The Steel Guitar Forum

I personally WOULD NOT want this modification on any of my guitars.

Chris Lang wrote:

Is the mod reversable with no evidance of the mod being there?

No,....................
This sort of "Mod" is NOT reversible, and NOT recommended!!

This "Mod" thing is getting way out of hand.........

Everyone please note that this is not a picture of the Tommy Young Max-Tone mod. It's misleading and irresponsible to claim that it is. Chris, you know this, and you are in violation of Forum Rules by posting it.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not post any material which is knowingly false...

A retraction and apology are in order.

Bob, I agree!
This horse has been beat to death once before!

Ok, well then please accept my apologies.

If it is not part of his tone "mod" so be it. Who knows anyway, since "every guitar is different" And Tommy cannot be specific on anything about the aledged "mod"
b0b wrote

Tommy Young says that the two screws pictured are not a part of his standard mod. He says that they were added at the request of the customer.

his standard mod
....................


The tell-tale workmanship was basically what I was talking about.

CHRIS ON THE THREAD WHERE THE PICTURE WAS I TOLD ALL OF THE STORY,,,, AS ALL CAN SEE THE SCREWS THAT I PUT ON IT WERE REPLACED AND ALL CAN SEE THAT SOMEONE HAS BEEN REMOVING THEM AND REPLACED THEM WITH LARGER ONES IN AND OUT SEVERAL TIMES LOOK CLEARLY AT THE LEFT SCREW THE EVEIDENCE IS CLEAR. I'VE BEEN THRU THIS WITH YOU ON OTHER OCCASIONS THANKS..

Tommy, there is a scripture that says, "Let not your
heart be troubled". I think that applies here.



If you ever do business with Tommy on a "one on one" basis, you will find an honest and hard working,
friend of the steel guitar community. Tommy thinks
in terms of a guitar's potential as a unit. Then he
makes that potential useful to the player.

Also a note of reference:
re⋅trac⋅tion  
Use retraction in a Sentence
–noun 1. the act of retracting or the state of being retracted.
2. withdrawal of a promise, statement, opinion, etc.: His retraction of the libel came too late.
3. retractile power.

Still waiting to see if this happens.


Ed

[/quote]

Tommy Young,
I'm a little hesitant about asking, and it's probably been asked before. Does the improvement in tone come through in a recording?

I can hear things, tones, and even a different tone sitting at my steel as opposed to what I hear when recorded. When recording I almost always end up going brighter on my tone setting. It seems to be a little bassier when recorded.

When your modification process is completed, can a real difference be noticed when before and after recordings are compared? Of course with all things being kept the same except for your modification.

MR. BILL YES YOU CAN HEAR A DIFFERENCE IF ALL IS KEPT THE SAME, THERE IS A THREAD ON HERE SOMEWHERE,((sound clips)) DEPICTING THIS DIFFERENCE SAME SONG, SAME GUITAR, BEFORE AND AFTER, OF COURSE SOME HAD ALL TYPES OF THOUGHTS ON IT BUT TRUTH IS AND WAS FACT ALL THE SAME SETTINGS ONLY THE GUITAR HAD MY MODIFICATIONS DONE ON IT ONLY DIFFERENCE.

MR. BILL SOME THINGS ARE CHANGED BY THE RECORDING STUDIO ITSELF, IT IS THEIR CHOICE TO BRIGHTEN OR DARKEN YOUR TONE JUST ASK THE ENGINEER TO HEAR YOUR PARTS OF THE RECORDING BEFORE IT IS MASTERED.

AS FAR AS RECORDING A GUITAR AFTER MY MAXTONE MODIFICATION just ask just MR.BOLLINGER in the above post he records his almost every week at ""THE BOLLINGER FAMILY THEATER"" he has recordings from a before and after guitars ask his preference, he'll be glad to answer you truthfully.

Thanks Tommy,

I'm going to look up the sound clips.

THANKS MR.BILL for the mail hope my answer was what you were looking for.

Would these modifications work on a lap steel?

Nobody knows how this mod works. According to many satisified customers, it works great.

Everybody's curious as to how it works and how much it costs. I'm gonna take an uneducated guess. Maybe I'll design my own mod and patent it

Here goes nothing...
A Fender Rhodes piano tine sustains by a "sustain bar" that is suspended by rubber grommets. If somebody got under the neck of a pedal steel guitar and installed these, it should gain sustain. Bad frequencies can also be "tuned out" with clips.



A vibraphone bar has two holes running through it and it is suspended with two strings.

I had a Gretch Viking guitar that had a bridge that was suspended by the strings. A tuning fork was connected to it. It had great sustain.

I suspect Tommy simply installs something hidden under the neck that sustains.

Does anybody think I'm getting warm?

I traded for a LeGrande II a while back that had the mod on it and I compared it with a regular LeGrande II.
Appearance wise, I couldn't tell any difference.
I haven't played it yet to compare the sound.

Erv How were you aware that this guitar had a mod on it?

I can surely understand why Tommy will not publish everything he does to the guitars. Some one would go into business doing the same thing. If I were spending a lot of money on a guitar and I was intrested in Tommy,s mod I would make a trip and listen real close to the results he gets ,then if I was happy with the sound I would buy it .We spend thousands of dollars for amps not because we know a lot about whats inside them but because we think they sound better than something else. That,s why a lot of us have three steels and seven amps ,we,re still looking over our shoulders for a better sound. Tommy is serious about what he does and a lot of us have heard the results. And as far as push-pulls go I played two of them for aprox. 25 yrs and my two were as diffrent as daylight and dark and I got tired keeping a allen wrench in my mouth all the time touching them up. Buck

Buck wrote:

Some one would go into business doing the same thing.

Many people already do!..............

Bobbe Seymore, Billy Cooper and many other seasoned pros.

They charge you shop labor to do set-ups and adjustments.

The difference is: They do not market their work as a "mod" !



Oh, and heres another one



Seems we have quite a few "mods" available !!

My opinion, there is ALWAYS room for improvement on an instrument. There will never be a "perfect" guitar. What's perfect to YOU may be hideous to another.

Bravo!

Bobbe Seymore, Billy Cooper and many other seasoned pros.

They charge you shop labor to do set-ups and adjustments.

The difference is: They do not market their work as a "mod" !

And the relevance of this is exactly what? Is this a marketing forum?

Curt, we all understand you don't know what the mods are, somehow seem bothered/annoyed/ticked off they are being done (on other people's guitars - NOT yours) and are continually attacking Tommy. Let's do the math - you don't know that the "mods" are, haven't had them done,haven't played a guitar that's had them done, and haven't (as far as I know) read a single customer complaint.

That adds up to zero. Why are you posting about them at all?

Tommy thinks in terms of a guitar's potential as a unit. Then he makes that potential useful to the player.

Now, THAT I understand perfectly - and that's from a customer. And it coincides with how I understand the whole "mod" idea from a guitar tech standpoint; while it probably is a completely different process or "mod", my taking an off-the-shelf Strat and making it into the best possible guitar I can for a player is a parallel concept; I don't know if Tommy changes many parts; on better 6-strings I'll change very few, but I will make slight alterations on every critical component.

And as stated, before, this is VERY common - just not in the steel world apparently. I applaud Tommy for being a trail blazer and I'm honestly shocked that anyone would be bothered by his business.

I personally WOULD NOT want this modification on any of my guitars.

I've seen several similar posts. I'll ask this question - why not? A post like that with no reasoning behind it is meaningless.

Jim,

You stated as fact that this is "Trailblazing".....

In Nashville alone, Duane Marrs, Jimmy Crawford and many others, modified steel guitars as far back as the early seventies. Entire Emmons PP kits were sent to Jimmy Crawford so he could do his thing. I'm sure it goes back a lot farther than the seventies. I personally can vouch for that period of time because I witnessed modifications during this period. My father would modify nearly every Sho-Bud he built for the endorsed pro's.

In fact every brand comes from someone having a modification idea which led them to eventually design their own guitar. Learn about the many variations from the standard ideas of the day. Research any of these designers, Shot Jackson, Buddy Emmons, Ron Lashley, David and Harry Jackson, Paul Sr., Gene Fields,Duane Marrs, Bud Carter, Zane Beck, Chuck Wright, etc and you'll be amazed by all of their knowledge about tweaking and modifying guitars. Guitar designs come from modifications. You still want to use the term "Trailblazing". Most of their work was done for an hourly wage and not marketed as a "mod." That's the difference. Modern steel guitar makers are more comparable to a violin maker than a mass produced guitar.

Tommy,

Although this probably feels rough at times. These threads are the best advertisements. I never heard about this mod of yours until these threads. Back in the sixties my father discovered how to make tunable compensators to resolve the return problems of the day. He would modify guitars with compensators and a few other tricks at the request of players when he worked for Sho-Bud. Good luck with your business.

Paul

Paul - The use of "trailblazing" really refers to what is pretty obvious by the reaction of some of the members here -that of promoting/marketing a product (or really, a service) with a specific focus. He's focused on a specific service position in the music business ("instrument technician"), narrowed it to one group of instruments (pedal steel guitars) and and promoted his services as one would a single product. You and I are on the same wavelength - that's why I find it so odd that players would get riled up about someone really not doing something all that unusual - he just has narrowed the business sector.

Sure, all makers do "mods" of some sort, but it's not their primary focus. Neither is it the focus of a store owner. Tommy is apparently the only one who has a singular product/service focus other than playing. The others are all "general practitioners", whereas Tommy has made himself a specialist.

To me that's a good thing - as his business expands it will do nothing less than push others into the same arena, with more well-focused techs available to players.

Tommy is apparently the only one who has a singular product/service focus other than playing. The others are all "general practitioners", whereas Tommy has made himself a specialist.

whereas Tommy has made himself a specialist.

Huh??

Jim, are you serious?......

I hope you are just jesting!..

What about this:

Instead of "Maxi-Tone Mods"

We go with "Tommys Tune ups"

That way we can just drop the whole misleading, "MOD" thing!

If you add aftermarket parts to a guitar, or change some aspect of its design, that's a "mod". I'm sure that if someone with the mod were to pull the neck, head and changer off of his guitar, and compare the hidden surfaces with a "stock" model, there would be a difference. This is modification, not just "tune-up".

Response to tbhenry:This was my first clue:

Thanks BOB this is a very correct statement and anything else is wrong and accusatory and misleading. Therefore all else is defamation of character against me and what I represent.

Thanks PAUL for the kind words and to let everyone know MODS has been done since early on to correct many different brands of guitars.

I think the big thing is simply in the name Tommy Chose to call his work. MAX TONE.

As we all know, there is NO MAX TONE, in anything. The MAX tone has to do with the EARS of the beholder. Plain and simple. That's been proven time and time again.

Therefore, what is considered by one, what max tone out of anything is, would be quite contrary to what someone else would feel, MAX TONE is.

That choice in marketing, can within itself, be proven quite wrong! All one has to do, is take one of anyone's claims to be MAX this or MAX that, and then perform a job on whatever it is, and come out with even greater results, and then, where does that put the one claiming to have the MAX TONE mod?

Tommy knows that I do know what he does. And that I'll not reveal. But, I do believe it's the wording of it, that really goes to the heart of things in most peoples minds. That's again, because there isn't any MAX in anything. There is always, something or someone, better. And that goes for anything in life.......... Don

Note Added: For those wanting to know the cost of the mod.. Dan has just posted it as being $200.00 over in the other thread pertaining to it, in Steel Players.......... Don

MAX:
Results

1. the greatest quantity or value attainable or attained. the period of highest, greatest, or utmost development

2. an upper limit allowed (as by a legal authority) or allowable (as by the circumstances of a particular case)

3. the largest of a set of numbers specifically the largest value assumed by a real-valued continuous function defined on a closed interval