E9th/B6th Universal Players

George Macdonald · Post by **George Macdonald** » 21 Jan 2003 7:53 am

I have played a U12 MSA since 1974, and am awaiting delivery on a new Carter U12 with 8 and 6. My tuning is B6th/E9th . My RR lever raises 4 and 8 back to E and LL lowers 4 and 8 to D and raises "outside" Eb to E. [doubles as pedal 6 on a double neck] LL raises 4, 8 and 11 to F. LR lowers outside D# to D and C# and lowers string 7, F# to F and E. I have 2 verticals between LL and LR. One lowers string 5 from B to Bb, and the other raises outside D# to E,and raises both F#s to G#. Pedals are pretty standard with "Franklin" change on first pedal.

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Hans Holzherr · Post by **Hans Holzherr** » 29 Jan 2003 5:53 pm

Hi Kenny,
I have been playing a U12 Schild guitar, a brand made in Switzerland, for at least 12 years. I have 5 knee levers and 'only' 6 pedals because I get the D note on string 8 with the knee lever that lowers the second string to D. I use a U12 because of the reduced weight, and because I have only one brain. HH

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 29 Jan 2003 10:16 pm

Home brew 12 string, EMCI 12 string, and Anapeg 12 string[This message was edited by Jim Palenscar on 30 January 2003 at 10:25 AM.]

ed packard · Post by **ed packard** » 30 Jan 2003 7:10 am

Started with an E9/B6 12 string when I came back to this stuff 20 some years ago, ..moved on to a 14, ..more room to experiment.

Randy Pettit · Post by **Randy Pettit** » 30 Jan 2003 7:21 am

I went from an S-10 to an S-12 in 1984, largely under the influence of Reece Anderson and Jess Hudson. A double-neck guitar is just not ergonomically comfortable to me. Besides as others have said, I'm too lazy to change 20 strings! I started with a Dekley S-12 7&4 (a GREAT playing and sounding guitar, Jim Smith), and now have two Carter U-12's, both with BCT.

David Wright · Post by **David Wright** » 30 Jan 2003 7:38 am

I sit behind a Sierra I have played a Bb6th for 32 years now, I started out with 5 & 4
it has grown to 9&7 this is the best Universal tunning out there I believe, and may just be the first Universal tunning..
I played a M.S.A. for the fifst 20+ years

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[url=http://david_wright1.tripod.com/]My Web Page[/url]
Sierra Guitars

Sierra S-12 9&7
Peavey-2000-PX-300

[This message was edited by David Wright on 30 January 2003 at 07:42 AM.]

john buffington · Post by **john buffington** » 30 Jan 2003 8:23 am

Mullen U-12 7+5, E9th/B6th
I call it "The Heart".
It is lacquer body, purple heart apron, inlayed cross in the middle, maple top and purple heart neck. Killer tone, plays like a dream and is the new Royal Precision model.

Robert Todd · Post by **Robert Todd** » 30 Jan 2003 1:49 pm

I own 2 Carter U12s 8 & 6 and 9 & 6 I love them dearly.

ed packard · Post by **ed packard** » 30 Jan 2003 2:33 pm

David, ..what makes it "the best tuning out there"?[This message was edited by ed packard on 30 January 2003 at 02:34 PM.]

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 30 Jan 2003 3:00 pm

IMHO, the thing that screws up the B6th side of the S12U thing is the arrangement of the top 3 strings.

Davids open tuning is Bb6th, and he raises his E's (when he needs to) to play in Eb9th.
I have no doubt that this is the best tuning out there, for him.
I like it alot too but that half fret thing would short circuit all my "home bases" by 1 fret.

My tuning is B6th/E9th.
My top 3 are:
C#
G#
F#

In E9th mode my top 3 are:
D#
G#
F#

So when playing either B6th or E9th, I'm thinking 2 stacked groups of:
2G#
3F#
4E (Eb in B6th mode)
5B
-
6G#
7F#
8E (Eb in B6th mode)
9B
Note: 6-9 are in the same order as normal S12U setup, so when I switched the top group to this order the transition was easy, as I had already been playing it that way on 6-9 for years.

Wether in B6th or E9th, a high percentage of all the playing I do (in a band situation) is on strings 2-9.

So, for the way my brain processes information, I might also say that it's the best tuning out there, for me.
Plus, I have a whole 'nuther world going on for strings 6-12, which is set up to accomodate a finger picking style for solo performance with vocals (which, as Ed knows, has had me flirting with the idea of an S14U, although I think I've got it covered on S12U for now).

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 30 Jan 2003 5:05 pm

I learned on a Sho-Bud S10 E9 in the '70s in Nashville. After not playing for over 20 years, I started up again. I'm an old open E slide guitar player, so I always felt I needed strings on the bottom going down to the root E. I don't play much Western Swing, and at my age don't want to have to learn a whole new neck, or carry that much weight, or change that many strings. So I picked up an Emmons P/P S12 extended E9. But this guitar has limitations on the setup (and parts for setup changes are hard to come by, and the mechanics ain't so simple to work with). So I also recently got a Fessy S12U with 6 and 5. My intention was to convert it to an extended E9 with lots of versatility for experimentation. But until I get the needed parts, I'm trying out the B6/E9 thing.

On the Emmons ext. E9 I found the number of grips needed to skip over the 7th and 9th strings was very hard to get used to. When the U came, I found that leaving out the D on bottom made it much easier to play. I'm thinking a D on a pedal or knee will make it available while keeping the low grips simple. However, I have found no use for the 12th string B. Even if I needed it, it just goes klunk and has no usable tone (I use an 0.68, which seems standard). Even C6ers don't seem to use their lowest string much. Maybe I should put a D down there. It would be out of the way, but I could grab it when I need it.

When the Fessy parts come in, I will probably move the ABC pedals over one to the right, and put a Franklin pedal (or something useful) as the first pedal. In addition to country, I play blues, so I am interested in putting flatted 7ths, 5ths and 3rds on the extra pedals and knees, for both the open pedal position, and the AB pedals-down position. To me those are more important than the C6 Western Swing type stuff. These would also seem to work well for modern jazz, which is more blues based than Swing based.

Once I settle on some good stuff with the Fessy S12U, I'll try to put as much of it as I can on the Emmons S12. Then I'll have two killer guitars with different sounds, both great in their own way.

How does this sound to you vets?

There is one other idea I may try at some point. I love the flatted 7th the Sacred Steelers put between what is equivalent to the E9 4th and 5th strings. Also, C6ers have always found a 6th useful in that position. It strikes me that you could put either one of these there (whichever you would use the most) and get the other one with a simple half step pedal or knee. You would have the best of both worlds. However, this might really mess up the important E9 grips, and also might not work out so great with the AB pedals down. Does anyone have any ideas about this?

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Student of the Steel, and cheap instrument connoisseur: customized 1970 Sho-Bud Maverick, Fessy S12U, Emmons S12 E9 P/P, Nashville 400, Fender Squire, Peavey Transtube Supreme into JBL 15", 1968 Gibson J50, '60s Kay arch-top, 7-string Raybro, customized Korean Regal square-neck, roundneck Dobro 90C, 1938 Conn Chu Berry tenor sax, '50s Berg mouthpiece, Hamilton upright piano. You make it, I'll play it (more or less)

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 30 January 2003 at 05:06 PM.]

Jimmy Dale · Post by **Jimmy Dale** » 30 Jan 2003 10:12 pm

Kline U 12, 6 levers and 7 pedals. Sixth lever is a left knee right that raises the B's to C. Jim Miller I'D RATHER BE STEELIN'

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 31 Jan 2003 7:04 am

Dave,
As you may recall, I also play Emmons and Fessenden guitars. If you haven't already, check out my website below. My '69 Emmons has a tried and true 6x6 configuration that pretty well covers the universal changes. You may want to use that as a starting point. EMail if you have questions.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro

Bill Llewellyn · Post by **Bill Llewellyn** » 31 Jan 2003 7:58 am

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 31 Jan 2003 8:05 am

Right, Larry. I've made copies of your setup, and will be referring to it as I play with mine. When I get the parts and get back around to fiddling with the Emmons P/P, I may get back to you with questions on the P/P mechanisms. Right now the Fessy is just way easier to make changes on, and Jerry is easy to get parts from.

Tom Campbell · Post by **Tom Campbell** » 31 Jan 2003 2:26 pm

I adopted the Pete Burak setup a couple of months ago and couldn't be happier...the linear sequence makes more sense. Because I also play non-pedal, it is easier to transition to my Sierra S12. I also dumped my traditional C pedal. I can get the 5th string C# with my A pedal and have the F# only one string over. I now use the C pedal to raise my 5th string to C.

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 31 Jan 2003 8:24 pm

Pete's tuning is laid out in a logical manner and once you get used to changing to it, it will be easier to play the notes in a sequential manner.

Dave D.- That is a good idea putting the 6th between the 4th and 5th string of your E9. Good thinking. That C# is what I use on my universal, this opens up all the E6 chords for me, so now I play in E6 instead of B6 or C6. Same bar positions as E9 and I get all the E9 things too. I also use the E9 E to F's knee, to get a dominant 7th two fret down from the tonic. for example- Play G on the 3rd fret, and move down to 1st fret with the E to F Knee, the is D7, also take the 12 string E down to C# .and give the boo wah too....al

Graham Griffith · Post by **Graham Griffith** » 1 Feb 2003 12:42 am

I also play a s-12 universal tuning ... specifically the universal tuning devised by Zane Beck. In it's simplest form it is 4 x 5 ... a lot less pedals and levers than the "standard" universal tuning. Nonetheless it gets most of the sounds.

My new Anapeg (which will hopefully be arriving this year ... 4 years from order) will step out with a few new changes but will still be Zane's tuning.

Graham