Some months ago we had a thread about a hydraulic pedal-steel, and it was discussed at some length.
A mechanical steel (such as we have today) gives feel, and by using our body's "muscle-memory" we adjust our pedal (and lever) techniques to create the feel and emotion we need to bring out via our playing. Our instrument is all about "feel" and "emotion", let us not forget that.
Servo-systems, on the other hand, are usually designed to deliberately and totally remove all the feel and mechanical feedback from control-systems. The epitome of this is the Airbus family of commercial aircraft. Sure, they mostly fly really well, but there is no direct connection between the pilot's hands and feet and the aircraft control-surfaces or to the fuel-pumps or fuel metering-system and the throttles.
So, pushing the thrust-levers all the way forward on an Airbus might give you diddly-squat in terms of a power increase just when you need it more than anything else in the world, depending on what mode the flight management computer is in. Likewise, pulling the sidestick fully rearwards may not give the nose pithcing-up movement you are asking it do to, again because the computer is actually in charge of the controls and it is merely "taking advice" from the pilot's inputs. By analogy, do we want to directly control the sound of our instrument, or do we merely want to give advice about how to play to a computer presumably buried somewhere in the cabinet?
[If you are interested in reading more on the percieved relative merits of the Airbus versus Boeing philsophy, it has been well-documented on the Professional Pilots Rumour Network (
www.pprune.org) where the issue is debated with all the fervor of ancient clerics discussing conflicting points of religious idealogy.]
Let's get back to the "coal-face", or perhaps I should term it "the stage-floor". As pedal-steel players we rely inherently on the mechanical feedback and "muscle-memory" associated with that feedback from our pedals and knee-levers to develop the sound and the tone we need, right at that very instant, in the context of the piece of music we are playing. I maintained in a previous that a hydraulic pedal-steel will not give this, unless some very sophisiticated (read expensive, and potentially heavy) additional devices are attached to the servos to generate this feedback. How expensive and heavy do our steels have to be anyway?
I postulate that a similar situation would exist with a pedal-steel built using all electro-mechanical systems. Consider how such a device might conceivably work:-
First, a basic analogue system. Push the pedal, a variable voltage is developed across a variable resistor, it sends a signal to another motor which accelerates, moves appropriately then decelerates and stops. Where is the "feel", where is the feedback? Do you add a spring on each pedal? Do you add a second motor, operating in reverse and connected to the pedal to apply a back-pressure corresponding to the force being developed by the actuating-solenoid or motor? How do you add the mechanical feedback to a device that deliberately doesn't have it in the first place? Just how complex does our musical instrument really have to be anyway? Be aware that making it electronic or electro-mechanical will not, repeat, not, make our instrument any simpler - or cheaper!
A variation would be to use a form of AC "Selsyn" type of motor, with the options of single-phase or three-phase electrics for smoothness. You still have to design and incorporate the system to give mechancial feedback to the player. But how much money is all this electronic wonderment going to cost, and how much weight will it add to the guitar, and how will it be incorporated into the cabinet, and how will the electrical and electronic safety measures required to make it safe for us to play be implemented - and by whom?
Going full digital doesn't remove the electronic complexity, it just adds the additional problems of the probable requirement to use a clocked system, D to A and A to D conversions (pedal pressure and movement are analogue signals which have to be digitised and then converted back again at the changer - or whatever replaces it) and all the problems of on-site servicing, diagnostics, replacement parts, suppliers discontinuing certain "mission-critical" integrated circuits or other electronic components required to build and maintain the system, or lower-quality imported components being used which reduce the overall integrity of the whole steel-guitar electronic control and feedback system.
All this assumes we will still have pedals and knee-levers which actuate all this electronic wizardry. If you go to a totally different control-system with no pedals or levers, then it can't technically be called a pedal-steel guitar any nmore, can it?
As I said in a previous thread, what we have in our current steel-guitars is far from ideal, but it is inherently simple, players can understand it and maintain it in the field, and the manufacture of the components is well within the capabilities of anyone who can use some fairly straightforward machine-tools. Basically, it works, we know why it works and when it stops working we (the owner/player) can usually fix it, or at least diagnose the problem with reasonable accuracy.
Now, I am not saying we shouldn't embrace change, but it is one thing to have change simply because it is change, and quite another to have change because it gives us a better product. The first is divisive, demoralising and usually only serves the best interests of those who implemented the changes in the first place. The second enriches the playing experience.
So, if someone really believes in the concept of an all-electronic servo-system controlled pedal-steel guitar, then let him build one. Better still, let him build a hundred. Take the best production model to the ISGC. Let's hear it being played, lets see how well-built it is, how maintainable it is, how easy to comprehend what is happening beneath the necks really is. Then let the marketplace decide. See how long his hundred in-stock guitars take to sell.
