The Steel Guitar Forum

Talking to forumite Dave Mudgett a few nights back,, We were discussing his old round front Bud 6139,rack and barrel etc.. He was talking about how this guitar, out of the many he has owned/owns ,THIS steel has the best sound he has ever heard... Just magic to his ears and those that hear it.

It made perfect sense to me as I too had a round front 6139 with rack and barrel, and still feel it is heads and shoulders above ANY other steel I have ever owned as far as sound..The people who heard me play that Bud concurred... Playability/tuning etc is another matter!


That got me thinking about this topic.. In your experience, what was the absolute best tone you ever heard while YOU played a steel?? It does not matter if it was yours, IS yours, or you just played it for a short time... I have owned many pedal steels, but to me that old round front with that clanky undercarriage is the best steel tone of all time.. I wish I still had it.. One day, I WILL get another, and it goes in the box when I do.... your thoughts on the best tone ever from a steel you play/played.... bob

I think I liked the sound of my old MSA D/10 Classic better than the other steels I've had, but my S/D 10 Carter is begining to give it a real close run!

Larry

No doubt about it. My P/P D-10 Emmons had the best tone.

Bob,The Desert Rose that I own now is the best sound that I've had except for that little blonde 6139 that is somewhere in Woodstock N.Y.?I sold it to Chris Zaloom in about 1973 never saw either of them again...6139's are amazing Why??Stu

Amazing, but the best I ever played was a 6139 blonde roundfront rack and barrel. I sold it a couple of years ago, but I now have another that I am cleaning up. I can't wait to check out the tone on this one.

Yeah, I played my last regular Rustlanders gig last June with that 6139 round front rack and barrel two days after I got it. My guitar-playing friends just came up, one after the other, and just stared at that guitar and asked me pretty much the same question - "Why is that guitar so different? Now that is what I think about when I think about steel guitar. Your other guitars sound fine, but that thing is crazy."

I guess, for me, it depends on what kind of music I'm playing. This was Americana / rock / country-rock, and this guitar just naturally speaks that language, as well as the great old pure country music sound. That Sho Bud just has this warm zingy sound - I don't really know how to describe it. It also ain't hard to look at - pics here.

The other, entirely different, but still amazing tone was the Franklin I let get away. Just put up a few old soundclips using that guitar on the Franklin thread, from when I first started playing. Even though I could barely play the thing, I think the sound of that one also comes through. One thing for sure - it sure wasn't my technique.

The best tone that I've ever produced came from my 74 Emmons D10 using ART SGE and ART FXL Elite effects. Of course like most folks I'm probably going be to partial to my own guitar. The best tone I ever heard while I was playing someone else's steel was a Derby in the Derby room in St. Louis. I played all the steels that were available to try out there and the Derby won hands down in the catagory of tone. I remember that the Flynn steels sounded kinda nice too. I'm not sure if they make those any more.

Ken

I feel like ZBs have the best all around tone.

Good subject. Those round front Sho-Buds are spectacular sounding steels. I owned two. The Desert Rose guitars sound similar to me. Also I've owned the Emmons P/P. But the king of them all for me is my 1968 Zane Beck built ZB Custom. I cannot say that its better than the above guitars. Its just so darn unique sounding and quintessetial vintage west coast Brumley/Buckaroos steel tone though a Webb. I couldn't get that tone from any other steel. I like the older MSA's also. Good vintage steel tone. To each their own.

Dave M., I love my MSA, but oh you Bud.... That's the way a pedal steel should look.

Hope you don't mind, but I took the opportunity to listen to the Stone Poets "I Think About Everything." My kind of lyric.
Was that the Bud or the Franklin?

When I began to learn to play steel I had three ZBs, one after the other - now they're gone I'm starting to realise just how special they were, and I still have their tone in my head as a sort of benchmark sound. I'm very fond of my Emmons LeGrande, but it's another animal.

The best tone I ever heard anyone else get? Tom Brumley on his Mullen at ISGC in 2000. I recently played one of those old Buck Owens TV show tapes - and there was that same wonderful sound, but from his ZB! I guess Mr. Brumley had something to do with it.....



RR

Charlie - listen at your own risk! Those Stone Poets cuts were back from when I first started playing pedal steel - even though I like the overall thing, I do somewhat cringe at the intonation on those now. I had to think hard before putting them out there, but that session and the living room session are the only tunes we ever got with the Franklin, unfortunately. I sure wish I kept that guitar and got it reconfigured to fit me properly. I like Kris' songwriting too. That's who I'm back playing with now, after he left The Recipe and came back to PA.

That was the Franklin=>Ernie Ball volume pedal=>Boss delay=>BF Deluxe Reverb, live in radio station. At that volume, every other guitar I've had sounded muddy through that rig - the full band was pretty well cranked up in the studio. But the "focused overtones" Bob Hoffnar talks about in the Franklin thread just let it come right through. Of course, with that amp pushed as hard as it was, it's not a "pristine clean country tone", but that's not what we wanted for this. In fact, almost nobody I play with wants that. There's a text file with the details on all of those tunes in the directory.

Most steels I've had sound pretty similar to me - but that Bud and Franklin are different.

I believe the best sound "I" ever made is with my P/P D-10. But I have to say my Carter D-10 is very very good and my back doesn't kill me after I gig with it.

Charlie

Hmmm, I must digress. My "personal best" tone came from an amp, not a guitar. I just feel the amp is far more important to getting a really great sound. You see, I feel that I can get a great sound with any guitar, but not with just any amp.

Donny Hinson, you took the words right out of my mouth, I feel exactly the same, I can play anything from a ol maverick to any of the newer guitars & sound good, with the right amp. a lot of a steelers sound is in his/her hands, we can't change that much, but we sure can change amps!!

Ernie Pollock
Marlen D-10, Marlen SD-10
Evans SE-150, Fender Steel King

I have to agree with Donnie as well. I just put a Fender "Steel King" Eminence speaker in my Session 400, and it is hands-down the best tone I've had yet. These speakers are supposed to emulate the old JBL sound, and...uh...they succeed, to put it lightly. I didn't know it could get better than the JBL I had to replace, but now I know it can. I am now 110% happy with my sound. So my answer is:

My personal best tone happened in my music room a couple of days ago when I installed that beauty of a speaker into my '77 Session 400. The Sho~Bud just sings now, with a real nice sparkle to the tone.

Thanks to Duane Dunard for making it available to me.

Hey Bob, great topic. I've owned and played a bunch of steels in my relatively short and undistinguished career. Off the top of my head I can remember owning an Emmons, Fessenden, two ZBs (one I bought twice), a Marlen and a Fulawka. A few months ago I would have said that the ZB beat them all, but I'm going to have to come down in the Fulawka camp for the best tone that I have ever produced. "That sound" is always present whenever I strap on the picks. In my case, I think that good tone and playability are totally tied together. My ZB has the ability to sound fantastic, but there is a considerable amount of work, technique and concentration that goes into producing the sound that the ZB is capable of. Another steel that I owned was incredibly easy to play, but I never heard the sound I wanted coming out of it, no matter what amp settings I tried. I still think about trying that brand again, though, it was a fun steel. I guess that the point I am getting to is that my Fulawka consistently produces the best tone that I am capable of making. This week is string changing time for the Fulawka, though, and I'm going to restring the ZB and give it a whirl, so, I may have a different opinion after playing the ZB.
I hope that I stated my confusion clearly enough.
Duncan

You stated very closely to what I think about when it comes to pedal steel tone..I much prefer the playability and tunability of modern steels, yet I much prefer the sound of old steels.. The tones I hear from old recordings by various players using Sho Buds, ZB and Fender steels are the tone I like and strive to achieve... Sometimes I can somtimes I can't... I get fairly close with my Carter,using a very lightly wound pickup [7.5 K], but it still is a compromise.. The Carter stays and plays in tune, never breaks a string,plays SO easily etc.. Most older steels just don't..
Its a trade off...
In the last few years I have sold off 3 old Buds, a nice sounding old Williams,a Fender 400, an a lacquer MSA... Except for the MSA, these guitars all had the "vintage" tone I love.. They are all gone mostly for tuning or playability concerns.. minor ones..string breakage frequency above modern steels etc..
They are not comparable to the Carter or other modern guitars in that regard..
I guess in my case, stability and dependability trump that "magical" tone... I wish I had it all, but in the meantime,I deal ... The sound of a 1965 steel is not easy to get in a modern guitar, but most 1965 guitars have isssues many modern players would rather not deal with... The answer of course is to own several of each!!!!.... bob

I agree with Donny about amps, but that said, there is NOTHING that pleases me as much as my ZB thru my '68 Twin Reverb with a JBL D130F 15". The only thing that even comes close (and were talking personal bests here like the thread started out) is my Zum with my custom wound BL PU thru the same amplifier.

The amp is the common factor. But the ZB has a voice of it's own, that I both consciously and unconsciously try to match with the Zum.

A ZB thru a Fender is the idealized sound I hear in my head.

I also love a classic Sho-Bud sound, and if I was going to buy another PSG a Bud might be the one.

I respect the P/P EMmons ideal as well but it has never "spoken to me" the way the ZB sound did or Rudy Gabriletto's old green SB did

Kevin,and Bob I own the first D10 that Desert Rose built and it sounds exactly like a ZB,I used to own a ZB,but it doesn't have any of the ZB problems,It's like an old school guitar with a modern mechanism.I've got a song that I recorded if you'd like to check it out send me an email,and I'll email it to you..Stu

My black mica, SD10 Fessenden sings the best for me personally, far better than either of my PP Emmons, and even just a hair sweeter than my lacquer D10 Fessy. Looking foward to getting a mica Fessy with wood necks--might be the best yet...

1.Promat
2.Emmons p/p
3.Sho~Bud

Db

I've always felt most comfortable - hence probably "sounded my best" on the Emmons original. I've owned 7 through the years and they were all great sounding guitars. But mainly, I feel comfortable behind one because the lever spacing and other ergonomic factors are very consistent from one to the next. I've always used Peavey amps as well, having tried all the other steel amps, I like Peavey best.

JC

I've got 2 of-um...

I even like to hear the clanking RK&Bar sounds fighting to get the strings close to in-tune!

In the 39 years I've been professionally playing, I've owned many, many guitars because I've not only owned and played many onstage, I've bought-sold-traded as a semi-pro dealer. Probably 15-20 Emmons PPs, about 18 Sho-Buds, a half-dozen cable Fenders, 4 Mullen guitars, 4 Fessenden guitars, and one Sho~Bud Fender .

The best sound for me is my most beloved Emmons PP, a Dec. 1964 D10 wraparound (#1264018) I got from Jim Loessberg. Played through a Webb 614-E with JBL E-130-4 speaker.

In case anyone is wondering, this is also the guitar that I've used to record my most recent course material.