A Different Approach

Chris Erbacher · Post by **Chris Erbacher** » 20 Mar 2003 7:44 pm

The other day while pondering the always hotly debated question of tuning and how to do it, I came to a question and i am wondering if anyone out there can tell me the answer. Has there been a guitar made that has a staggered changer? The purpose of the staggering being that you could tune to straight up 440 and know that you would be in tune, no audible beats. I am wondering if anyone would be willing to tackle this? Guitars have it, banjos seem to sound better when you turn the bridge slightly, but why does the steel guitar have a straight changer? I am not super sure of exactly how to do this but it does make sense to me. Any ideas out there, or am I "out there"?

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 21 Mar 2003 4:54 am

Hey Chris,
It seems to me that the reason it wouldn't work is because of the tension of the strings being changed by the pedals. On a guitar of banjo the fretting hand will do somthing like this. If you have an E on the 2nd string at the 5th fret and you want to change it to an F#, you'd just slide your finger two frets higher and you'd have it without any increase in string tension while on steel we use the pedals to raise and lower notes within the chord or for licks and effects. Sometimes 5 or 6 strings at a time so that's why it seems to me that it wouldn't work. Any other opinions?...JH

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 21 Mar 2003 5:39 am

Sustain, engineering, adjustment, money? I would think that having all the fingers mounted separately in the aluminum or on a camshaft-like staggered axle would interfere with the transmission of vibrations to the body. It would be expensive to do, you would have to decide on an arbitrary compensation for the E9 and C6 necks regardless of string gauges, and it would add to the mechanical complexity of an already-complicated machine. Not to mention, cleaning or fixing the bugger.

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 21 Mar 2003 6:01 am

The old ZB's had an adjustable nut. The whole nut assembly was an L bracket with two slots so it could be adjusted forward and backward and/or angled. Apparently it didn't catch on.

Joerg Hennig · Post by **Joerg Hennig** » 21 Mar 2003 11:05 am

Assuming you use a conventional changer axle that goes through all the fingers, a staggered changer would still be a fixed unit, incapable of putting up with changes due to different string gauges etc. The reason it works on 6-string guitars is because the saddles can easily be made individually adjustable. What I could imagine is a thing like a bridge similar to a Gibson Tuneomatic placed between the changer and the pickup, possibly equipped with rollers. One would have to try this to see if it actually improves anything. But I guess if it did, somebody would already have come up with it by now.

Regards, Joe H.

rhcarden · Post by **rhcarden** » 22 Mar 2003 8:32 am

I believe the reason for an adjustable bridge on a guitar, bango, or any instrument with frets, is to compensate for pushing the string down to the fret. Steels do not have frets and I don't think that an adjustable Bridge is necessary; however, I do think that if each string had it's own support, we would have a better guitar!

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Bob Carden 66 Emmons P/P 8/9
BMI 13 string 7/7
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by rhcarden on 22 March 2003 at 08:37 AM.]</p></FONT>

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 22 Mar 2003 9:18 am

Didn't the earliest pedal guitars have a fixed bridge, with the strings being pulled behind it? Obviusly somebody came up with the finger concept, and since everybody else copied them it must have advantages for sustain or tone or both. After 50 years of solidbody electric design, there is still debate over whether the Fender string through body bridge works better than the Gibson arrangement. I guess you'll just have to build the thing and see what happens.