Tell me about Telecasters with pedal steel pedals

[Ben Standefer]

I live in San Francisco and this just came up on the local Craigslist and my mind is completely blown.

https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/msg/d/ ... 66955.html

Apparently MSA made one of these in the early 80s?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EbUR6wI5w8s

* what even is this!? wtf?!
* what is it called
* has anybody ever seen on of these?
* what am I even looking at!!?!?

[Gene Tani]

Craigslist: This was a custom build from hudson.

Jimmie?

[Ian Worley]

There was a thread about that guitar when Jimmie built it for a now deceased forum member from Florida, early 2015 I believe. I think b0b deleted that thread because it turned into a big flame-fest. The buyer was, shall we say, not very tactful, and not very well liked by many on the forum. If you're interested in the guitar you should get a hold of Jimmie, or perhaps he will chime in here.

I don't know if he made any others, but MSA was probably the first to do it sometime around 1980. As far as I know they only built a half a dozen or so, built around Peavey T60 guitars. The most prominent player to use one of those was Phil Baugh, here he is with that guitar in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNh0mTtD5ps.

[Jeremy Reeves]

he's been trying to sell that for a while. I've seen that ad several times over the past couple years maybe

[Dave Hopping]

You could call it a foot-operated cable-actuated bender mechanism for six-stringers who like PSG but are intimidated by the idea of biting the bullet and learning to play one. MSA made a few of them back in the day, but (Phil Baugh's stellar work notwithstanding)they didn't sell well enough to justify continued series production.....Kinda makes sense to me; after all, that cable snake does make running all around the stage a little problematical.

[Ian Worley]

taking it a step further, you might find this interesting too Ben: viewtopic.php?p=2363624#2363624

[Gary Spaeth]

i would love to have that on my lap steel.

[J R Rose]

Marty Stuart has Clarence White's old Telecaster with a B-Bender type device on it and he uses it well. J.R.

[Tommy Detamore]

My friend Steve Hennig made two of these pedal guitars, one for Phil Baugh and one for himself.

Steve is an incredible guitarist, audio engineer and producer.

Check out the mini-documentary he made about this intriguing instrument:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QmInA0y6E

[Lee Baucum]

Thanks for posting that, Tommy.

[Ian Worley]

That's really cool Tommy, he's really good with that thing. I remember seeing Steve playing that guitar in another video that someone posted here a while back with him, Steve Palousek and Eric Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaVXmk5FcH0. I just assumed it was one of the MSA guitars.

Now I'm wondering whether the guitar in the video above with Phil Baugh and Buddy Emmons is actually Steve's creation and not an MSA -- any insight on that? Do you know if there was any overlap or collaboration between Steve and MSA when they were building these? The components look very similar.

[Donny Hinson]

I live in San Francisco and this just came up on the local Craigslist and my mind is completely blown.
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/msg/d/ ... 66955.html
* what even is this!? wtf?!
* what is it called
* has anybody ever seen on of these?
* what am I even looking at!!?!?

It's a novelty thing, a bulky, expensive "toy".

Thankfully, guitars with pedals like this never caught on.

[Ian Worley]

...Thankfully, guitars with pedals like this never caught on.

"thankfully" ?

[Tommy Detamore]

Now I'm wondering whether the guitar in the video above with Phil Baugh and Buddy Emmons is actually Steve's creation and not an MSA -- any insight on that? Do you know if there was any overlap or collaboration between Steve and MSA when they were building these? The components look very similar.

Steve had always told me that he and Phil had the only two. Maybe he was referring to the ones he made. I don't know really about the MSA connection and how that plays into things. Maybe they took Steve's idea and ran with it (?)

[Donny Hinson]

Yes Ian, thankfully! It's bad enough listening to us pedal steelers ramble on about cabinet drop, whether or not to tune ET or JI, tuning to 438 or 440, or the dreaded "overtuning". Yes, the pedal steel world is still periodically confused and aflutter with the challenges and foibles of a pedal guitar and how to make it work as desired; while the straight guitar remains basically a "point and shoot" instrument. Do we really want those problems vexing millions and millions of straight guitarists, too?

No, no, a thousand times no! Never the twain shall meet!

[Tony Prior]

No, no, a thousand times no! Never the twain shall meet!

I'm with Donny here.

If you wanna dive into this pond grab a B or G Bender.

Multiple pedals on a 6 string, uhmm, what tuning, what do the pedals do ? How much time is someone gonna invest to play it proficiently , if at all ?

Who's writing the TAB ?

[Tom Keller]

For those asking what can the MSA foot pedal device do here's an example by Phil Baugh.

Enjoy

Tom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX6J0mgX4bc

[scott murray]

b-benders are a sore spot with a lot of steel players for obvious reasons.

Phil Baugh was a guitar genius who took stringbending and made it an artform. there's a reason only a handful of these pedal guitars were ever made and it's because there just aren't a lot of Phil Baughs out there. you can call it a toy or a novelty that never caught on, but it was another thing entirely in the right hands (and feet)

[Jim Pitman]

A guy from upstate NY preceded that with a design, Brad Higgins. He sold a cabled assembly for guitar or dobro what have you. I recall opening for the Dixie Chicks and Brad trying to sell it to Emilie.
How about Clarence White?
Let's give credit where credit is due.

[Ron Funk]

Reece's sales pitch from the Way Back Time Machine


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbUR6wI5w8s[/url]

[Darvin Willhoite]

I had one of the MSA units on a Peavey T60 for several years. I never really got used to playing it, the cables made it way out of balance and you had to hold the neck down while you were playing. It broke the B and E strings often until I took it apart and found that the body of the guitar hadn't been cut out quite enough where the strings came through and the string was dragging on a sharp edge. After I fixed that it wasn't quite so bad. It never took the place of a pedal steel for me, but Phil Baugh had it down to a science.

[Tony Prior]

b-benders are a sore spot with a lot of steel players for obvious reasons.

Obvious reasons ?

They should only be a sore spot if we are playing with someone who is not a proficient B or G puller and is playing those 1 or 2 Steel guitar emulation licks because thats all they know.

Brent plays with Paul, Vince plays with Paul, Marty plays with Gary, Brad plays with Randall, I don't think Paul , Gary or Randall see them as sore spots !

Its not the Instrument, its the player.

[Gary Spaeth]

is there a patent online for the msa pedal guitar?

[Darvin Willhoite]

I'm sure the patent is expired if they had one, but there may still be copies online. I know they made at least two versions of this gadget, and there may have been more. A lot of companies apply for patents for every idea they can come up with to broaden their protection.

[Ivan Posa]

Very cool.