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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 11 Aug 2017 2:17 pm    
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Hi - I'm a newbie here and am hoping there may be someone on the forum who can help me get this thing going. I recently bought, for not very much, an ancient 8 string PSG on fleabay - never seen anything like it. All the metal work was rusted and the pedals and rods were in a pretty poor state as were the tuners. The guitar wood was a mess. I took it apart and have cleaned it up and restained the wood, repainted the metalwork, resoldered some of the electrics and replaced a couple of the star wheels on the open geared tuners. It was fairly easy and it has cleaned up pretty well - the pickups and the tone and volume knobs (bakelite!!) all work fine, the changer is now moving smoothly and the tuners are now all ok. Cost me almost nothing so far. What I need is some advice about which tuning and string gauges I should go for keeping in mind the pedal layout which I can't easily change and which will give me the most flexibility from what is obviously a very simple set up.

Pedal 1 lowers string 7
Pedal 2 raises string 5
Pedal 3 raises string 6
Pedal 4 lowers string 4

Adjustment is by spring loaded barrels adjusters at the front and back of the changer.

I play in an Americana, country rock band and would like a tuning that can fit with that style of music. I'm a guitar player who wants to play the PSG on 2 or 3 of our songs at each gig - nothing too complicated so if I can get this thing working I'll be happy. Would appreciate hearing from anyone out there with any advice.






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Rick Abbott

 

From:
Indiana, USA
Post  Posted 11 Aug 2017 4:31 pm    
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So, My first thought is an E13 variant. It's probably usable, I'm sure I could use it, but someone will probably follow with a way better copedant/tuning.

Also, can you show some pics of the mechanics of this fine looking beast? Maybe it can be changed somehow to give you a couple of better options. Not second-guessing you, but would like to see it.

Low to high: B E G+ B E G+ C+ E

Lower 7 to Eb
Raise 6 to A
Raise 5 to C+
Lower 4 to D

You get an open E6 tuning that stands alone and you can add another C+ with pedal 2
Pedals 2 and 3 together give you the A and B pedal changes of E9 on part of the tuning.
Pedal 1 gives you parts of a B6 tuning, or a 5 chord, and also a 7th chord when used with the 3rd pedal.
Pedal 4 gives you a 7th in a different way, and in the key of the open chord.
There's more when using both feet.

Strings are a bit odd for a PSG, changing the intervals to another key might be better...I'll fool with that shortly.

14-17-19-20-30w-36w-44w-64w

Or some close variation. The low B could be a 60 I suppose, but that's pretty tight.
The 20 might be better as a .022?
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RICK ABBOTT
Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Wakarusa 5e3 clone
1953 Stromberg-Carlson AU-35
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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 11 Aug 2017 9:10 pm    
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Thanks for your input Rick - have attached a pic of the mechanism - I haven't messed with it - just cleaned off the loose rust and simply lubed the pivots but am willing to give it a go if you can see something that looks easily changed.

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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 11 Aug 2017 9:22 pm    
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Pic of changer


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Scott Duckworth


From:
Etowah, TN Western Foothills of the Smokies
Post  Posted 12 Aug 2017 2:53 am    
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Well, it's definitely a single pull release mechanism... And heavy duty also.
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Rick Abbott

 

From:
Indiana, USA
Post  Posted 12 Aug 2017 4:51 am    
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After seeing the pics I wouldn't fool with trying to change it. It is what it is.

I translated the tuning into the key of G and it looks a whole lot better to me. G also gives you an easy option to cop some dobro licks on it , too. Just add a Boss EQ pedal set right and bam! you have dobro.

The notes of the tuning I suggested are, low to high, as numbered as notes of a scale: 5-1-3-5-1-3-6-1. Change the key to G and you get:

D G B D G B E G

The strings would be: 58w 44w 38w 34w 24w 19 14 12

All the theory of the changes is the same, just a different key.
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RICK ABBOTT
Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Wakarusa 5e3 clone
1953 Stromberg-Carlson AU-35
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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 12 Aug 2017 3:44 pm    
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That looks like a solution Rick. I'll string it up in the morning and let you know how I get on. Really appreciate your advice and all the effort you've gone to.
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Rick Abbott

 

From:
Indiana, USA
Post  Posted 12 Aug 2017 4:22 pm    
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You are most welcome!

Best of luck, I hope it does what you want and need.
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Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Wakarusa 5e3 clone
1953 Stromberg-Carlson AU-35
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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 13 Aug 2017 12:15 pm    
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Hi Rick - the saga continues. I strung things up only to find that I had very restricted pedal movement on 3 of the changers. It took me a while to work out what was wrong - the screws on the pivots on the pedal rods at the mechanism were protruding in a way that they hit the mechanism side bar limiting their movement. I took them all off and reversed them and that now gives me a full range of movement on all pedals. I then set about the G tuning as you suggested but I'm afraid my changer won't cope with the intervals. On the 4th D string it will only drop as far as an A,on the 5th E string it will only raise to Bb and on the 7th E string it will only drop to as far as B. So I'm a bit stuck. Can you suggest some changes with shorter intervals that might work for me?
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Rick Abbott

 

From:
Indiana, USA
Post  Posted 13 Aug 2017 12:58 pm    
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I think I failed to explain my thinking on this completely...sorry.

If you put the G tuning on it. The pedals would do this:

Pedal 1 lowers the 7th string G to F+

Pedal 2 raises the 5th string D to E

Pedal 3 Raises the 6th string B to C

Pedal 4 lowers the 4th string G to F

These are the standard interval changes on an E9 tuning but applied to G6 instead.

So, playing a G chord on 7-6-5, push pedals 2 and 3, you get a C chord, which is the 4 chord in a progression. Move up 2 frets for a 5 chord, or release the pedals and push pedal 1 to get a 5 chord.
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RICK ABBOTT
Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Wakarusa 5e3 clone
1953 Stromberg-Carlson AU-35
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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 14 Aug 2017 11:32 am    
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Ok - that looks much more manageable!! But last question - the G tuning you suggested was D G B D G B E G low to high but the pedal 1 to 4 tunings you suggest are the other way round. Did you mean high to low or low to high.

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick!
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Rick Abbott

 

From:
Indiana, USA
Post  Posted 14 Aug 2017 1:37 pm    
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Low to high.

Start by looking at your original post and see what the pedals do. Then you should see what I'm thinking the changes would do. When I wrote mt first post about the key of E I described how the changes would affect the tuning. When I changed it to G I kept the same intervals so the pedals still do the same thing.

I will answer any question about how this works. No question is bad. Also, I'm not always clear about everything when I write.

You will need to understand some things about pedal steel together the best out of it. Basic spelling of chords and how major scales are formed.
_________________
RICK ABBOTT
Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Wakarusa 5e3 clone
1953 Stromberg-Carlson AU-35
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b0b


From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
Post  Posted 14 Aug 2017 4:06 pm     Re: Tuning advice for ancient PSG
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Ricky Caplan wrote:
What I need is some advice about which tuning and string gauges I should go for keeping in mind the pedal layout which I can't easily change and which will give me the most flexibility from what is obviously a very simple set up.

Pedal 1 lowers string 7
Pedal 2 raises string 5
Pedal 3 raises string 6
Pedal 4 lowers string 4

We typically number the strings with 1 as the highest (furthest from the player). Are you doing the opposite here? If so, this is what I suggest:
Tab:
           P1   P2   P3   P4
G# .012
E  .015   -D#
B  .017             +C#
G# .020         +A
E  .032                  -D#
B  .038
G# .044
E  .054

or you could go C6th:
Tab:
           P1   P2   P3   P4
E  .015
C  .017    -B
A  .020             +Bb
G  .022        +G#
E  .032                  -Eb
C  .036
A  .042
F  .050

Myself, I like D/G tunings:
Tab:
           P1   P2   P3   P4
F# .013
D  .015   -C#
A  .020              +B
F# .024         +G
D  .034                  -C#
B  .038
G  .046
E  .054

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Rick Abbott

 

From:
Indiana, USA
Post  Posted 15 Aug 2017 5:37 am    
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b0b, the guitar has serious limitations. The pedals are dedicated to only certain strings so I devised what I thought might be useful based on the mechanics of the guitar. Your proposals would be perfect on a Fender 400, in fact, exactly what I'd use.

I didn't think about there being confusion about the string numbering Embarassed
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RICK ABBOTT
Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Wakarusa 5e3 clone
1953 Stromberg-Carlson AU-35
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Ricky Caplan

 

From:
United Kingdom
Post  Posted 15 Aug 2017 8:36 am    
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Guys - I've got it now and it's going fine. You've been incredibly helpful and what a brilliant forum. All I've got to do now is learn how to play her! It's been a steep learning curve and I'm amazed at how many things have to come together to get it all going but it's all beginning to make sense. Thanks again.
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