Electraharp anyone?

Ray Satterfield · Post by **Ray Satterfield** » 10 Jan 2007 8:17 pm

Just admiring a 1957 Gison Electraharp on eNay and was wondering about it's tuning and pedal changes. Anyone please fill me in? Thanks alot.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 11 Jan 2007 6:51 am

I'd avoid that thing like the plague!

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 11 Jan 2007 8:02 am

I picked up a '49 EH-630 Electraharp recently for a very reasonable price at a guitar show. The pedal mechanism is nothing like a modern mechanism nor is it good for modern pedal steel playing. It's easy to set up 4 separate tuning changes using set-screws, but it doesn't work very well, IMO. Still - to my tastes, it makes a nice 8-string non-pedal console steel, which is what I got it for. But don't get it expecting to get a serious pedal steel. IMO, of course.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 11 Jan 2007 8:53 am

Having owned one myself (it was my first pedal steel), I think Dave M.'s assessment is very valid.

Ray Satterfield · Post by **Ray Satterfield** » 11 Jan 2007 9:25 am

Thank you Erv, Dave, and Jim. Nothing will take my Emmons' place but I'm always interested in the tunings, etc. of it's predecessors .

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 11 Jan 2007 9:34 am

The Gibson pedal setup lacked a lot.

If I am correct, Gibson and the Harlin Bros. got into a patent dispute and Gibson had to back off. What you see on the Electroharp is the best they could come up with.

I tried one out in the '50s and couldn't get it packed up and returned fast enough!