The Steel Guitar Forum

Anyone else have one of these great guitars?

TTT

Here you go Mike


I'd been thinking about potentiality trading my S10 for an S12 as both of my favorite players have extended E9's but those extra two strings do take some adjusting too... Anyway when this one popped up I decided to throw a bid at it and... Well, time to sell some other stuff now.
This one is a U12, 4 and 7. I think it's an '88. All original and in need of a thorough cleaning but it played better than expected straight out of the shipping box. I'll see if I can handle a 12 string now.

You can always remove 2 strings.
Erv

Now that I’ve thought about this for awhile, I think buddy’s mci’s were purely the Carter guitars like the first one I had. Not welded. With the wooden front apron.

I still haven’t changed from the bb pickups just out of being lazy. I agree with paddy long, the barcus berry’s are kind of a dog. These guitars sound awesome with bl705

I’m about to put 705 in mine and switch to a peavey Ltd

I just found a vintage Ltd all original I think will sound great with my emci.

I agree with Tommy’s statements too. Right on par with push pull Emmons tone

Bill

Bill, I've been doing a fair bit of research on these guitars since discovering them and, fwiw, it seems that Buddy played both varieties.
Jim Smith mentioned having done the rodding on two of Buddy's guitars and was pretty sure they were welded.
There's also an EMCI (which were all welded) that Buddy is pictured playing at one of the Steel Shows - either St. Louis or Dallas - the one when Jeff Newman put a bag or something over Buddy's head while he was playing. It's got the flag EMCI logo so it was a welded frame guitar.
Without doubt, some if not all of the "MCI's" he played were wood frame guitars.

Near as I can tell, the switch between wood and welded frame guitars took place in late March or early April of 1986. I've been able to confirm that from a few old forum posts. The change from MCI to EMCI happened later but I can't find exactly when.

Yes. There’s also a YouTube of buddy playing the emci somewhere overseas but hes playing raisin the dickens in the video as I recall it. Sarah jory played one for a long time.
I think when gene fields came up with the welded frame it was a master stroke. This one of mine still has virtually no deflection and stays in tune better than anything I’ve ever owned.

The fact that Jim set those up for buddy and he liked it perfectly out of the case says something for the guitar itself and Jim’s talent as well.

Mickey didn’t have to do much to the one I have. It’s practically brand new.

I kind of want to load mine up a little more with two more knees maybe

I would like to find a u12 mci and put a Bb6 tuning (Reece/ jr knight/ David wrights) setup more or less

Great thread. Love these guitars.

Bill

Modified with splits? Tell us more

Brian your probably not too far wide of the mark -- I got my MCI Rangexpander D10 welded frame on the 18th April 1986.. thats when it arrived at my place in New Zealand ... I ordered it a couple of months before that, and I had the catalogue advertising them for a month or so before that. So I think the Welded Frames were at least available from early in 1986 =- and possibly earlier !! I still have the catalogue which has Buddy sitting at one of the guitars on the cover - in his derby ! :-} and I still have the guitar (back on page 2 of this thread) !!! it's a 9 pedal 8 knee tone monster which I still love to play out occasionally :-} Telonics 409 pickups.

Brian Hollands wrote:Modified with splits? Tell us more

So I am the second owner of this awsome machine. The first owern bought it from Al Brisco. Al had machined the split tuners on the changers for the first owner. The only other emci that I have seen this done to was on Randle Curries purple EMCI

BTW- I am looking for a set of working barcu berry pickups to put in my EMCI as they would have been the originals.

Paddy Long wrote:Here's a couple of pics of a older MCI which I have just finished refurbishing .... stripped right back with changers out and thoroughly cleaned and rebuilt --- 8 pedals and 5 knees, reasonably standard setup.

This guitar was not a welded frame version, but very stable and easy to play just the same - sounds fantastic.

That looks like one I owned in the past

Quinten I’ve got two barcus berry’s original to my 1989 emci they ohm out at about 13.5k if you are interested. I’m going to bl705 and will have no need for the bb pickups

I would like to have my changers drilled and tapped like that for splits.

[quote="Brian Hollands"]Here you go Mike

[img]https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/userpix ... 2616_1.jpg[/img]
I'd been thinking about potentiality trading my S10 for an S12 as both of my favorite players have extended E9's but those extra two strings do take some adjusting too... Anyway when this one popped up I decided to throw a bid at it and... Well, time to sell some other stuff now.
This one is a U12, 4 and 7. I think it's an '88. All original and in need of a thorough cleaning but it played better than expected straight out of the shipping box. I'll see if I can handle a 12 string now.[/quote]

If you ever want to sell this one let me know

Bill

Quentin I bought that guitar from a guy in Canada - the idea was to "steal" any parts off it during my refurb project of my Rangexpander D10 ... I ended up with enough parts to rebuild this one too, albeit to a stock standard level. I still have a few MCI parts left over as well so might do a stock take on that lot and put them up for sale at some point!

Quentin
That was my guitar originally. I bought it from Al Brisco as you stated. I had it for a few years then Al sold it on consignment for me. Kinda wish I stil had that one for a backup. It was a nice guitar.

Paddy Long wrote:Quentin I bought that guitar from a guy in Canada - the idea was to "steal" any parts off it during my refurb project of my Rangexpander D10 ... I ended up with enough parts to rebuild this one too, albeit to a stock standard level. I still have a few MCI parts left over as well so might do a stock take on that lot and put them up for sale at some point!

Yes I had it for a while if it was the same one
I think someone from Alberta ended up buying it. It had pretty good tone for a wood cab

Don McKown wrote:Quentin
That was my guitar originally. I bought it from Al Brisco as you stated. I had it for a few years then Al sold it on consignment for me. Kinda wish I stil had that one for a backup. It was a nice guitar.

Sir I am honoured to own and play this guitar, I have waited years for a nice one and this one exceeds my expectations. The only thing I want to do is add another knee lever or two plus some extra pulls. As qell as try the barcus berrys in it as well as a few others I have here.
I know how you feel about letting go of an insturnment.

If I remember rightly I did buy it from a guy in Alberta - I got him to send it to my brother in Abbotsford, and I picked it up from his place a couple of months later on a planned visit! It still plays great and sounds very good, probably better than before since I completely stripped it, cleaned and lubed it, and rebuilt it as a standard 8 and 5. I also put new legs on it too - once I tracked down someone who could supply the smaller gauge threads on the sockets :-}
I just have to rebuild the case - which is a bit battered, and doesn't fit the guitar properly - then I will sell it, hopefully to someone starting out !

I replaced the original Marcus Welby pup for an E-66 and it was a significant improvement (not as thin sounding). Ended up putting the original on my 8-string lap steel (was a cheap single coil).

Any more out there?

This was an mci I had a while back. Dounded great! Moved it along as I was in search of a welded frame (which I now own)

As a matter of fact I am pretty sure it is the red one above that Patty restored

https://youtu.be/bKyTZ4ZxmMs

Here's one of my EMCI's. I built it myself from new old stock parts I got from Fred Gretsch. He bought out Sho-Bud and EMCI. I have another D-10 EMCI. Notice the laminated maple butcher block top. That's what they look like before they put mica on them.

https://youtu.be/OyuGQbOoi7c

Quentin - it's "Paddy" ... Patty is a girls name :-} !!!!