Emmons & Bigsby. How did they get it right first time?

Ken Byng · Post by **Ken Byng** » 16 Aug 2009 7:55 am

The Emmons Push Pull guitar is renowned for its tone, and is the standard that many manufacturers compare their own guitar tone to. The Bigsby pedal steel guitar also has great tone. Similarly, Leo Fender's Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars have set the benchmark in 6 string electric guitars that many would say have never been surpassed. Ditto with his steel guitars. These instruments have been around for 40 or 50 years or so.

How did the designers get the tone right first time? Was it a fluke or did they work hard to achieve a sound that was in their minds?

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 16 Aug 2009 9:18 am

I think a lot of it is it was what was available at the time, i.e. what the guys that were doing the
classic recordings with. We became accustomed to that sound and that is what we seek. If Buddy Emmons
had played a steel with a dry, clunky sound, thats what a lot of players would want.

Interestly, a banjo can be easily made to have a
crisp, ringing tone. Earl Scruggs early recordings
were on a more stacatto, woody banjo, so thats what a lot of players seek.

David Nugent · Post by **David Nugent** » 16 Aug 2009 10:36 am

I believe Clyde has made a valid point. The players who have set the playing standards on certain instruments seem to have also set the standard for the tone of these instruments as well. Because Bill Monroe happened to settle on the Gibson F5 (Loar era) mandolin as his instrument of choice, that has become the tone and design that most modern mandolin builders attempt to emulate (and most likely the reason for the present $200,000 plus price tag for the originals.) Likewise Earl Sruggs' Gibson Granada, Buddy's P/P guitars, etc.

Rick Abbott · Post by **Rick Abbott** » 16 Aug 2009 11:41 am

I think Ken is speaking more to the technical side of this. Sure we all gravitate to the great players tone. Ken wonders about how these engineers engineered the instruments to create the tonal varieties that the great players made their mark with.

Skip Edwards · Post by **Skip Edwards** » 16 Aug 2009 11:48 am

Sometimes the whole is just greater than the sum of the parts.

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 16 Aug 2009 12:05 pm

Rick, I understand your point and I guess in a roundabout way, I mean the same thing. The initial
considerations for the Emmons guitar were probably the changer and a certain way of making it easier to
change the copedant. As Skip pointed out, the sum of its parts made it sound a particular way which
was different(brighter) than the other early models.
A lot of the session players gravitated to it and we
became used to hearing that sound on recordings.

Ken Byng · Post by **Ken Byng** » 16 Aug 2009 1:07 pm

Rick Abbott wrote:I think Ken is speaking more to the technical side of this. Sure we all gravitate to the great players tone. Ken wonders about how these engineers engineered the instruments to create the tonal varieties that the great players made their mark with.

Rick - spot on. After so many years, these instruments are still held up by many to epitomise great tone that haven't really been improved upon. Leo Fender got it right first time, as did Buddy Emmons and Ron Lashley, and Paul Bigsby. The mechanics may have arguably improved on modern guitars, but the tone certainly hasn't.

Mark Durante · Post by **Mark Durante** » 16 Aug 2009 2:37 pm

These guys were extremely intelligent and had brilliant ideas. They were not afraid of being innovative like so many are today. There were others working at the same time with similar concepts that were not as successful for a number of reasons. But even Fender and Lashley didn't exactly get it right the first time, the original Emmons and especially the Stratocaster went thru prototypes that needed changes before they were ready for market.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 17 Aug 2009 8:57 am

these guys (paul,and esp. leo and buddy) were creative with good ideas based on intelligent decisions as to tone materials, size and shape...and luckily the early attempts magically worked out...probably better than expected.

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 17 Aug 2009 9:21 am

in the book " Fender - the sound heard round the world", one notices that, at the beginning, Leo was mostly catering to the steel & those who played it.
he had most (if not all) of the steelers of those times, using his gear, testing it, comin' down to the factory & commenting on what was needed.
Leo was constantly takin' in most of the musicians suggestions in order to improve his products

Per Berner · Post by **Per Berner** » 17 Aug 2009 10:26 am

The weird thing is that Leo Fender wasn't a player himself, and nearly all of his innovations focussed on simplifying the manufacturing process to cut costs. (such as the detachable one-piece maple neck, the square-sided solid Telecaster body, the electronics on a separate plate, frets installed sideways, the integrated bridge saddles, the through-body string mount, using automotive finishes, doing away with bindings, inlays, fancy curly woods, etc. Wanna bet he secretly loathed sunburst finishes; adding only complexity but no functionality?

In most other areas, this approach just results in cheap and barely adequate products (think cars!) – not brilliant ones. And still, the only things he really got wrong on that first Tele was the switching options and the intonation problems caused by the 2+2+2 saddles. All this was corrected by the Strat a few years later, adding playing comfort, a vibrato and a wider spectrum of tones...

Obviously, Leo must have been a very good listener, and smart enough to trust the judgement of all the players suggesting improvements – and I bet he discarded more than a few solutions before settling on the soon-to-be classic designs. The first Telecaster prototype would certainly never have caught on – if he had released that one, we'd all be trying in vain to find a credible country tone from our hollow bling-bling Gibsons to this day.

Finally, I think a slight bit of luck cannot be totally ruled out, in any of these cases.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 17 Aug 2009 9:12 pm

Good points, Per. The reason it has been difficult to improve on Leo's Tele and Strat is that they weren't really "the first time." He refined them down to the basic essentials. Once you are there, you can't get more basic or more essential.

Likewise, Emmons had been working on Sho-Buds for a few years. The essentials of the push/pull were new ideas he had come up with that Shot didn't want to use. Shot felt he had a good seller, and didn't want to mess with it. BE has said that eventually he had enough new ideas to create a whole new pedal steel, and he did. So that wasn't really "the first time" for him. And they went through the wrap around and bolt on, before they settled on the cut-tail that lasted through most of the 3 decades run.