The Steel Guitar Forum

Grava! Ĉiam fermu la ingesta valvo antaŭ ol ŝalti la ĉefan ekspresilon. Eliru tra dekstra pordo kaj forpeli ĉiujn gasojn antaŭ lasi la pramon.

(In other words, my lips are sealed.)

For a very brief period in my early days I bought a brand new Sierra 12 string Uni ... this guitar was almost unplayable new from the factory ... the pedals required so much pressure to actually function that you almost needed to leap off the seat with a 40lb bag of cement on your back to get them to hit the stops ! no amount of adjustment made a bit of difference, and it sounded very bland as well - it was a complete dog all round !!! The guy who bought it from me just loves it and still has it to this day I replaced it with a Sho Bud Super Pro in 1982 which was a great guitar, despite the shortcomings of the knee lever mounts hehe ...

ShoBud-Baldwin Crossover. Sounded wonderful. Switch over to the C6 neck, sounded great. Switch back to the E neck, and all the pedals/knees were out of tune. Somebody stole it, and I added some bucks to the insurance and bought a new 1972 Bud D-10. What a difference!

A basket case ZB I tried to rebuild. Sounded great but was a continuous pain in the A$$.
I loved that guitar but it was like dating a Stripper / Hooker.
Not that I would know anything about the heartache involved with that situation.

Ken,I've been there!!

Which part Stu ? the ZB or the dating hehehe !!!

Paddy,Both,I owned the Z.B.from Hell and my last year of high school I had a gorgeous dancer/stripper girlfriend...I learned a lot !!

My worst pedal steel that wasn't manufactured new as junk to begin with and was suppose to be a professional guitar was a Sho-Bud LDG. I bought it used in Ft. Worth about 1984. I was playing 6 nights a week in a house band and it would not stay in tune for one song. It would tune up but slip out as I was playing. At the time I didn't know anything about PSG mechanics but wished I had a third hand to work the tuning nut while I was playing. I swore off Sho-Buds for over twenty years then I found another mint condition LDG in the Tyler, Tx. newspaper at a garage sale for $500.00 I figured what the heck I can always sell it at that price if it's another dog. I gave $1500.00 for the other used lemon LDG. Turns out it played, sounded and stayed in tune fantastic and I ended up playing that guitar for 15 years. I can still hear that fat clear tone in my head. Moral of the story, brands and models don't mean anything. What does mean something is who owned it before you.

Stu Schulman wrote:Paddy,Both,I owned the Z.B.from Hell and my last year of high school I had a gorgeous dancer/stripper girlfriend...I learned a lot !!

You learned a lot about dancing?

Ken,Yep!Thumbs Carlile used to tell me that I'm a beautiful dancer!

My least favourite steel was a Fessenden. I realise that I must have been unlucky because a number of excellent players do very well with these guitars.

Mine was impossible (for me) to keep in tune. The raises and lowers needed tweaking after every song (or so it seemed).

I bet my one was the exception rather than the rule.

Maybe not Roger, my Fessenden was just like yours,wouldn't stay in tune played weird too.Finally took it apart and found all the cross shafts were too long by about 1/16" except one.Seems they were binding on the strip of Al that keeps them in place. I figured maybe the guitar aged and dried out, causing it to shrink a bit.Now it tunes ,etc. but it just don't "fit" me I guess.

I don't think I have ever had a guitar that I though of as bad. Some just did not fit me or they did not play as I had been used too. Some just need some TLC in the mechanics or a different pickup. Pickup's are very important. Different ones for different guitars. Their are a lot of reason's a guitar will not stay in tune, not that it is a bad guitar. And of course their are those that the body is just dead no matter what you do. I would call that a bad guitar but still it could play well but with out the sound you want. It used to be you had to be part picker and part mechanic to play steel guitar. Today's guitars are so far ahead of what used to be. I made my first one in 1970, a S-10 with 2 floor and 3 knees, still have it. Pull release changer, plays good and sounds good and stays in tune good. But it is Homemade. I made everything for it but the Grover Keys. I guess my kids will sell it in a yard sale,ha. But the journey for me in the steel guitar world has been wonderful. I have never been a great picker but I love the Pedal Steel Guitar. J.R.

As others have mentioned, it isn't the make so much as the particular guitar.... or on used guitars, unfortunate tinkering by a previous owner. Very early on in the journey, I bought a second hand pull release Marlen. It was terrible, super stiff action, unreliable tuning, etc. It was so bad, that I was afraid to sell it to anyone else. It sat in a case for close to 20 years. Years later, after I learned a lot about adjusting different guitars and mechanisms. I pulled it out of the closet and did a complete tear down and rebuild. Looking it over during the disassembly, I realized just how wrong the setup on the poor old girl was. After the complete going over, it tuned up, played easily, and sounded great.

I did have Waco MCI U-12 that really wouldn't tune up properly, partially due to excessive cabinet flex, and partly due to the demands of the U-12 copedent. It wasn't too bad, if you just used it primarily as a, sort of, extended E9... but things got funny with the B6 side pedals. Tone was great though.

I once bought another MSA S-12, only to find that it had originally been an SD or Double neck, that somebody cut in half. That guitar never played right.

Why would somebody mangle what was probably a fine guitar when it was new?