The Steel Guitar Forum

I was hoping to find tuners that had "Kluson Deluxe" stamped into the metal like the remaining three original on the guitar have.... I think the ones from Kluson might have that or don't they?...JH in Va.

WARNING HARSH REVIEW FROM PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

As a collector the piece is great.

As a player piece - I played it before back when the London Reso Centre still had a shop. Was truly unimpressed. I actually was more impressed with more modern builds as opposed to brand name. Everything about it sounded terrible. It was like the mellow version of the Gold tone cheap-o six string.

Range was low, pickups distorted in the higher register, tuners, and knobs cheap. Hate to say it but you bought History.

GOOD NOTE: History of Gibson = Priceless

I know everyone in here is going to scream at me just because it says GIBSON. But for playability I'm just saying its "Pants". Sorry.

Even the pickups on the Chinese £99 Lap Steel sounded superior in range. Doubt me. Test it and see. And I hate the sound of that Chinese 6 string instrument.

For $200 bucks you can have fun. Be careful with it because it'll probably be worth a lot more as times elapses.

I bought a BR9 for $25 back when they were considered garage sale junk (some might argue that they still are). It has the shortcomings the Stefan describes. However, I found that for rock and blues, the thing really kicks butt. The distortion doesn't matter and in fact can actually be an asset. When I was playing with a group at the old Gram Parsons festival in Joshua Tree, i ended up using this instead of some other steels which I consider to be superior for general use. Especially when some extra distortion is added, this thing really screams. It is not what you want for Harbor Lights, though.

Makes you wonder though that we make excuses for crap quality builds for Lap Steel Guitars but wouldn't think twice to call it rubbish if it were a normal guitar.

Eg.
Vintage guitar tuning heads - not staying in tune longer than a song or two.
Pickups - muddy and not being able to hear full range of instrument
Knobs - cheap plastic that breaks off easily or numbers that are marked incorrectly
String spacing - uneven
Output - low output with lots of noise.
Pickup - not differentiating tones in low or high ranges clearly.

Imagine these attributes were in a guitar. Would we be so forgiving or would we accept it's just not made well.

Something to think about.

I get the sense we forget distortion should be an effect "optional choice" to colour ones playing. Like a spice.

Rather than distortion due to a bad pickup.

Oh, I agree in general. It's just that I did find a use for this instrument and it works well in a limited way.

I went ahead and ordered a set of tuning pegs from Stewart/MacDonald yesterday for the guitar. The salesman said they were of superior quality to the originals so that's good........JH in Va.