Keyless Steels Pros and Cons

[Terry Wood]

Hi Fellow Steel Players,

I have been playing steel since 1975 and recently purchased my first new Keyless steel.

I am curious as to what you think about the keyless steels.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to playing a keyless steel guitar?

Thanks!

Terry Wood

[John Roche]

Terry , What make of steel have you got..

[David Doggett]

Terry, most of us have never had a keyless. Since you have now tried both, we'd be interested in your own comparison.

[Stu Schulman]

Fred Newell was here last weekend and had a GFI keyless,and it looked pretty cool where the guitar tunes they have a knob for each string..Looks easy to tune.I still haven't played a keyless myself.Fred's guitar is so short ,and light it fits in the overhead on a plane.

[Dan Burnham]

Terry,
I'd like to plug in here because I have both. Here are the advantages of Keyless over Keyed:

1. WEIGHT (less metal, less wood)

2. Time it takes to change strings.( Change strings a whole lot faster.)

3. Shorter length, average of 6 inches shorter which means less leg movement to activate knee levers.

Is it better, that depends on you. The steel world is slow to accepting cosmetic change when it comes to pedal steels. It's all in what you want, personally I play both on a regular basis. If I'm playing a gig, I'll take the keyless everytime. If I'm at the house, I switch back and forth. I like the fact that they are lighter and require less space especially in the music room.

For me, it's the only way to fly
Dan

[Pete Burak]

Hysterisis is less (notes return to pitch more accuratly after raise/lower because there is no extra string moving beyond the nut).
Cabnet drop is less (because the body is shorter).
Pedal travel is less (less total string length means less travel requiered to reach desired pitch).

One thing... Keyed instruments will sound nicer when strummed or played "unplugged"... which apperently is how some will base their decisions on wether it will sound good plugged in.
This is because the string length from the nut to key will ring out... on keyless, there is no extra string length there.
But then again I see some guys running rubberbands through the strings right behind the nut to eliminate those overtones ringing out.

The tuning stability of Keyless is the thing I notice most.
Strings return to pitch better, and you have the micro tuners which allow for finer micro adjustments of the open string pitch.

[Rocco Labriola]

I've seen a thread before like this and people mostly have good to great things to say about keyless steels. I'd like to hear more cons about a keyless. These steels are not very popular. I'd like to know why some people got rid of a keyless, or wouldn't buy one.

[b0b]

I've owned keyed and keyless Sierra and Williams guitars. Aside from the obvious benefits of keyless (weight, ease of string changing, less breakage, etc), I've noticed that there is a difference in the evenness of timbre from one string to the next.

On a keyed guitar, the sympathetic cabinet resonance is different for each string. This is because the string length in the keyhead is different for each string. The effect is subtle when comparing individual strings, but when evaluating the instrument as a whole the palette of timbres is greater than that of a keyless guitar.

Whether this is "good" or "bad" is a matter of personal taste. The keyless guitar is more consistent in timbre from one string to the next. You have a better blend, but you have less string separation. If you like to hear the notes of a harmony separately, you will prefer the keyed tone. If you like to hear the notes blend together into one sound, you will prefer keyless.

I think of keyless as the more "controlled" sound. It's not always what I want, especially if I'm going for a "vintage" sound. Still, it's not a big deal. The difference is very subtle. I think that only the player really hears it, but what we hear affects how we play.

[Chuck Snider]

From a slightly different perspective - as a newbie/novice, would the subtleties Bob mentions even be noticed by folks like myself or non-players? I have a keyless on order, but from all I could tell in the researching I did, it appears, aside from the mechanics involved, to be a very subjective thing to measure, quantify, or even explain. It is sort of interesting that in the pedal steel world everyone wants to sound exactly like the next person, as opposed to folks in the standard guitar world all wanting to sound different and unique unto themselves. Just a few observations from a rookie.

[Brint Hannay]

My two cents' worth:

I'm a minority voice on this, and I know others will likely chime in against what I say, but I have a keyless GFI and several keyed steels, and I feel there's little difference between keyed and keyless, pro or con.

As to the advantages others see in keyless, here's my take (I can only comment, of course, about the GFI keyless):

1) "Less hysteresis (strings return to pitch more accurately)": Not true in my case. The GFI is overall neither better nor worse. (This is my most controversial statement. Some insist that my particular guitar must be defective or out of adjustment. But what I say has been true ever since the guitar was brand new from the factory.)

2) "Less cabinet drop": With A & B pedals pressed, E (fourth) string pitch drop:

GFI keyless: -6 cents
1973 Sho-Bud LDG: -2 cents
Williams 400 Series keyed: -2 cents

Personally, I have no trouble living with 6 cents of "cabinet drop", so I don't consider this difference significant.

3) "Easier or quicker to change strings": I don't find this to be so--it's just different. I use a pegwinder on keyed steels; unwinding the old string, removing it, putting new string through the hole and cranking it up to pitch takes no more time than hand turning the GFI knob to loosen the string, using screwdriver to loosen the anchor screw, pulling new string tight while tightening down screw with screwdriver, and hand turning the knob up to pitch.

4) "Smaller size (length)":

GFI keyless: 30 3/4"
Williams 400 Series keyed: 31 3/8"
1994 Mullen: 32"

5) "Less weight": The GFI is very light, but, given the small difference in dimensions, a good deal of that probably has to do with the materials it's made of. I don't have a means of weighing the guitars without their cases, but the GFI and Williams were within a couple of pounds of eachother when shipping them in (very similar) cases, in cartons. (It should be noted that Williams guitars are known for being light weight.)
Light weight is obviously great for carrying the steel, but there is some trade-off in stability.

6) "Break fewer strings": I can't comment because I generally change strings preventively.

7) Tone and sustain: There are so many other factors that contribute, or may contribute, to tone and sustain that comparing different makes rules out determining the effects of keyed versus keyless. Even comparing, say, two Williamses, one keyed, one keyless, wouldn't be definitive, because their bodies would be two different pieces of wood, etc.

So with regard to all the factors listed, I see no particular advantage OR disadvantage to keyless.

The one place I do see a potential disadvantage is: If anything goes wrong with the keyless tuning mechanism that requires repair, not just adjustment (e.g., a screw hole getting stripped), you'll need specialized parts and/or tools and/or knowledge to fix it. If a tuner on a keyed guitar goes bad, you can get and install a replacement fairly easily.

[Greg Cutshaw]

I owned a Williams model 400 changer keyless and the best thing I liked about it was the compact body. With a cramped home studio and all the cramped stages and small cars to haul stuff around in, a compact body is no small advantage. I think the compact body also looks more contemporary it that's important to you.

Greg

[John Roche]

I use a Sierra uni 12 keyless, I wish I had got one years ago.
No tuning problems.
No string breaking.
No more heavy twin neck to lift up and down stairs.
No more buying another steel guitar.....

[Joe Smith]

I have a GFI keyless single neck that I carry in our motor home.
It's very light and it's footprint is about the same as a lap steel.
I like the GFI for practicing and it don't take up a lot of room in the RV. For playing gigs, I really like my Carter D-10 with the regular key-heads better.

[b0b]

From a slightly different perspective - as a newbie/novice, would the subtleties Bob mentions even be noticed by folks like myself or non-players?

No. Only the player and a sound engineer in the studio would notice this. I don't even believe that steel players in the audience would notice.

The difference between Joe Wright's tone and Lloyd Green's (for an extreme example) include differences of guitar construction, hand techniques, pickups and amplifiers. Keyed vs. keyless is very small part of the tone equation. If Joe played a keyed Sierra or if Lloyd played a keyless Sho-Bud*, it wouldn't make much difference.

*Sho-Bud didn't really make a keyless model, by the way.

[Pete Burak]

1) "Less hysteresis (strings return to pitch more accurately)": Not true in my case. The GFI is overall neither better nor worse. (This is my most controversial statement. Some insist that my particular guitar must be defective or out of adjustment. But what I say has been true ever since the guitar was brand new from the factory.)

2) "Less cabinet drop": With A & B pedals pressed, E (fourth) string pitch drop:

GFI keyless: -6 cents
1973 Sho-Bud LDG: -2 cents
Williams 400 Series keyed: -2 cents

If you are saying that, on your guitar, your strings don't return to pitch after being raised/lowered, AND, your E goes way flat with AB depressed, I don't think those issues have anything to do with the keyed vs. keyless thing in this case (you would have to compare to the same model guitar with a keyed head to compare apples to apples... I did this several times at the Sierra factory).
Sounds more like changer-axle and/or cross-rod deflection on your guitar, to me.

[Dave Harmonson]

When I had my MSA D 10 I could sit lyric cheat sheets on the tuners. Now that I have a keyless GFI I have to memorize everything.

[Donny Hinson]

I've only played a couple of keyless steels, and the differences (as Bob said) didn't seem to be really significant. The only thing that is significant (to me) is the number of top pros who really don't care for them. Keyless steels have been out for about 40 years now, and these guys make their entire living playing. With all the supposed "advantages" of a keyless, it's really strange that more of these players don't prefer them.

(I can't believe that looks are very important to a player most people seldom even see.)

For the 98% of us that aren't top-tier players, it's plain that either will get the job done. IMHO, the "weakest link" is almost always between the seat and the steel, anyway!

[Kevin Hatton]

Bobby Lee, I think that the tone difference is very noticeable, but then again I am very particular.

[Brint Hannay]

1) "Less hysteresis (strings return to pitch more accurately)": Not true in my case. The GFI is overall neither better nor worse. (This is my most controversial statement. Some insist that my particular guitar must be defective or out of adjustment. But what I say has been true ever since the guitar was brand new from the factory.)

2) "Less cabinet drop": With A & B pedals pressed, E (fourth) string pitch drop:

GFI keyless: -6 cents
1973 Sho-Bud LDG: -2 cents
Williams 400 Series keyed: -2 cents

If you are saying that, on your guitar, your strings don't return to pitch after being raised/lowered

To be clear, I'm saying that my GFI, like my other steels, OVER-returns on lowers, but not more or less than the others. No problem on raises. But Pete, I think you may have misunderstood my point. I'm responding to the things that proponents of keyless assert are advantages. My point is not that the keyless design CAUSED over-return, it's that the keyless design didn't ELIMINATE, or even reduce, over-return, as some maintain keylessness by its very nature would inherently do.

AND, your E goes way flat with AB depressed

"Way flat" is a judgement call; as I said, I don't consider 6 cents "way flat"--others may differ. Various ideas have been posited as to the cause of "cabinet drop", which may be a misnomer. Lots of other factors than cabinet size seem more significant--the ones you mentioned, and flexibility of the cabinet due to structural design and flexibility of materials used. This is kind of a wash, anyway, because the 5/8" difference between the GFI and Williams could hardly be expected to make much difference.

you would have to compare to the same model guitar with a keyed head to compare apples to apples

That's what I said, with regard to tone and sustain. Of course it applies to these factors as well.

[Raybob Bowman]

I use a Sierra uni 12 keyless, I wish I had got one years ago.
No tuning problems.
No string breaking.
No more heavy twin neck to lift up and down stairs.
No more buying another steel guitar.....

Yeah, what he said.

Raybob

[b0b]

Bobby Lee, I think that the tone difference is very noticeable, but then again I am very particular.

Have you compared keyed vs. keyless of the same brand, Kevin? Like I said, I've owned both by Williams and Sierra. I've spent a lot of time playing both. To me, the difference is subtle.

If you compare a Kline to an Emmons, or an Excel to a Sho-Bud, you will hear a significant difference. But the difference in tone between the keyed and keyless models by companies who make both is very slight, in my opinion. An easy test: go to the GFI room at the ISGC in St. Louis and compare them, using the same amplifier.

[Stu Schulman]

b0b could you tell me what the differences would be from the Williams changer compared to the GFI?Is one easier to use,or in your opinion work better?Stu

[Brint Hannay]

Stu, I assume you actually mean the keyless tuning mechanisms, rather than the changers?

I'm curious about that as well. I don't believe I've ever seen a photo of the Williams keyless close enough to get any idea of what it's like.

[Stu Schulman]

Brint,Yes that's what I meant,Stu

[Doug Seymour]

Take it from a 79 year old who really doesn't know it all.....I think the GFI is the only one you can easily tune with your fingers....no wrench needed! not true of the Williams steels I have seen?? I tried a Sierra & it seemed too hard to tune with your fingers? It was a long time ago, so maybe things have changed? I currently play an Excel keyless and it also tunes with a wrench. It is not the nicer Superb model.....I wish it was! I have always preferred the keyless after putting BELA tuners on a 1984 Zum D10 I got from "Lefty" Sawmore (I'm his Uncle Doug.....did he sell that saw yet, guys??) (He doesn't share my love of keyless steels!)