Bakelite vs Wood" bodies.???????

Ed Naylor · Post by **Ed Naylor** » 10 Oct 2003 2:35 pm

Since many Pedal players started on a "Lap" steel, I wonder how they compare the present market with the old "Ricky" "Stringmaster" etc. How about sound?? Ed Naylor Steel Guitar Works.

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 10 Oct 2003 4:13 pm

The prewar Rick bakelites have a sound that has never been equalled IMO.

Some of them in addition have a characteristic "moan". One can clearly hear this moan on many classic records that Jerry played on back in the 40's and 50's. This sound is what I love more than any sound I have ever heard on a lap steel guitar.

carl

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 11 Oct 2003 9:23 pm

I've found too many of the current lap steels have about as much "TONE" as cheap wires strung across a chunk of pretty wood.

In contrast, I've found my old prewar Ricks to have that "SPECIAL" sound we've all loved to hear. As Carl, states there is nothing quite like them.

HOWEVER each of the GOOD POINTS mentioned above was recently heightened beyond belief when I chanced to plug one into an old, old eight inch HARMONY amp. The six tube Roland speaker system gave the RICK an element of sound that I'd not heard previously except on Jerry Byrd's earliest recordings, like his Nani Hawaii album and back in the days of the OPRY with Ernest Tubb and Red Foley.
It's amazing. I'm convinced this rush by the industry to make amps bigger and more powerful and heavier lost sight of where much of that "sound" was actually coming from. I've gone smaller and will never look back. These are not "practice amps" but were top o'the line, front line big time recording amps used by "ARTISTS".

basilh · Post by **basilh** » 12 Oct 2003 5:40 am

Well Ray and Carl and Ed... read what has been said here :-
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum11/HTML/004262.html

Baz
www.waikiki-islanders.com

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Steel players do it without fretting

http://www.waikiki-islanders.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 12 Oct 2003 6:47 am

Ray,

Very respectfully dear friend, those old amps DO have the sound you and I and Wayne Tanner love so dearly. However those old amps had very poor fidelity.

So what happend was; many of the "overtones" of any instrument (particularly of a steel guitar) cannot be reproduced by them. We got used to that since there was nothing better at the time.

As engineers found ways of reproducing most (if not all) the overtones that musical instruments produce, we hear things we have never heard. To some (I am one of them) we do not like this. Thus the scenario you are speaking of.

May Jesus bless you brother,

carl

Chris Scruggs · Post by **Chris Scruggs** » 12 Oct 2003 8:56 pm

I must agree with Ray.

The three best amps I've ever plugged into have been a 1949 Fender Super, a 1950 Fender Pro, and a 1958 Fender Deluxe.

None of those three had more than 25 watts. However, this isn't always an option when playing with drummers.

Maybe instead of us needing bigger amps, they just need smaller sticks

.

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 14 Oct 2003 5:21 am

Bakelite is not just hard but brittle and heavy (massiv). No wood I've seen has both of these caracteristics. It's like stacking the heavy woods of Gibson with the bright brittle ones of Fender maybe.

But there's a far bigger difference between the pedal steels as we know them today and the old lap steel:
The old lap steel has a clean bridge (no changer) and has a sound board (body) that can vibrate freely. The pedal steel does have neither. The pedal steel body's thunnel shape may be it's most overlooked problem (even if a now difunct company claimed to compare it with the shape of a bell) and it's rigid attachement to a frame containing noisy hardwear and solid connections to legs and the floor have added to it's loss in tone and sustain. And yes, this all started with the console type non pedal guitars.

There's more, but that's the basic picture... We have run tests taking PSG soundboards off their frames and albeit the obvious detuning, the guitars sounded like having taken a big breath and sounded much better. Knocking of the approns (Don't try this at home) affected it positively even further (positively except for tuning, that is).

I think, and this may not be what you asked about, that most lap steels and even much more expensive console steels were of a miserable quality, many times disregarding most basic rules of building a quality sounding instrument. Yes, a Gibson CG would have the looks of a nice LG guitar... the wood and the lacquer job... but the hardwear and it's positioning on top of the instrument were cheap (to put it nicely) when compared to the work done on jazz guitars.
Yes, it's easy to build a steel guitar (non-pedal) as you are not faced with precision issues that you will encounter while building even just a solid body spanish guitar. And it all started with the very first instruments lik the Frypan. Don't take me wrong, I own a Frypan and I love it, but the finish of the instrument is horrible. They wouldn't even get th company logo to be placed straight on most. Whe you look at it, it's only missing a "Made (without any pride) in the peoples republic of... " stamping.
Other brands disregarded most if not all rules that even a luthier's student would know. It's incredible the collection of non-sense approaches you can find on some of these "instruments".
I think that the early (pre-and-war time) Rickenbach B-series were the best or better said, with most logical reasoning, built guitars ever, not just because I own and play a couple but because of the integrated bridge and nut and their correct shape, string thru attach and thru-unity of all sound related points, however the PU mount was a poor solution and the presence of these metal plates may look cool at today's collectors eyes but should have had no place on a musical instrument.

... J-D.

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 14 Oct 2003 5:29 am

mega dittos JD,

luv ya man,

carl

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 15 Oct 2003 7:58 am

Thanks Carl, I feared you would be surprised that I would not unconditionally love my Ricks. I love'em... but I feel it can be said that it was not perfect either. Glad to know...

As to how these guitars compare, in my opinion, to today's non-pedal (lap guitars). I can't say much except that yes, there were some surprising ones like the Sierra which looked nice if only they had come up with a better idea for the bridge.
It almost seems consistent with most (old days and todays) non pedal steel, that little or no attention has is or has been given to the bridge. If tone is supposed to be in your hands, and that being in great part your left hand with the bar on the strings, 50% of the sound coming from this also is affected by the other side... the bridge. The only guitar, again, I know that had reasonable bridges where the original Frypan (a part I can't understand how they could have f·$%ed up so badon the later copies) and the early B-series Rickenbachers.
Fender built thousands of instruments with a lousy (sure ingeniously, cheap) bridge attached to a sheet metal plate screwed on lacquered (never flat) wood. If you believe Jerry Byrd knows what he does, look at the guitar Fender specially built for him (was on e-bay a couple of years back), look at the bridge!!

Most lapsteel builders today probably do recognize the fact that it's a market where it will still be hard to make some serious money with an elaborated, quality and beautiful and therefor expensive guitar, as value appreciating vintage instruments are still available (yes, even at e-bay) for a hard to compete with price adding to the individual coolness factor and the near certainity of no loss of value esposure. This may be one main reason we still don't see the perfect new technology guitar arround. An other factor may also be that most that build these things nowadays are either from the blues-slide guitar corner or trying to emulate the "old" feel... re-issuing the shortcomings of back then.

All this may read like I'd be an angry old man but don't worry, I'm neither (angry or old

) and I hope nobody feels like stepped on their toes either.

... J-D.

Wayne Carver · Post by **Wayne Carver** » 15 Oct 2003 9:38 am

I am a relative newby and only play lap steel. I can only base what I like according to recorded music. I prefer the steel sounds of the early recordings to present recordings. If I play my lap steel through a small tube amp and play up the neck it kinda sounds like the old sound but not exactly. Don't get me wrong I love the new pedal stuff also, I just prefer the earlier stuff. I also prefer the electric guitar sounds of Les Paul & Mary Ford etc. to the newer guitars and amps.

Rick Aiello · Post by **Rick Aiello** » 15 Oct 2003 9:59 am

I think Sierra did a nice job with the bridge. It is bolted to all three layers.

If sustain is an indicator of sound "bridge-manship" ... my 'nod' goes to the Sierra. I have lots of Rickys and none can compete with its sustain.

The problem with the integrated nut and bridge is that ... as soon as a someone decides to adjust string height with a triangular file ...

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www.horseshoemagnets.com [This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 15 October 2003 at 04:17 PM.]

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 16 Oct 2003 7:59 am

Wayne, It has been my personal experience that most non-steel guitar playing people or people not into music at all, prefer the sound and many times also the playing style of non-pedal over what is heard today as solo work. And this is not just my miserable palying...

Rick, I have been presented a Sierra LapTop just about when they came out... it looked nice and sounded good too. But, and I don't know if they changed that later, on that particular guitar, the bridge was just a cut off piece of an L-shaped aluminum extrusion channel with some grooves "cut" into with probably not even a file. The result was a very un-professional look that was much in contrast with the rest of the instruments finish, and buzzing noises at the high G and E stings. I mentioned that to the Sierra people at the booth after they had been so nice to let me try it for an extended time in a closed room, but got not much more than a shrug and a sorry look out of whom ever I talked too.

I have seen a similar L-channel "bridge" on an other make currently built by a steel guitar legend in Texas.

Well alright, yes, I have a particular thing against the use of extruded aluminum parts on sound related parts on a musical instrument in general.
Since the Frypan and later Bigsby and Emmons guitars which had their bodys (or better "sound board") made in whole or in part of CAST aluminum, we are now presented (especially in the PSG sector) with aluminum necks and whatnot's made of milled or cut extrusion material, all carrying the promeise to provide us with "that" sound.
If metal is to be used and in some cases even be compared to "bells"... let's not forget that bells aren't born out of a piece of some sort of extrusion material worked up on a lathe... but in a foundry (yes, finishing may happen on a lathe, but you get the idea). The molecular structure of cast metal is very different to extrusion and so, or better thus is it's resonance and resulting apport to the sound of the particular instrument the matrial in question is used on. (BTW, I'm not objecting to the use of exrusion material in the undercarriage of PSG's here.)

... J-D.

Ed Naylor · Post by **Ed Naylor** » 16 Oct 2003 8:02 am

What kind of Pickup would sound good in a Bakelite body guitar??? A George ,L?? or possibly and old Sho-Bud PU?? What about an old Push Pull Emmons PU???Since Amps have been upgraded since the "Ricky" days Most likely they would use a Peavey 400, etc. OK Tone Experts--Ed Naylor Steel Guitar Works

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 16 Oct 2003 8:43 am

Ahem, Rick before I forget... as you mention somebody cutting grooves into an integrated bridge, I assume your displeasure with that issue may indicate that one of your Rickenbachers displays signs of this infamous practice...
Wayne Tanner, a Rickenbacherianist out of San Antone told me once, that Tom Brumley had a guitar which suffered quite bad incidents like that, and not only on the bridge but on the nut too and he (TB) had it fixed. From some other source, I've heard that it might have been somebody that fixes dented bowling balls that did it.

... J-D.

Rick Aiello · Post by **Rick Aiello** » 16 Oct 2003 9:31 am

Yeah ... I've fixed several bakelite bridges with Lab Metal and PC7. Lucky for me they were the postwar versions ... my prewar bakelites have pristine integrated nut/bridges as do my Academys (cute little one piece bakelite student models).

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www.horseshoemagnets.com [This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 16 October 2003 at 11:41 AM.]

J D Sauser · Post by **J D Sauser** » 17 Oct 2003 4:23 am

Ed, I don't think that any of the pu's designed for pedal steel are a good choice. These pickups were designed for the PSG and to opress some of it's inherent defects, when compared to a non pedal steel. I think Rick Aiello's pu's here may be an option you might want to considder, if not the only one and it seems a good one too.

Rick, could you please look at my post about pu's on the electronics forum. Thanks!

... J-D.

C Dixon · Post by **C Dixon** » 17 Oct 2003 7:00 am

"I feared you would be surprised that I would not unconditionally love my Ricks. I love'em..."

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JD, please never feel that I have a problem in calling a spade a spade on any product. I too love my 7 string Rick. But like any product, there is always room for improvement and indeed there are definitely things on this guitar that are not of the highest quality...even in the era it was made.

People fall in to types. Some I perceive feel that it is wrong to say ANY thing bad about any product as that is "improper". At the other end of the spectrum, I perceive some feel that if there is one thing wrong with a product, it makes the entire product bad.

I reject both premises. The following is a prime example:

The Emmons' LeGrande is one of the finest PSG's ever made (excluding the Anapeg which is the Rolls-Royce of all PSG's). However, the LeGrande has some problems with it. The following are some of those problems:

1. RKL does NOT have a rock solid stop.

2. The key head wall for strings 1 and 10 on both necks is too narrow. Such that they have to use a thicker washer on these keys in order to tighten the key nut.

3. There is NO adjustment in the bracket for the travel of right moving knee levers.

4. PU's are too hard to replace.

5. A 3 raise, 2 lower changer is antiquated in this era of the PSG's evolvement.

Would I buy an Emmons's LeGrande III?

INDEED I would buy one! yesterday!, if I was in the market for a new D-10 PSG. My point is; those problems above are far less than what I could sight on any other steel guitars on the market when it comes to a D-10.

So, when I say that a given guitar has a problem, it does NOT say that guitar is not a great guitar. It simply means there is room for improvement. And in some cases, we have waited much too long for a given problem to be eradicated on most guitars.

Note: I base the above on facts as I know them. However, I have not seen an Emmons close up for 5 years. So it is entirely possible that one or all of the above problems have been corrected. If that is the case, a "tip of my hat" to Ron Jr.

carl

Steven Black · Post by **Steven Black** » 23 Oct 2003 2:30 am

How about hardwoods such as poplar or compressed wood can they be used for building
steel guitar bodies, would sound be any different, I noticed that GFI uses die boards. steveb carter 8+5.