My MSA Legend U12

[Jif]

Going on the endorsement of my photographic skills by Tony Smart, here are some pictures of the MSA Legend Universal I bought last year. I could never get pictures before that I thought did it justice but armed with my new photography lights decided to give it a go, here are the results. The pickup is a retro Tonealigner wound on order by Bob Hoffnar who's often on the US forum.

[Jif]

And a few more pix

[mandosteve]

Looks beautiful!

How long have you had it?

[Jif]

Hi Steve,

I got it March 2016, so have had it for a year and a bit. It plays and sounds as good as it looks, plenty of natural sustain, a joy to play

[Danny Mitchell]

Good job, Jif, and you never even invoked the light show.

It truly is an object of desire & I do enjoy a bit of porn Could this be the start of a sort of Reader's Wives thread?

[Ken Byng]

Hi Geoff
I remember seeing your beautiful guitar in the MSA room last year. She looks even better in real life than in the photos.

Do you know what impedance your pickup was wound to? I am another Tonealigner fan - they give a really sweet tone.

Best wishes to you and Janice.

[Mcneilwaeasteel]

Geoff,your guitar is a remarkable instrument that sounds as good as it looks, your photographic skills have shown it in a very complimentary way, but as usual " Oor Danny summed it up in his normal manner"

Good job, Jif, and you never even invoked the light show.

It truly is an object of desire & I do enjoy a bit of porn Could this be the start of a sort of Reader's Wives thread?

Is that meant to be a reference to "a thing of beauty every steelie can drool over and dream about" and the readers wives thread in this house usually starts with "what do you need another guitar for?" Followed by " you've got enough rubbish already!" With the last and final comment being " it's not coming in here!"
No doubt other members have more to add from past experiences so to end, let's just stick to the present format on this site for our own pleasure and leave others to browse the net for theirs

This guitar is a wonderful piece of engineering producing a marvellous sound.
Thanks for the photos
Robert
P.S.
Geoff, You missed out on a shot in the dark to show off your illuminated fret board

[RonMc]

Very nice Geoff, sounds good too.

[Uncle Roy]

Nice looking instrument Geoff

[Jif]

Cheers guys, in this case a pedal steel is for life not just christmas, don't think I'll ever need to buy another

Aye Danny, I'm saving the lightshow version for Youtube. I suppose there is an element of soft porn in it, I certainly enjoy looking at beautifully made instruments of all kinds, though I must admit my current obsession are Pedal Steels

Hi Ken, nice to hear from you. Yeah Dallas last year was a real eye opener for me in many ways, kind of set the path I am now taking with playing steel. I agree it looks even better in the flesh so to speak I can't remember exactly what the impedence was specified at, I put an ohm meter over it this morning and it's reading 21.5k which is the dc impedence rather than the ac impedence but gives a rough idea of where it is. On Bobs website he specifies the impedence at 17.5k to 18.5k but that is for a 10 pole pickup, being a 12 pole pickup the impedence is always going to be a bit higher.
I'm thinking about sticking a little high-z buffer preamp between the pickup and the jack, I have done this with other 6 string guitars and it improves the overall tone. I believe this is what a Little Izzy and similar boxes do though I haven't taken one to bits yet.
Janice is doing fine, though we're getting to that time of year when her hands get really cold

@Robert, I'm thinking about publishing a new online magazine titled Readers Steels. We could easily have that Rickenbacker of yours as a centre spread

Thanks Ron and Roy, it would be good to look at others steels here, I might start a thread - show us your steels, bet there are some beauties out there.