I Love Steel Guitars, Amplifiers and Other Music Gear

admin · Post by **b0b** » 12 Apr 2015 8:23 am

I have a bit of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). Not too bad - I do sell stuff now and then, mostly to buy other stuff. Most of all, I love the way that every piece of gear is a piece of musical history. I'm jealous of guitar builders and amp builders, to the point where I wish I had the time and energy to be one.

I spent my career developing software that is now totally obsolete. Lots of time and energy went into it, and I reaped substantial rewards. But it's gone now. Instrument builders, on the other hand, have a legacy that lives on for decades, even centuries. We see wonderful discussions about classic instruments from the 50's and 60s, remembrances of design decisions that shaped our steel guitar universe.

If I were young and ambitious, I'd start building steel guitars today. My target demographic would be mid-21st century collectors. I'd study the designs of the past and the trends of modern music, and build an instrument that would stand the test of time.

Jim Means · Post by **Jim Means** » 12 Apr 2015 8:36 am

b0b,
Never under-estimate what you did for the software industry. My grown girls still talk about using Print Shop as children. One will turn 40 this year and the other 37. You were instrumental in turning a whole generation on to the use of computers and what they could create using their imagination. I'd say you made a pretty amazing mark on history and I and my girls thank you.

Jim in Missouri

PS,
I still have their Apple II GS computer, Apple printer and our Print Shop software in the original box.

Tom Gorr · Post by **Tom Gorr** » 12 Apr 2015 9:03 am

I totally understand the lamentation of non permanence...possibly transiency...vs. and the love of enduring high quality things.

Do not underappreciate the fact you can say without a hint of uncertainty 'and I reaped substantial rewards.'

A lot of creative people are so willing to give their gifts freely...and so many without the gift willing to take that which has been given equally as freely... and worse... appropriating the rewards for themselves justifying it as business as usual.

Frankly...there are few things we do in life that have permanence. Most scientific theories are laid to rest by the subsequent generation. Even concrete structures rarely last a half century.

Events...particularly those that are deemed as historical have the appearance of permanence... but clear analysis shows that events may be the most transitory of all. Ushering in a new era...and only preserved in the books colored by the politics and perceptions of the author.

The most ruthless of politians leave a deeper mark than most...cultivating fear and distrust for generations and generations to follow.

I think we have to accept our role in life as mostly handling a baton in a relay race to the future.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 12 Apr 2015 9:09 am

I really appreciate musical instruments and their development/design, etc., but I believe I was meant to create music, not instruments. I am a failed engineering student, but I have a keen mind from practical standpoint.

Rick Barnhart · Post by **Rick Barnhart** » 12 Apr 2015 9:12 am

I know what you mean, b0b. It's good to know my limitations, though. I made an ashtray once, in jr. high woodshop. This is a really great time for those in the market for custom steel guitars and amplifiers. This forum has more than it's share of true master craftsmen. It's just too bad my want-me list is bigger than my bank account.

By the way, this forum is an excellent example of a lasting and beneficial legacy.

John Russell · Post by **John Russell** » 12 Apr 2015 12:19 pm

What about this forum, b0b? If you did nothing else but create this, your legacy would be huge IMHO. I'm betting it outlives all of us. --J

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 12 Apr 2015 12:48 pm

John is right, b0b. The SGF will be your legacy. IMO, it is the very best of it's kind and I thank you for it many times over. I don't know a steel player alive including myself, that hasn't or couldn't benefit from it in some way.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 12 Apr 2015 2:19 pm

b0b wrote: If I were young and ambitious, I'd start building steel guitars today.... I'd study the designs of the past and the trends of modern music, and build an instrument that would stand the test of time.

I would too, after a brief career as a wannabe steeler and then becoming fascinated with the instrument.
It's new, it has a future in music, and I'd start with a line of six-string 3x4's to lure young guitarists,
knowing they'll want more strings, and more guitars, and get GAS.

But i'd have to say, were it not for the Steel Guitar Forum, the idea would never have occurred to me.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 12 Apr 2015 2:33 pm

b0b wrote: I spent my career developing software that is now totally obsolete. Lots of time and energy went into it, and I reaped substantial rewards. But it's gone now. Instrument builders, on the other hand, have a legacy that lives on for decades, even centuries.

Haven't you forgotten something, b0b? What about your music, those songs you wrote and played on? That stuff will last beyond us all!

I remember, as a young child, sitting on my grandmother's porch and listening to Cab Calloway and Carter Family stuff from the '30s on her crank-up Victrola. People are still playing Carter Family songs, and I was sorta shocked when Cab had a role in "The Blues Brothers" a half century after he recorded those 78's I'd listened to.

And somewhere, in the deepest-darkest recesses of my basement "early computing collection", there resides (along with my Vic-20, "Doom" and "7th Guest" software), a copy of "Print Shop Deluxe", and a 386DX machine to run them.

So, your legacy is aafe.

John Booth · Post by **John Booth** » 12 Apr 2015 3:04 pm

Jeesh, I LOVED Print Shop.
Used it for years on my Commodores and early IBMs
You wrote that?
Cool !

admin · Post by **b0b** » 12 Apr 2015 3:55 pm

John Booth wrote:Jeesh, I LOVED Print Shop.
Used it for years on my Commodores and early IBMs
You wrote that?
Cool !

I wrote little pieces of it after it became a Windows program. Mostly, I worked on the underlying architecture. It's all gone now. I doubt that the code I wrote even runs on today's version of Windows. $:\$

Yes, I know that music lasts longer than computer code, but instruments last longer than most music. Music is often subject to the fashion of the day. Instruments are not.

As for the legacy of this Forum, it belongs to all of us. Who knows whether our conversations here will survive 20 or 30 years hence. Hard to tell. But there's no doubt that instruments made today will still be in use at that time, and far beyond. That's my point.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 12 Apr 2015 4:07 pm

The stories of early instrument builders like the Harlen Brothers, Rickenbacher, Bigsby and Fender are the stuff of legend. Moving forward in time, we read about players who created classic instruments: Shot Jackson, Buddy Emmons, Maurice Anderson. Instrument designers like Gene Fields, Zane Beck and Bud Carter were also fine players, but their greatest legacy is in the machines they built. Creative machinists like Paul Bigsby, Chuck Wright and Paul Franklin, Sr. would have labored in obscurity were it not for the fact that they were building musical instruments. Steel guitars last a long time, bestowing a degree of immortality on their creators.

For 5 years (1980-85) I was employed by Mesa Engineering, building Mesa/Boogie amplifiers. Many of the amps I built during that era are still in use today. To this day, I feel a sense of pride whenever I see the Boogie logo on stage, knowing that the thousands of solder joints I made more than 30 years ago are still bringing joy to music lovers all over the world. I was just a cog in the industrial machine, but I made something real.

You canâ€™t really say that about computer software.

Thiel Hatt · Post by **Thiel Hatt** » 12 Apr 2015 6:28 pm

Here's one of those relics from the past built by Willy Domland for Don Edwards Music. As I understand there were only eight of this model built (around 1969)

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 13 Apr 2015 4:04 pm

b0b and Br0derbund...coincidence?

Steven Finley · Post by **Steven Finley** » 13 Apr 2015 4:21 pm

Bob,I think you will be remembered for the forum
its a great place, nothing like it,we can even go on it to rile you up a little,just kidding,but if you want to build a steel guitar go for it,who knows maybe it will be one of the best steels ever built,after all you created the best forum that the web has to offer!!!!!

Roger Shackelton · Post by **Roger Shackelton** » 13 Apr 2015 5:42 pm

Terry Bethel played a beautiful Domland PSG while at the Flame CafÃ© in MPLS. from about 1968----1973.
The band leader was Leon Boulanger.

Roger

John Booth · Post by **John Booth** » 14 Apr 2015 1:34 am

b0b,
The only forums that I have ever seen that even come close to this one are the TDPRI forum for Telecaster players, and THESAMBA for vintage Volkswagen enthusiasts. Both of which I frequent regularly because, well, I have always had Teles and old Beetles.

What goes on here is priceless to the steel guitar enthusiast. I remember back when there was practically nowhere to turn for help with this strange and complex instrument we play. Without this place the steel guitar might all-but fade away for all but a few.

I am sure that even the greatest players in the world have been on this forum and both benefited as well as shared valuable information essential to understanding these guitars. I for one think that is a hell of an accomplishment and I thank you.

That being said, feel free to get busy building the ultimate software controlled pedal steel for us that not only tunes itself, but remembers settings, can change the tunings of the strings automatically, and even has a display to scroll our tabs and play our backtracks and record us. Oh, and if it had those cool neon lights under like some cars do it that would be great too.

JB

Charles Curtis · Post by **Charles Curtis** » 14 Apr 2015 3:59 am

Bob, this Forum brings "company" to me when I'm lonely or just want to be entertained. I believe that we are here for some purpose, if you will and I'm so grateful to you for doing this. Not only that but thanks to this Forum I bought a fantastic sounding Emmons, PP here. I wonder how many thousands enjoy this like I do?

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 14 Apr 2015 5:00 am

PEOPLE OF THE FORUM! STOP PRAISING THE TALENTED!
LET ME DO IT!

like a guy at the back of a Joni Mitchell concert shouting, and I wrote:B0b, you are the most non-stupid person I know, and I don't even know you!

Each of us wants to sign, again, your guest book here.
Information makes way for new invormation.
The loss of information, as far back as the burning of the Library of Alexandria to make way for chariot parking lots
increases daily in the digital age. You recognized it as a method of information storage, recognizing the future.
It may be true that, as Tom said,

I think we have to accept our role in life as mostly handling a baton in a relay race to the future.

Digits add on to digits easily, they are easily replaced.
Are we? Are we not men? No, we are Devo! We are b0b! John Galt, who was he?

Who knows where the digital paths led to. In the transmission of knowledge, each of us is a pathway
in the current of consciousness emerging, the only show in town.
It behooves a man to gather humility or unimportance as good men do; it occupies a place in the revolution
(whatever the current one is).
Meanwhile, I agree, build guitars. Whatever happened to the six string? I'm down to 2x4
trying to make it real simple for pimply faced teens to join the future, and of course, The Steel Guitar Forum.

I mean, are we here to inter Caesar, or bury Caesar with praise?
Is b0b toast, or is this a roast, or what?

Niels Andrews · Post by **Niels Andrews** » 14 Apr 2015 5:53 pm

Bob is right on about the "magic" of an Old musical instrument. I remember playing some guitars from the 20's and 30's that had been played by some famous folks. Maybe it was me, but the tone seemed so rich and Mellow. I remember just holding them and looking at the wear and trying to imagine their history. Something magical and they will be here when I am gone.

Bob Gibler · Post by **Bob Gibler** » 17 Apr 2015 4:51 pm

bOb, These Guy's are correct. You have brought Steeler's young and old New to the Instrument.... and Veteran Musicians, Armature's and Professionals all to one forum for one reason, The love of the Steel Guitar. I am real impressed with this forum as it not only keeps me company when I have time to relax and read the posts, Also it has and is still a wealth of Knowledge for all on the craft and a great place to meet folks with the common interest. Thanks for the Legacy that you have started.

Daniel Policarpo · Post by **Daniel Policarpo** » 18 Apr 2015 2:33 am

bOb, if it were not for this forum myself and many other newer players from the last decade would likely not have pursued pedal steel.
Thank you,
Dan

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 18 Apr 2015 7:39 am

I'm with b0b, I really like old guitars and amps. In fact, I have a Fender Super Six amp in transit to me now. I have no idea what I am going to be doing with it but I just had to have it.
I now have a Twin Reverb with 2 speakers, a Quad Reverb with 4 speakers and a Super Six Reverb with 6 speakers. I sure hope Fender didn't build an 8 speaker model!

Daniel Policarpo · Post by **Daniel Policarpo** » 18 Apr 2015 8:06 am

Erv, I sure hope you have no neighbors!

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 18 Apr 2015 8:09 am

No problem, I live in the country on a farm.

The Steel Guitar Forum

I Love Steel Guitars, Amplifiers and Other Music Gear

I Love Steel Guitars, Amplifiers and Other Music Gear

Re: I Love Steel Guitars, Amplifiers and Other Music Gear

continuing the original post...

A lasting legacy