Questions for Duesenberg Multibender/Jackson Edge Owners

[Dustin Neufeld]

I'm interested in the Duesenberg Multibender/Jackson The Edge string benders for electric guitar, and am hoping someone with experience with these units could answer a couple of questions for me:

1) Is it possible to do "slow" bends? Is the action smooth enough to allow for this, or is it more of an "on/off" type of thing?

2) If I set a lever stop for 3 semitones up on the B or high E string, but I only bend up 2 semitones, could I then apply vibrato like I would with a whammy bar on a floating guitar tremolo system? Is the action on the levers precise enough to allow for this sort of thing?

Unfortunately I don't know anyone who owns one of these benders that would let me try it. The Jackson Edge might actually work better for this sort of thing, but as it doesn't have roller bridges, I'm concerned about tuning stability.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

[Jeff Highland]

Yes you can do slow bends.There are just travel stops on the normal position and the bend position
I don't know if you can do 3 semitones up, there is probably not enough travel, you could certainly do two up and vibrato down from there.

[Lee Gauthier]

I install a multibender on a guitar a few years ago. It can definitely do slow bends no problem. Check out Luke Cyrus Goetze on youtube for some great playing with one. I don't really know why you'd want to use the bender to get vibrato when you can do that with your bar, but... I guess it could? It wouldn't feel as good for it as a whammy bar because it's not a floating system.

[Bill McCloskey]

You can definitely do slow bends. But I sold mine soon after i got it for two reasons: the big one was string breakage, and it was a serious pain in the butt to replace the broken string. Not something you could do easily if it happened in a gig. And second, i found the levers to be really in the way when you were just playing without the benders. Beautiful instruments and all, but too much trouble for the way I play.

[Dustin Neufeld]

I install a multibender on a guitar a few years ago. It can definitely do slow bends no problem. Check out Luke Cyrus Goetze on youtube for some great playing with one. I don't really know why you'd want to use the bender to get vibrato when you can do that with your bar, but... I guess it could? It wouldn't feel as good for it as a whammy bar because it's not a floating system.

I want to be able to play a chord on an electric guitar in standard tuning while bending and adding vibrato to a single note of the chord with my right hand bender lever. I want to do this in a fashion that simulates a bend and vibrato typically done with the left hand. That way I could play a chord melody, and while holding a chord with my left hand, I could make a single note of the chord (the melody-line) sing out/bend in a fashion similar to the way that I would play it if I was playing just the melody-line by itself. I don't want to bend all 6 strings while I'm doing this; just the one that I'm playing the melody on. And another advantage of the Multibender is that bending a string with the left hand doesn't cause the other strings to go out of tune like they would on a guitar with a floating trem.

Given that I'm a jazz player who uses standard tuning, I think a system like this would be more musical and useful to me than a traditional guitar tremolo system or the steel guitar type systems designed for open tunings. It would be especially useful when playing by myself, as a bender with these capabilities could add a lot when playing chord melodies on solo guitar.

In order for this to work I would need to be able to bend slightly above and below the target pitch for a "true" vibrato, which means the stop would need to be set one semitone higher than the target pitch.

[Dustin Neufeld]

You can definitely do slow bends. But I sold mine soon after i got it for two reasons: the big one was string breakage, and it was a serious pain in the butt to replace the broken string. Not something you could do easily if it happened in a gig. And second, i found the levers to be really in the way when you were just playing without the benders. Beautiful instruments and all, but too much trouble for the way I play.

Have you tried other string benders for electric guitar? In particular, I'm curious about the Jackson Edge system. Seems like a well-made bender, although I'm surprised they didn't include roller bridges in their design. I would think there are intonation issues with the strings sliding across brass bridge saddles, but I don't really know for sure.

[Bill McCloskey]

I haven’t tried any others . That one experience cured me.

[Dustin Neufeld]

I haven’t tried any others . That one experience cured me.

Haha, nice!

[Allen Merrell]

I have a Jackson on a tele. It works smooth and accurate and stays in tune. The ability to do drop D and accurately return to E is very neat. I am raising the B and G whole step ( on separate levers) and I don't see a problem with 3 half steps. You can set it up with what strings you want to raise. David & Harry do super work on building this pitch changer. Best thing since sliced bread.

[Dustin Neufeld]

I have a Jackson on a tele. It works smooth and accurate and stays in tune. The ability to do drop D and accurately return to E is very neat. I am raising the B and G whole step ( on separate levers) and I don't see a problem with 3 half steps. You can set it up with what strings you want to raise. David & Harry do super work on building this pitch changer. Best thing since sliced bread.

Thanks for this review! I am very interested in Jackson's The Edge Pitch Changer for a partscaster telecaster I'm planning. The quality seems excellent and the functionality of the levers looks ideal.

I'm also interested in Jackson's bridge b-bender for acoustic guitar, but despite it being featured in the demo video on the Jackson website, there doesn't seem to be much information about it. Have you tried one of these?

[Allen Merrell]

No Dustin i have not tried the acoustic version and you are correct it is not listed with a price. If you contact Dawn Jackson their site she can tell you if it is available. It may require you to send your guitar to them to fit it. Although it looks like it fits in the peg hole. The pitch changer was simple to install. I have considered putting a pitch changer on a lap steel I am starting to build.

[D Schubert]

Dustin, I've played guitar with b-bender, pedal steel, banjo with Scruggs tuners, and lap steel with Certano palm bender. Maybe this is unwanted advice, but I'm thinking that you will have a very difficult time trying to "feel" your way to a whole-step with any precision, when your hard stop is tuned to a step-and-a-half.

[Dustin Neufeld]

Dustin, I've played guitar with b-bender, pedal steel, banjo with Scruggs tuners, and lap steel with Certano palm bender. Maybe this is unwanted advice, but I'm thinking that you will have a very difficult time trying to "feel" your way to a whole-step with any precision, when your hard stop is tuned to a step-and-a-half.

Thanks for the response - this is exactly what I wanted to know (and was afraid of!). I thought maybe it was possible, but I haven't tried any of these benders myself. I realize that they weren't designed for this, so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.

If I really wanted to make this happen, I would probably need to hire someone to build a bridge specifically designed to do this. Ian Worley had some interesting things to say about this in my other post "Free Floating Multibender for Guitar?" in the "Almost a Steel Guitar" category.