Why isn’t the Emmons counterforce industry standard?

[Brett Lanier]

I wonder why builders ditched the extra piece of wood under the cabinet that was used on permanents and other early guitars. It added rigidity, and also helped bc the pedal rods were pulling on hardware that was fixed to that extra piece of wood and not the cabinet itself.

[Henry Matthews]

I said and still say that cabinet drop wasn’t even a thing until electronic tuners came along and you could actually see it. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s a real thing but in the early days, the players just made do with technique. My 74 push pull doesn’t have enough to even measure and most guitars that do have cabinet drop is only 2 or 3 cents and tell me, whose 2 cents accurate withe the bar. Technique with the bar takes care of the problem.
As far as the question, I think a lot of it was a sales promotional add on to the people that really worry about cabinet drop when buying a guitar.
I bought a Legrand that had the counter force on E9th in 1997 at St Louis steel convention. I didn’t buy it for the counter force but that’s all Emmons had at the show that was available. Though it did work, made guitar play terrible and I wound up backing all it off to get guitar to play better. Couldn’t tell any difference in tuning while was playing. I later sold guitar and guy I sold it to took all the mechanism out from under guitar which I wouldn’t have done, just backing all off was enough for me. I don’t see any of the pro players worrying about cabinet drop.

[Jerry Overstreet]

I see your point and certainly it became more obvious when players used electronic tuners. Way before electronic tuners such as the Korgs, Petersens now, there were those big Conn strobe tuners. ...so electronic tuners would let the player see how the detuning was taking place with no guesswork.

But....it is a thing on some guitars. I first noticed it on a guitar I had back in the 80s. It was severe enough that you could actually hear the 6th string drop a bunch when pushing the A pedal.
I've also owned steels that had such a small amount as not to be noticeable so it can vary from one guitar to another.

I helped a player with a pedal steel built by a maker that started nearly mass production in the 90s. He was looking to get rid of it due to this awful detuning.

Since I had discovered, way before I'd seen or heard about any solutions, to just put a compensator rod on the A pedal, same as you would on any other comped change, so that it would true the open 6th, that's what we did and he was a happy customer. It cured the problem for that guitar.

Detuning stress can be caused by many factors. Anything one can do to eliminate or mitigate the condition is a plus IMO.
Nearly all guitars have some degree of detuning so if it's an ugly audible thing it can be helped.

Certainly Emmons and all product makers want to enhance and elevate their dollar intake. Just about all of them have some feature that they promote for their instrument...nothing wrong with that.
I doubt very much that Emmons created their invention solely as a gimmick. I bet someone did some R&D designing and engineering this device. JMO.

[Toshiyuki Shoji]

Here is the manual for the anti-cabinet drop system that was installed on the earliest Excel Superb models.
I hope this will be helpful to everyone.

[Greg Derksen]

My Legrande 3 must be set up really great,
It plays really nice, I oiled the changer
when I bought it used, plays really smooth
That made a substantial difference, it really made it play well,
Yes it’s a bit firmer than my Franklin , but not much at all ,

I notice a few people had issues with tough playing counterforce Legrande 3
Maybe the set up was a bit off?

To me it’s nice to have, I would say the pros
Out do the cons, great idea and works well,
YMMV
Greg

[John Hyland]

I remember when cars had drum brakes. They worked, sort of. I much prefer disc brakes. Sure you might be able to tune or play your way out of cabinet drop but let’s move on from that.

If you can hear cabinet drop it is a problem. Some guitars don’t have it, apparently. If they have it fixed then all psg designers should try to understand why it doesn’t and emulate that.

[Henry Matthews]

I’ve never had a guitar I could hear cabinet drop while playing, ever when my ears were good. Yes, with guitar just sitting and open strings(in a quite room) I can hear the cabinet drop but have never heard it while playing. But I’m dang near deaf now so I sure can’t hear it so I don’t worry about it. No offense but you guys that can hear 2 cents while playing with bar, I don’t know whether to envy you or feel sorry for you, lol. I know that now I play sharp or flat at times but I’m 80 years old and just can’t control bar like I used to.

[J D Sauser]

I’ve never had a guitar I could hear cabinet drop while playing, ever when my ears were good. Yes, with guitar just sitting and open strings(in a quite room) I can hear the cabinet drop but have never heard it while playing. But I’m dang near deaf now so I sure can’t hear it so I don’t worry about it. No offense but you guys that can hear 2 cents while playing with bar, I don’t know whether to envy you or feel sorry for you, lol. I know that now I play sharp or flat at times but I’m 80 years old and just can’t control bar like I used to.

YES, because WITH the bar on, we tend (correctly) to compensate by moving the bar up ever so slightly.
Just like most would when playing a JI Apedal with E->F lever which will have be altogether flat up to 11 cents.

As long BDDT is not felt while playing a chord with a lot of notes and a non-pedaled string's note stands out so flat under a straight bar (where slanting the bar a tad is not a solution either as it may adversely affect other notes) and the the tuning of the pedals & levers used to build the chord can't be modified because they need to be tuned for their primary use. This is more likely to happen on C6th because the "heavy" chord style typical for that tuning and the fact that the pedals are most often further to the center of the cabinet/frame and down-pull stress on it stronger than from the pedals to the far left (closer to the support of the guitar's legs).

I feel that, except for some "dog"-PSG's of the far past and some ill conceived home-project guitars, BDDT is less of a concern than intonation issues, again most noticeable on the C-neck for the tendency to play wide grip chords and sweeps and the presence of very thick to thin strings which is even more acute than on E9th.

... J-D.

[Jerry Overstreet]

Yehbut, players like me use the open position a lot for the pedals down A and for use with the F lever and in other ways too.

There is no reasonable way to compensate for that flat tuning without some means of compensating that note. Im my case, it's a compensator rod to true the condition.

I may be alone in this usage, thinking, but all that matters to me is that I have to have true notes is every position, open or up the neck with the bar.

If you are happy with the existing condition, good on you. That just doesn't work for me.

[J D Sauser]

Yehbut, players like me use the open position a lot for the pedals down A and for use with the F lever and in other ways too.

There is no reasonable way to compensate for that flat tuning without some means of compensating that note. Im my case, it's a compensator rod to true the condition.

I may be alone in this usage, thinking, but all that matters to me is that I have to have true notes is every position, open or up the neck with the bar.

If you are happy with the existing condition, good on you. That just doesn't work for me.

You are talking about the high "E", Jerry (E being the most audibly affected one, actually on both tunings)?
It's what some Excel Superbs have on their keyless tuner end.

... J-D.

[Jerry Overstreet]

Well no, I kind of got ahead of myself. I misread the thread partially. I was talking about using the A pedal alone and the 6th string going flat in the open tuning needing the compensation. Say the C#m chord.

The open fret A tuning being flat I referenced related to the modified tempered tuning using pedals down to tune the E's.

Also how the Emmons counterforce and other means of compensation trued the detuning issue.
so some confusion and irrelevance on my part there

Sorry, it's been a long and rough 6 wks. around here so my level of concentration and thinking has suffered a bit.

Feel free to ignore or delete the earlier posts if they are deemed to be irrelevant.

[Dave Diehl]

I have a LeGrande III which, as with some others, plays great. My question is.... Buddy Emmons had two LeGrande III's with the counterforce unit on them and he didn't disconnect it from the system so, why didn't he disable it. There is/was probably not a fussier player about tone and playing then Buddy.

[Kelcey ONeil]

Just seeing and catching up on this not so recent post now.

While I have no real opinions on the effects of cabinet drop from a playing perspective, I can say with assurance that the counterforce does exactly what it was originally advertised to do: completely and transparently eliminate cabinet drop. It could be that most players are intuitively compensating for this phenomenon and it's not a deal breaker, but there's probably not much of a downside to not having to deal with that issue.

According to an interview with Ron Lashley, he designed the system to imitate the behavior of the Emmons Original, which by its nature has very little cabinet drop. It's true that early examples had the counterforce lever positioned where it could possibly interfere with lowering the 5th string, but apart from that there is nothing about the design that has inherent vices.

I think the bad reputation for playability came from either the issue stated above, or simply from unqualified techs or owners tinkering with the mechanism. One particular player for a very well known touring artist bought one new, and he claims it served him reliably for many years without issue, and he loved it. He took it to a self proclaimed Emmons expert for a tune up, and he says it never behaved the way it should afterwords. I can't say for certain who actually did the work that I ended up having to correct, but I can say it couldn't have been much worse. In addition to an extremely stiff pedal setup, the leverages for the counterforce were completely off, and the springs required to keep its action smooth and balanced had been removed. After correcting these issues, the owner claimed it was as good as new, maybe better. If setup properly, there is really no compromise in playability.

The counterforce can be tuned to affect single pedals and combinations of pedals differently, giving the player a lot of options. Even if you don't want zero drop, you can still reduce the amount of drop to your liking.

While I agree that a design that doesn't need such correcting is ideal, it is a solution that does indeed work.

[Bobby D. Jones]

I was at the Sagebrush Roundup a couple weeks ago, A friend plays in the house band, He traded up and and was playing an Emmons, With both necks having the Counterforce set up.
Back in the era of the Counterforce, He was an Emmons dealer.
At that time the Counterforce was available. He said, "It was over $600.00 per neck for the Counterforce Setup." With inflation, A Emmons guitar with a Counterforce installed, On both necks would be more than the market could stand.

[Jerry Overstreet]

That cost would be for both necks. I read somewhere that the cost was a little under $300 per neck added to the purchase price.

As I recall talking to someone at the Emmons booth way back when, they told me the same thing.