Fairytale, Pomona, Duesenberg Bender??

[Mark van Allen]

I’ve got a Duesenberg Fairytale lap steel on the way, and would love to hear from owners and players with impressions tweaks and ideas about the Duesenberg guitars. Many thanks!

[James Hartman]

Let me just say that I'm envious.

[Mark van Allen]

Hopefully I can do it justice. Anybody have one?

[Andy Willoughby]

Mark

Did you get your Duesenberg? What do you think? How's it tuned? What do the levers do?

IMWTK.

[Mark van Allen]

Yes, Andy, I had a chance to gig with it this week, and it's a truly outstanding instrument. I have played a lot of laps over the years, and have come to prefer Oahu Tonemaster and McKinney Valco style for ergonomic feel and overdriven tone, not as much for clean tones. That being said:

The Fairytale is a larger, hefty instrument, with a perfect fit and finish, presenting the aura of a high end Gibson, Asher, or similar.

There are a number of innovative approaches to standard features… Aluminum neck with what looks like anodized fret markings blends seamlessly into the "gold burst" body, looks and feels like a finished wooden neck. Frets easy to see in low light.

The tone pot has a very short rotation of 70 degrees, perfect for the "boo-wah" tone effect, and very easy to set a pre-set tone tweak on to roll off highs. Someone used to a full-range pot with finer tonal adjustments might want to replace that, but I find it perfect.

The vol/tone knobs have a very visible demarcation for visual positioning, and the pots have a great solid feel.

There's been a lot of conversation about the Duesenberg palm bender. I'll agree it's a great piece of workmanship and works exactly like it's supposed to. After playing foot pedals for so long I have a pretty good grasp of how to integrate the palm pedals, but it's going to take me a little while to get completely used to doing it by hand. They are solid and responsive, and quite adjustable for throw and placement. I'm using the factory open D tuning with the pedals moving 3rd string F#-G and 2nd A-B. There's a heck of a lot that can be done with that simple setup. I don't know yet about string breakage, as I'm still on the factory strings after a trip overseas, many hours of practice, and several gigs.

The integrated capo is another well-engineered marvel. It's a block of steel with a hole in it, through which a threaded thumbwheel-capped rod holds a half-round padded top against the block. At the nut end, the rod threads into a block mounted under the fingerboard for a solid zero-fret arrangement. A couple of turns and the whole unit slides up a track to any fret desired. In practice, it works very well, giving an in-tune "nut" at any position. Those who have been less than thrilled with higher-fret capoing on resos or lap steels will be impressed with the increase in musicality this offers. I do run into the capo hold-down knob a bit when playing around open position, but it's something I can adjust to.

The string spacing is a bit wider than most lap steels and I find it very comfortable. Slants all over the neck are no problem.

I have come to prefer a two-pickup instrument for tonal variation, and the two different pickups, bridge humbucker and neck single coil, blend very well together, yet have a nice individual timber. I'm very particular about pickups and I love these. Sweet clean tones and smooth and responsive with overdrive.

All together, I'm super impressed with the workmanship, design, and implementation. Really looking to getting to know it better.

[Brooks Montgomery]

I've got a Fairytale. Great guitar. I play it in open D. Benders on strings 2 & 3.
I'll be curious what tuning you settle on. I've had problems with 3rd string breaking often, but the last change has lasted quite a while (6 gigs). I think you have to be very aware of aligning the benders to keep it straighline bend (my recent theory). I've found with my set-up/amp and the guys that I play with, I only use the bridge pickup with treble knob knob full on, to cut through the mix. In open D with the two benders , the first four strings have the similar effect of AB pedals on a pedal steel. I'm running it thru a Sarno Blackbox > Mad P. Golden Cello>Nuenabar Wet Reverb> Quilter Toneblock> Eminence EPS 15-C speaker.
Sometimes i play it through an old Mid-60's Princeton Blackface.

[Steve Lipsey]

A number of old threads on string breakage...

..one piece of advice is to cut an end off an old string and thread the new string through it before mounting, to pull the string a bit back.

...another is to install a roller nut....

Search for Duesenberg and you'll find a bunch...I couldn't make the levers work and still pick cleanly, and gave up...

[Mark van Allen]

Ditto on the earlier discussions about "lengthening" the pulled strings. Duesenberg advertises the Fairytale as having some upgrades or improvements over the Pomona, (I see the two different pickups that way) And this one came with a roller nut, small (string ball sized) rollers similar to Carter Pedal Steels. The break angle under the bridge from the palm pedals looks shallow enough not to induce breakage there, but we'll see.

The pedals are easy to operate and solid feeling, I'm not having much trouble adjusting except for licks/picking starting with "pedals down". It is hard to pick with the same facility as when not holding down the pedals, but I think that should be a matter of acclimation and practice, and worth the effort.

I forgot to mention the long and even sustain characteristics. Sweet.

[Andy Willoughby]

Mark - thanks for such a detailed response. I just picked up a used Ponoma - should be here the latter part of this week. I'm trying to get ideas.

[Mark van Allen]

Feel free to mail me, Andy. Enjoy! There are some fairly amateur vids on you tube, but also some very well played stuff for inspiration. My take so far is to approach the levers with commitment and a positive touch, rather than tentatively. Fun!

[Tim Heidner]

This guy, Luke Cyrus Goetze has some nice videos on a Duesy palm bender:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lnjf3cZAFI