Floating Sound Board (Body separated from the Frame) Idea.

[J D Sauser]

I have decided to open a new subject that Karlis Abolins brought up in the "Left Changer" Subject and I strongly feel needs to be discussed separately.

This thread really got my interest. My last build, which I no longer own, was designed to sound more like a regular guitar than a pedal steel. I call it a floating body steel. When I built it, I isolated the body from the frame by attaching the changer and tuner to the solid frame and then attaching the body to the changer and tuner so it "floated". I thought that by doing this, I would get more of a 6 string guitar tone and vibe. It was largely unsuccessful at that. It still sounds like a "steel" guitar.

Placing the changer on the tuner end and making a string-through bridge just might make the difference. My lap steel build doesn't do string-through because of the benders but it sounds like a regular guitar.

It might be worthwhile to visit some of Ed Packard's posts. He modified a Sierra to put the tuners on the changers which is a variation on the theme of this post. I don't recall what he did on the other end of the guitar.

I will be following this post with interest.

Karlis

[J D Sauser]

After we presented our left change prototype to players at the TSGA show in 2000 or 2001 we further tested it at my home in Florida.
Together with fellow Forumite and NYC architect Robert Segal we then discussed Sound Board Separation.
I always felt strongly that one of the tonal changes from non-pedal to pedal came from using the sound board as part of the structure.
Robert Segal felt that the inverted "U" shape may also be less than desirable for "tone" and that this may be one of the factors why Fender's PSG (before PS210) sounded so fundamentally different than post Bigsby designs (Sho-Bud, Emmons etc)..
Some non-pedal steelers suggested that while less practical to play, LAP-steels just resonated better than consoles. I would theorize that much of the vibrating energy on consoles, is led down the legs into the floor. If you can hear your wooden floor "sing"... it takes ENERGY to make it vibrate, energy which is subtracted from your strings -> your sustain and dynamics... and probably the stronger waves (bassier) will be more dedicated to moving the floor than you treble and overtones. So the guitar sound thinner.
Jerry Byrd with whom I had the privilege to exchange hand written letters with for I don't know how I got that pleasure, suggested the same theory. Even thou he played consoles in later years because of posture and playing heavier D8 double necks.

One can unscrew a Fender (pre-PS210) PSG from it's all-around-frame, without much detuning. The neck is a near 2" thick slab of wood. The strings are also closer to the fretboard and thus the body (since the "neck" is only barely shaped into the slab), so they have less leverage on the body, which also affects tone as their vibrations don't pull as much on both ends as on today's steel guitars where strings are considerably farther away from the neck, which often is just a "cap" without structural effect and thus much farther away from the body. But that too is yet another subject.).
Anyways... the sound and dynamics difference of such a Fender PSG being unscrewed are real and sound like the guitar "took a deep breath".

So, our prototype was build on an MSA Classic which has a all-arround bolted aluminum frame which holds all the under-carriage and evidently the legs.
Unlike earlier guitars, these MSAs had NO rear apron. Just a rather thin front apron, which I believe was there more for aesthetic considerations than structural. IF I remember right, it's about 1/4" thick whereas the top board is a total of barely an inch? Anyhow, we loosened the wooden body from the frame and just kept on screw in the front and one in the back to keep it in place relative to the undercarriage.
The tuning went "South" but after some retuning and resting, upon playing it had too taken what we could only describe as a "deep breath", "warmer", less "tight", less "reserved".... "fuller".
So, we knocked of the front apron. The tuning went "South" again, this time considerably. So much we could only play it without changing tension using the pedals and levers. But it again took another "breath".

Bob Seagal then made some tests on WHERE to "set" the body. Where to "attach" or at least have a position device ALONG the body. THAT too, not surprisingly heavily affects the result.

The only PSG I know so far which features a "Floating Body" is the NEW Sierra. I have discussed our findings with Ross (who builds them) as I have talked "shop" with many builders.

I thus thinks that this is a VERY important subject which needs attention and I hope others will chip in.

Thanks to Karlis Abolins for bringing it up.

... J-D.

[Karlis Abolins]

J.D., Thanks for separating this thread. The thread about the left changer got me thinking about possibilities. Isolating the body from the frame was the goal of my "floating body" guitar. Unfortunately, that didn't occur. I minimized the contact but what contact was left was solid and energy and tone was transmitted from the body to the frame.

My current non-pedal guitar (the benders really make it a pedal guitar) still transmits energy to the separate stand even though the stand has cork insulation.

The problems to be solved are:
1. Isolate the guitar from the stand. Perhaps this could be done with viscous coupling. What materials isolate without dampening?
2. Maximize string contact to the body of the guitar. Is a solid bridge with string-through attachment of strings the answer?
3. Connect pedals and knee levers to the guitar body while minimizing energy transmission.
3.a. Install a changer system on the opposite end of the guitar from the solid bridge?
3.b. Change the orientation of the changer fingers from vertical to horizontal?
3.c. Use bicycle style cables attached to a free-standing pedal cluster?
3.d. Attach knee levers to isolated stand and connect with bicycle style cables?
3.e. Make the changer pull-release?

Will doing this significantly change the tone to a more neutral solid body electric guitar tone which was my original goal?

Lots of things to think about and a lot of unanswered questions.

Karlis

[David Ball]

OK, this is likely to sound like heresy, but here goes.

I'm primarily a banjo guy, and have been for decades. I've studied a lot about the history of banjo innovations over the years, and one of the most frequent areas for innovation (as documented in patents) has been isolation of the banjo head (read body of a steel guitar) from the rim (read frame).

Some of the earliest 19th century improvements on the banjo involved using some kind of bearings or spikes to isolate the "tone ring" (the metal contraption that the banjo head is tightened over) from the rim itself. The idea was to isolate the head with its low mass, which amplifies the sound of the banjo, from the heavier but sound absorbing mass of the rim. Ideally, this will keep the vibrations on the head, and away from the deadening rim.

As time passed, heavier tone rings, still isolated from the rim, came into favor. These heavy tone rings had a lot more mass, especially compared to the very small mass of the head, but acted more as reflectors of the vibrations than as deadeners as the wooden rim did. The vibrations on the head didn't have enough power to do much to the very heavy metal tone ring, so they tended to reflect back onto the head as if bouncing off a wall creating more volume and more sustain.

Eventually, the mass of the tone ring got big enough that isolation from the wooden rim was no longer relevant in terms of volume. But the selective deadening/enhancing effect of the wooden rim was always still a factor in tone.

So basically, there were two approaches to improving volume and sustain on banjos. Heavier tone ring or isolated tone ring. They both work as intended from a volume and sustain perspective, but have very different outcomes in tone. The heavier rings tend to have more low end growl while the isolated rings tend to have maybe a bit more complex tone. It's all about inertia.

There is definitely a trade off between deadening and reflecting vibrations which result in the overall tone of an instrument. Deadening and resonating components work together to create the sound.

Back to steel guitars now--I think that these same things apply. Maybe the reason why the welded frame EMCIs and Blantons belong to the heavy tone ring model. The new Sierra, as well as the loosening the screws on other guitars are in the isolationist camp.

At any rate, this is a very interesting topic indeed. There's a heck of a lot more stuff to isolate/change mass on a pedal steel than on a banjo!

Thanks for your patience...

Dave

[Ian Worley]

This might actually be a different subject, but I had pondered the idea of completely isolating the "guitar" portion of a psg from the frame and pedal mechanisms quite a bit a few years back. I was thinking more about tuning stability and cabinet drop than how it might affect the tone and resonance. I believe this is at least part of the idea behind Ross Shafer's design, the downward forces generated by the pedals are absorbed by the front apron, which is detached from the top deck, but I believe the top deck, changer and tuner are still firmly attached to the frame/end plates/legs. It sounds like the changer and tuners are all still attached to the frame in Georg's design above too.

It seems to me that to completely isolate the guitar, changer, neck, tuner, etc. from the frame and mechanical parts you would need to be able to tune all the changes firmly in the changer itself, much like a push-pull or an old '50s-'60s Fender. That way tuning stability would not be affected by any flexing or movement of the body frame that might slightly alter the length of a pull. Most modern all-pull guitars rely on a firmly interconnected relationship between the cross shafts/bell cranks and changer by way of the top deck. Unlike a PP or old style pull release changer with firm, positive stops for changes, the nylon tuning nuts on a typical all pull are obviously only holding a floating lever at an intermediate point by way of the stop on the lever or pedal.

The isolated slab "guitar" portion could be fortified with adjustable truss rods on the bottom to counteract the tension of the strings on top, and minimize any drop that might result from changes in string tension by way of the different pulls. I'd be really surprised if someone somewhere over the past 60 years or so hasn't already experimented with truss rods in a psg, but I've still never seen or heard of any other than things like the counter-force mechanism on an LL III or similar.

With the goal of eliminating or minimizing cabinet drop, completely isolating resonance is not a primary concern, there will always be some transference by way of the pull rods/cables/whatever. It's not even worth debating, the only way to actually know how a guitar will sound is to build it and plug it in as Karlis did. For drop though, the goal would be more to isolate the guitar portion from the external forces that would cause flex and detuning. Anyway, just some random thoughts.

[Andy DePaule]

I started this pedal steel almost three years ago with a floating soundboard made with vertical grain western red cedar and Flamed koa.
The frame is to be all welded aluminum with the soundboard connected in 4 corners and separated from th frame with rubber washers. The keyhead and changer will be bolted to the soundboard and the neck suspended between the two.

We came to the US for a one month visit in March 2020, The Covid hit while we were here and during the month Viet Nam closed it's boarders. We have been stuck here ever since and have now settled in. I've been building a nice workshop in the garage.
They just re-opened late last month so I plan to go back in April for 4 to 6 weeks. I'll bring the steel back here to finish.

The welded frame still need to be sanded and buffed to a high polish.




Here it is somewhat assembled.


The last thing I got done was to trim the edge in Abalone strips.

[J D Sauser]

I had to go on YouTube to learn about Bajos. Ha!
Thanks!... I had no idea.

Floating Neck vs. floating Body. What ever one isolates as a "freely" vibrating part makes it "The Sound-Board"

Rickenbacher Frypans are still noted amongst the best sounding lap steels probably in close competition with the early bakelite formula Rickenbacher B-series (famed by Jerry Byrd... The Master Of Touch And Tone.
Both guitar's bodies have only one thing in common: They are made of BRITTLE material, cast aluminum or Bakelite. So brittle they can brake to a "sandy" looking section.
Otherwise, the relative mass of Bakelite is far higher than Aluminum, the Bakelite guitars are massive, larger in size and thus drastically higher in weight.
The pickups remained the same.
The bridge is totally different.

To me, they are a prime example of a good tone-board guitar.
The Frypan is decisively louder when played unplugged. The Bakelite B's are almost silent.
IF you can hear it, it moves AIR so much that it moves your ear drum! It takes Energy (away from the strings) to do that!

I have an MSA SuperSlide, the second one and it's LOUD unplugged. I blame the almost totally hollowed out body with the aluminum backing which in my opinion acts like a resonating chamber in s Selmer Saccaferri acoustic Jazz guitar. Again, if you can hear it, it takes energy (away) from the strings. It's the string's vibration which drive parts of the guitar to vibrate enough to move the air around me so much that it makes my ear drum vibrate.
The guitar, plugged in, sounds "weak" for a non-pedal steel, and Maurice once asked me "why does your guitar (I played my B10) sound better than mine?". I told him what now I wrote above.

NOW, IF you put an heavy, acoustically fairly inaudible Rickenbacher B10 solidly on a stand... she will make a wood floor sing.
If the floor is concrete, no energy will drive anything and thus non or very little will get lost.

In the late 90's I was invited to a home in Orlando to see a recently "Cassed" D10 Bolt-On PushPull Emmons a fellow Forumite by the name of "Paul" (I forgot his last name) just had gotten. I came from a large guitar fair and carried an NOS Oahu Amp with me.
He lived in an older wooden home with wooden floors.

This was and still is the best sound I ever got out of an Emmons PP!
The guitar was so tight, it felt like a solid UNIT. I felt the energy in my left hand, and everything. The C6th was so gutsy, beyond description.
It was so strong, we had the whole house "sing". I could feel the vibrations come up my seat!!
Imagine all the energy THAT takes and how much even better that guitar would have sustained if that energy was contained at the sound board.

So, I learned:
- MASS is good.
- BRITTLE materials is good (Frypan, Bigsby, Emmons, Sho-Bud all used CAST aluminum necks and end-plates and key heads. I strongly believe that extrusion which is "pasty" does NOT compare in tone reflection to cast aluminum!).
- SEPARATION is good in many ways. too.

So, how do we separate?
Well, on a PSG, evidently one would like to have a solid frame which would also hold the cross-shafts, knee levers and pedal stops. That would also confined body-drop to the frame alone.
The changer has in my opinion to be mounted onto the Sound-Board as well as it's stops or resting plate and the tuning device. In other words, the Sound-Board is "The Guitar" and can be tuned as a unit and it's only connection to the mechanical changes would be the pull-rods or push/pull rods.

The last 2 points left is to precisely position "The Guitar" (the Sound Board) with the frame as the stops are on the frame and to "secure" so that it won't "fall off", but in such a way that I would sit softly, so that it could vibrate without handing those vibration down to the frame and from the the floor etc.

We found that the "fulcrum" point that the least negatively affected sound, to POSITION the guitar was near where typically the pick up is mounted. That came somewhat as a surprise, because I had first suggested the fulcrum to be below the changer (at the left).
The "Fulcrum" would be a V-groove met by an an edge, so it serves a POSITIONING only, but would allow for both extremities to vibrate, "loosely secured to felt points between the frame and the Sound Board.


... J-D.

[J D Sauser]

J.D., Thanks for separating this thread. The thread about the left changer got me thinking about possibilities. Isolating the body from the frame was the goal of my "floating body" guitar. Unfortunately, that didn't occur. I minimized the contact but what contact was left was solid and energy and tone was transmitted from the body to the frame.

My current non-pedal guitar (the benders really make it a pedal guitar) still transmits energy to the separate stand even though the stand has cork insulation.

The problems to be solved are:
1. Isolate the guitar from the stand. Perhaps this could be done with viscous coupling. What materials isolate without dampening?
2. Maximize string contact to the body of the guitar. Is a solid bridge with string-through attachment of strings the answer?
3. Connect pedals and knee levers to the guitar body while minimizing energy transmission.
3.a. Install a changer system on the opposite end of the guitar from the solid bridge?
3.b. Change the orientation of the changer fingers from vertical to horizontal?
3.c. Use bicycle style cables attached to a free-standing pedal cluster?
3.d. Attach knee levers to isolated stand and connect with bicycle style cables?
3.e. Make the changer pull-release?

Will doing this significantly change the tone to a more neutral solid body electric guitar tone which was my original goal?

Lots of things to think about and a lot of unanswered questions.

Karlis

To answer to co-brainstrom some points off your list of questions, Karlin:

3e. Pull Release seeks to accomplish the same thing PushPull does. But also
finds the same limitations as PP.
I find that Zum's "Hybrid" or Carter's "BCT" (Body Contact Technology)
resolves the same consideration with less limitations, which is to have
only inferior pulls "hanging in the air" or on the frame-based pedal or knee
lever stops.

3 Connect cross-shafts, pedal and knee lever stops to the frame.
One may seek to not only let the changer rest against a stop plate that is
attached to the Sound Board, but as described above, use and Sound-
Board conntected enclosure which would act as max-raise and max-lower
stop plate (Carter BCT & Zum "Hybrid"), so that the fingers and their
vibrations would rest and stop against the Sound Board instead the pedal
over-run stops on the frame (very similar to an Emmons PP).

2. I am still debating the answer on top-string or string-thru.
Evidently, early Rickenbacher Lapsteels and some Gibson had the much
celebrated string thru attach.
I look at Western Steel Guitars with the top-pulling string attach at the bridge,
vs. French Steel String Guitars as Selmer, Maccaferri, Busato, Favino, as
made famous by Gypsy Jazz and Bebop Guitarist Django Reinhardt and his
heirs, which like bowed instruments had the strings over a tail piece.
Another example is Fender Telecaster generations with use either system.
One would tend to argue that physically they are completely different.
But some tests seem to suggest, that on a SOLID body instrument, the
tonal differences are so minuscule that they are only "opinions".

1. Yes, encapsulate vibrations to the Sound-Board (you call it body),
and segregate the Sound Board as much as possible from the frame
and floor. In other words, keep all or most energy in the Sound-Board-
String-"Cycle". I am very convinced that this is important.

... J-D.

[J D Sauser]

[…]It sounds like the changer and tuners are all still attached to the frame in Georg's design above too.

Right. An All-Pull design must have the changer, bridge and frame/mechanics "bottoming out" at one and the same point, in order to achieve tuning stability. No disagreement there, and having that "zero" point at the keyhead end is logical if that is where the changer is located.
The "trick" is to keep the distance from the chosen "zero" point to the bridge and to the various bell-cranks in the frame, "constant" while varying temperature and other external factors affect all parts, including rods and the strings.
As there are no real "constants" (see above), handling "body-drop" detuning is the easy part. That, and all else, is about hitting it right with built-in "compensations". After that one can focus on tonal characteristics.[/quote

Yes. Evidently we tend to start drawing from what we know.
MOST All Pull Changers will have their resting-plate mounted at the the end plate/frame.
That is NOT a must. One could foresee a "cage" mounted to the Sound-Board, surrounding the changer, offering a resting plate for "neutral" and even "BCT/Hybrid" Max-Pull Stop-Bars for the raise and lower scissors to run against. With that, you could de-rod a guitar and lift the Sound Board off the frame with the tuning still in place as the scissors, springs and the Resting-Plate(s) would remain attached bolted thru the Sound-Board to the changer.

I BELIEVE at least ONE builder is doing "sort'a'bou'that"

... J-D.

[Ian Worley]

...I BELIEVE at least ONE builder is doing "sort'a'bou'that"...

The early Fender cable changer design from the '50s-'60s is exactly this. It's an all pull scissor design that achieves raises and lowers in basically the same way that a modern all-pull changer does, but it's self-contained, the tuning stops are internal to the changer itself so not dependent on anything external for tuning stability. It's a reasonably simple design that would be fairly easy to replicate functionally, but in a more compact form.

[Paul Redmond]

My Fender 400 has only 4 screws (#6) holding the wood into the frame. They are at all 4 corners and with the use of thin washers between the wood and the frame casting, the wood is fully suspended. By retaining the solid nut and solid bridge, plus the original low impedance pickup, the guitar sounds like no other I've ever played. It's a monster on tone and sustain.
PRR

[J D Sauser]

...I BELIEVE at least ONE builder is doing "sort'a'bou'that"...

The early Fender cable changer design from the '50s-'60s is exactly this. It's an all pull scissor design that achieves raises and lowers in basically the same way that a modern all-pull changer does, but it's self-contained, the tuning stops are internal to the changer itself so not dependent on anything external for tuning stability. It's a reasonably simple design that would be fairly easy to replicate functionally, but in a more compact form.

"SELF CONTAINED"-Changer-TO-The-SoundBoard

SCCTTSB-Technology! Ha!

I am not 100% sure, but I seem to see something like that on the NEW Sierra too.

"Bottoming" against the End Plates may work, but it's so dependent on everything being SUPER tight. I Think yes, what Fender did was logical and it paid off. Most of these guitars all sounded pretty much the same and quite good.

Consistency is often not only obtained by "doing the same" but by doing it in a way that would suggest for an equal result NOT to depend from too many variables.

... J-D.

[Ross Shafer]

Were one to disconnect all the pull rods to the changer, the lower return and raise helper springs and take out the 4 bolts holding the top to the frame, the top can be pulled straight up off the frame and played like a lap steel.....not that its some,thing anyone would want to do. Just making the point that the top and all string bearing/pulling action is completely independant of the welded aluminum frame. I'll post pics if I can find 'em.

[Andy DePaule]

Were one to disconnect all the pull rods to the changer, the lower return and raise helper springs and take out the 4 bolts holding the top to the frame, the top can be pulled straight up off the frame and played like a lap steel.....not that its some,thing anyone would want to do. Just making the point that the top and all string bearing/pulling action is completely independant of the welded aluminum frame. I'll post pics if I can find 'em.

Hi Ross,
I was planning to connect the cross shafts to the aluminum frame.
With all your knowledge do you think that is the best way or should I mount them to the underside of the soundboard instead?
I'm also thinking maybe whichever way I go, should I maybe stiffen the soundboard with graphite to help prevent the drop or best to leave it free to vibrate better as I first thought I'd do?

I am going to have a wider axel with spacers between the fingers with thin nylon washers so that the string spacing can be adjusted. It will be 10 string, but will use a 12 string Alumitone PU so it will work no matter how wide or narrow the spacing.
Hope all is going well for you, family and the pigs.
Best wishes,
Andy

[Andy DePaule]

Were one to disconnect all the pull rods to the changer, the lower return and raise helper springs and take out the 4 bolts holding the top to the frame, the top can be pulled straight up off the frame and played like a lap steel.....not that its some,thing anyone would want to do. Just making the point that the top and all string bearing/pulling action is completely independant of the welded aluminum frame. I'll post pics if I can find 'em.

Hi Ross,
I was planning to connect the cross shafts to the aluminum frame.
With all your knowledge do you think that is the best way or should I mount them to the underside of the soundboard instead?
I'm also thinking maybe whichever way I go, should I maybe stiffen the soundboard with graphite to help prevent the drop or best to leave it free to vibrate better as I first thought I'd do?

I am going to have a wider axel with spacers between the fingers with thin nylon washers so that the string spacing can be adjusted. It will be 10 string, but will use a 12 string Alumitone PU so it will work no matter how wide or narrow the spacing.
Hope all is going well for you, family and the pigs.
Best wishes,
Andy