings, while you lot kill yourselves humping your old( and new) heavy wooden steels, I can skip into a gig ( not a pretty sight ) carrying it with two fingers , which can then be used to salute you wood players

[bob adams]

Great response Malc! That made me laugh out loud!!!

Dave that Clark had a wonderful sound the weight was the only issue with it! Yip you keep that LeGrande.. I’ll talk you out it again at some point in the future!!
They are Ken, and their sound (a whole topic on it’s own) is undoubtedly in the ‘ear of the player’ though some chaps will appreciate a little tweak to their amplifier, saying oh ! that sounds better doesn’t it! The question then being, why not set it that way in the first place? Hi Richard, good to see you back more! Yes, there is no doubt some of the older machines are indeed ‘tone to the bone’ (cue for JD!)

Interesting responses, so far!

[Ken Byng]

Malcolm
On a serious note re the MSA, I mention them because at one time they were synonymous with bad tone. Rumours mainly emanating from one Bobbe Seymour I might add. However, there was an element of truth with the early MSA's that were made from plywood and need a crane to lift them. Very dark brown in tone and I wouldn't touch one with a bargepole to be perfectly honest. However, the new generation (post the early 80's MSA company collapse) are good tonally. They are or were the best guitar mechanically until the Infinity came along. Not all of the old ones were dogs in the tone department as Curly Chalker has displayed on some of the Hee Haw and Wilburn Brothers YouTube clips. I have never owned an MSA in my years of playing. I think it may have been like the Skoda syndrome with cars. They were a joke once but are now superb quality. MSA is a brand that I would more than happily play now, and add one to my stable of guitars. Any donations welcome!!

Re Bob's earlier question about brand - now that is a great question. Think back 40 or so years back to the 70's if you are of a generation who can. There were not many manufacturers making any quantity of steel guitars. Most of them have fallen by the wayside now, but the big 4 then, Emmons, Sho~Bud, MSA and ZB accounted for well over 90% of sales in the States and abroad. Quality control at the Emmons factory has become questionable at times to say the least, but at least they now have dealers to keep them on their toes. Now, the last 10 years has seen a surge in smaller manufacturers with great engineering ideas and utilising high quality components. Buy a guitar from them and the customer specifies wood type, number of levers, positioning of the levers, pickups and finish. In other words a custom shop guitar truly made for that customer and certainly not mass produced at the detriment of quality.

Long gone are the bad old Sho~Bud days where zinc parts were stamped out in a bid to supply mass produced parts for the company. That era of using pot metal parts probably lasted no more that 5 or 6 years, but did untold damage to the Sho~Bud company, and is the reason why employees like Duane Marrs and Paul Franklin Snr went their own ways when Shot Jackson completely refused to modernise the Sho~Bud on their suggestion. Marrs & Franklin came up with some incredible ideas almost on a daily basis, yet Shot's mantra of 'It ain't broke so I ain't fixing it' was really responsible for the demise of the company. Jeff Surratt, Jim Palenscar, James Morehead and a few other guys in the States do well out of this cottage industry of modernising older guitars with modern machined parts.

Looking underneath all of the modern steel guitars at the Dallas Show just convinced me that there are great similarities throughout all of today's brands. Multi-way pullers instead of one or two hole pullers as with the old Emmons' and Sho~Buds. The modern scissor changer (thank you Bud Carter!) is where the biggest change (no pun intended) has taken place. The rivet placement is now a key part to the pull - long throw or short throw is the big question. Infinity's Frank Carter has come up with a device that has a bearing rivet in his changers, which have shorter pulling ranges but still smooth and long enough to allow for modern changes because of the positioning of that rivet bearing. Others will soon follow that one I can assure you.

Really Bob, it is a question of you pays your money and you takes your choice. We really should be grateful that there are now so many great manufacturers out there to choose from, and it might now just be for cosmetic reasons why we go for certain guitars. Having said all of that, I still love the tone of those old big bodied ZB's, even though they are a bitch to work on sometimes. I love the big old 'Buds Fingertips, Pro Series and the Super Pro for tone. Lastly the fabled Emmons push pull tone is not a myth. It is THE benchmark tone for many, and consider this. It was designed back in the 1960's. Have things really improved since then? Cosmetically and mechanically yes. Tonally, I suggest not.

[Will C]

I look for tone, accuracy of return to pitch and action, in that order. I suppose ease of changing setup has to be in there somewhere too. The guitar I now use is the best I've had so far, but it has some hysteresis, and some cabinet drop. But if I had what I wanted, I wouldn't give a damn about the name on it.

[Dave Nutt]

MSA?
Many yonks ago I was in London, visited John Edmed in Denmark street, the bugger sold me (well a staright swap,guitar for guitar) for my then Sho Bud S10 pro about 5 years old for a spanking brand new MSA S10. What a deal, took it straight to a gig in Kent, worst night I have ever had as a muso, couldnt get it in tune, wouldnt stay in tune, sounded crap. Phoned john next morning asking to swap back, he had already got a guy interested in the Sho Bud, I eventually went back to the shop couple days later and came out with a shiny new LDG special (red with polished alloy neck, Ted tells me it is in Ireland now) gorgous guitar cost me an extra £600.00 nearly caused a divorce.
So! MSA must have come a long way for Malc to play and speak highly of em and for Ken to say kind words about.

Bob, The Clarke, heavy? there an understatement, its that bugger that has done me back and knees in,I can remember the Clarke in one hand and the Vibrasonic in the other climbing stairs to gigs, those where the days. No regrets.

[Malcolm]

Dave, got the very deal for you, Ivor is selling one of his MSA Legends, this machine is Pristine, as his agent I will only take 5% instead of my usual 10 %, how's that for a deal, and you say us Scots are mean, done out of the goodness of my heart.
Ken, if Dave passes on it you are next in line , same % deal