Does anyone know of a prototype (or otherwise) attempt to 'modernize' the pedal steel changer mechanism with more of an electro-magnetic hybrid. What I'm envisioning would be some kind of magnetic/relay or a servo-motor driving the changer.... and instead of mechanical pedals and rods - the pedals could be anything from a simple momentary floor switch to a bank of pedals that look and work exactly like an all-mechanical guitar works now. The pedals could trigger the servos or magnetic changers either via a standard CAT5 ethernet cable, or even wirelessly using BlueTooth or some other near-field wiresless radio between the pedal "board" and the guitar.
The actual mechanism could be a fast-acting servo motor or multi-position relay on each string. The hardware already exists in other form factors and is proven reliable.
Along the same line - you could also put a servo-driven tuning system on a PSG much like the 2015 Gibson Les Paul line. That system is amazing - you can program all kinds of alternate tunings, and also 'touch up' standard tuning in seconds without making any noise. Any guitarist who disses it is nuts - it's such an improvement over a plug-in tuner and manually cranking tuning keys. I was one of those big-mouthed critic of the new-fangled tuning system too... until I actually tried it. Now I wouldn't purchase a new guitar without it, and I'm in-process of adding to as many of my guitars as I can (without mods). Being in-tune aside, the greatest thing about the Gibson Min-E-Tune system I've discovered is if you need to drop to Eb or D or even C# to accommodate an aging rocker's voice - it's absolutely no problem and you don't need to lug around a second guitar for that one song We're all aging and having problems with the high notes.
Now envision this - if you were to combine the electro-mechanical changer with electro-mechanical tuning... and then control everything with a small "black box" (no different than any Midi-switching fx pedal or inexpensive keyboard)- now the player could do amazing things like change his/her entire co-ped on-the-fly. Or go into/back out of an alternate tuning DURING a song - Play one gig or one recording session with one type of tuning/tempering.. and the next one (with the fussy piano player) with another tuning tweak - and have it perfect for both sessions.
And just so I totally blow up your brain - imagine taking it one more step - combined the electro-mechanical changer with a CPU-driven "Min-E-Tune" type of controller... with a 10-string piezo/midi pickup (like the Roland Guitar Synth pickup). The magnetic pickup PSG could be digitally doubled an octave up and/or down... (or a fifth for power chords) ... the piezo/midi pickup could trigger a true Dobro or Fiddle or Clawhammer banjo sample.. by itself or in tandem with the PSG magnetic pickup (Like the Roland system works on the Roland Stratocaster) You could trigger keyboard synth modules (Pedal Steel one minute -convincing dobro or clawhamer banjo the next... - or a very realistic B3/Leslie or Mellotron or 80's Arp Omni pad the next - (yes I know about the EHX B3/C3 stomp-boxes - but once the novelty is gone, those all sound the same IMO - like one of those 'glass organs" where they rub the rims of wine glasses... nice sound, but not a B3) true digital samples of real instruments are in a different league altogether) You could even use the Piezo to sound like the nuances of an Emmons one minute - A vintage Sho-bud the next...
Finally - by de-coupling the pedals from the guitar body - you could set up the instrument to play standing up.. or as part of a keyboard stack... or develop a guitar that looks/plays exactly like a Dobro - except with a full complement of true pitch-changing pedals on the floor. The possibilities really are endless. The same technology could be adapted to any 6-string and would be a lot more reliable and less hassle than the current "B-Bender" types of rigs that depend on tugging on your strap - and it could control all 6 strings instead of just one or two.
And - once you did all that, to keep the costs of on-board displays and etc. to a minimum, develop a SmartPhone/Tablet app - exactly like all the digital mixing consoles now use. You could save hundreds of pre-sets of combinations of copedant/tuning/piezo-digital, organized into banks like any of the digital 6-string multi-effects units or keyboard synths. This could all be continuously backed-up to the 'cloud' (Dropbox for example) so there would be no chance of losing your programming in case of a crash or power outage, etc.
My initial research is that he electro-magnetic changer and basic de-coupled pedal mechanism would be a wash cost-wise to the machine-shop version, or at most would add a couple hundred $$ at cost. The Min-E-Tune system retails for $300 on a 6-string (cost is around 50% -$150-ish), so assuming you could license that for a 10-string neck - it would also add a couple hundred $$. The Roland 6-string controller and MIDI pickup retails for around $200 - the pickup is no big deal, the controller electronics are the issue - good pickup + bad controller = latency, stutter, etc. - no good. But bottom line - I think you could build some working prototypes for about the same cost as building an all-mechanical PSG. And I'm guessing something like the "plays like a Dobro - but with full pedal steel capability" will probably generate more interest than trying to replace the current sit-down PSG. The key to something like this making it in the marketplace so you could take advantage of economy of scale on the required components. A total demand of a few hundred instruments per year would not be enough - it has to find a new/different market - 6 string or Dobro players who want full pedal capability and more.
Ok - that's it. Sorry for the very long post but this was a bit of a brain dump. Start shooting holes in it.
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