The Steel Guitar Forum

I just picked up an Emmons S-8 PP - I think student model. It has 4 pedals and 1 knee lever. The end plates, rear legs, pedals, changer and the undercarriage look standard PP to my untrained eye. The "roller" nut is pretty funky. The guitar sounds great, although I don't think the strings are any where near correct gauges and the tuning was nothing I could recognize. I bought it off a guy who was going to learn and didn't.

The setup is a mystery to me. It looks something like this....although all the changes are way out of adjustment. Any ideas for tuning?

_____P1_____P2_____P3______P4____LKR
1___________+1
2__________________+2____________-1
3____+1____________+1
4___________+1
5
6________________________________-1
7__________________________-1
8____+1

It is indeed a student model steel. Model SS-8.

It's listed in an old Emmons brochure for $595.00 and $89.50 for the knee lever and $80.00 for the case. My brochure is probably from the mid 80's.

There was also a model SS-10.

My presumption is below---your basic E9 without the 'chromatic' strings. I can't say I understand P4---although it is a common knee lever change, usually with a 2nd (chromatic) string lower (D#>D), it seems like a fairly less-than-everyday change. OTOH it would give you some strummable 6th & 9th chord options with P3.
String gauges would just be the standard E9 set.

+1 = half step raise
+2 = whole step raise




[tab] 1 2 3 4 K
1 G#--------- +1(A) ------------------------------
2 E------------------- +2(F#) ---------- -1(D#) --
3 B-- +2(C#) --------- +2(C#) --------------------
4 G#--------- +1(A) ------------------------------
5 F#----------------------------------------------
6 E------------------------------------- -1(D#) --
7 D---------------------------- -1(C#) -----------
8 B-- +2(C#) -------------------------------------[/tab]

Caveat---I'm just guessing.

That is a really cool find! The tuning that Jon suggested appears exactly right to me.

Oops, somehow that one double-posted!

Thanks for identifying and for the suggestions on the setup. I spent a couple of hours on the mechanics this afternoon and the guitar is playing pretty well. Someone had the changers really off kilter. I am not sure about that 4th pedal, but I think I will leave it that way for now.

Regards, Patrick

that's it! my first steel was one extremely similar, an S-8 Emmons with one pedal less!! a dandy little machine... 1971