The Steel Guitar Forum

I have seen many steels mounted on three legs that look like they may have started out as lap steels. What I would like comment on is this: If the same instrument is used on legs and also on the lap, is there a definable difference in tone and sustain?

I would particularly like to hear from anyone who has experience of this.

Thanks, Allan.....

I've played several of my steels "lap style" that can be mounted on legs as well and to my ears they sounded the same.

Thanks Andy.

Anyone else care to comment?


Regards, Allan.....

I have several Supros that go "both ways" and I think there is a difference in how they sound (slightly brighter and thinner when on legs), but it may really be a difference in how I hold and play and how hard I push down when it's on my lap. Probably more mental than physical.

When playing a single neck steel, I prefer it to be on my lap.
On a multi-neck instrument, I prefer it be up on legs.

Allan Munro wrote: If the same instrument is used on legs and also on the lap, is there a definable difference in tone and sustain?

My answer is a definite YES. It can be heard in some cases and it can definitely be measured.
Some steels are affected more and others less depending their initial tonal qualities and mostly their leg layout.
We did some test as to the point where a steel could be attached on and found some which made the steel sound good and others which totally destroyed the instruments tone and sustain.

If we discuss the qualities of tone woods, it just does not seem to make sense to send all these nice vibrations to floor via a metal express lane. If you can get your floor to vibrate, where do you think that energy needed to do that is subtracted from? It is so logical, one would not even have to try it to know with certainty.

I think that some guitars with which this phenomenon is most sadly evident are some Gibson Consoles. Some of these can change the "color" of their sound just by playing them on your laps and turn out relatively poor sounding instruments when setup on their metal legs.

Our tests have shown that once a stand engages or preferably only positions the guitar at some very unique spots, the detrimental effects can be reduced almost beyond measurably and certainly beyond being noticeable to the player's and audience's ears.

MSA's "Freedom stand" is in my opinion one of the best and sound wise least invasive options available today as it only positions the guitar onto the stand, leaving the body the ability to still "breathe" and vibrate quite naturally without sending much energy to the floor.

... J-D.

Thanks all for most interesting replies.

J-D, I have been experimenting with this lately and have pretty much come to the same conclusions as you. I don't have the instruments to do actual tests with a selection of guitars but I found a way to test various pieces of timber to try to prove what I 'felt in my bones' as it were.

The purpose of this post was to find out if my experiments were something that carried through to actual instruments and you all have been of great help in this.

I have found a way to repeatably plot the active and less active areas in some kinds of stringed instruments and I now feel that I would like to try to carry the concept to a conclusion. To that end I am now working on three steel guitar bodies which are all very different in style. I will probably only take one to completion but all will be made to the point where I can make my tests and measurements.

I am well aware that tests of this nature have been done in the past using interferometric principles but what I have been aiming at is an inexpensive and simple system to arrive at a result that is adequate for the purpose, any more being overkill.

Again, thanks to all who have contributed to the thread at this point. Further input would still be welcome.


Regards, Allan.....

Just curious about this subject...does the loss of sustain and tone resulting from the use of legs mean that the heavier multi-neck instruments like Stringmasters, Remington Steelmasters, Excels (think Jerry Byrd) and others are second rate citizens in the non-pedal world as far as sound goes?

Can anyone point to the loss of tone or sustain on any recordings made with instruments of this nature?

Also, does this leave the pedal steels in the dust as far as desirable tone and sustain go?

J D Sauser wrote:My answer is a definite YES. It can be heard in some cases and it can definitely be measured.
Some steels are affected more and others less depending their initial tonal qualities and mostly their leg layout...

J D -- My first thought when reading Allan's query was that my Fender sounds the same to me. To be honest, though, I prefer to play it on shortened legs, ala my pedal steel. I feel that's where I have the most control and precision.

After reading your post, I can see where a hollow wooden theater stage, a cement pad or the plain ole' dirt would have tonal effect. It's never been so dramatic on my horn that I noticed, or maybe I just dialed my amp to compensate.

Remember that your amp will sound "different" when you are sitting down next to it compared to what you hear in the standing position. I notice this difference even with my tele and other six-stringers when sitting vs. standing. The closer to the amp I am, the greater the difference in perceived tone when sitting vs. standing.

Frank Welsh wrote:Remember that your amp will sound "different" when you are sitting down next to it compared to what you hear in the standing position. I notice this difference even with my tele and other six-stringers when sitting vs. standing. The closer to the amp I am, the greater the difference in perceived tone when sitting vs. standing.

Thanks Frank. Not sure if you're talking to Allan or me or it's just a general information post. I've played professionally for more than twenty years, so I'm aware of things like that. I always strive to have my amp pointed at me, regardless of the stage monitor system. Just prefer to hear what's coming outta my rig, ya know?

To be clear, I'm discussing the tone of the guitar with/without legs. All other things being relatively equal.

We dealing with a contradiction here.
Buddy Emmons said that when he checked out an instrument, he would stum the strings and then feel if the vibrations were radiating down through the legs. If they were, that was a sign of a good instrument.
The postings above indicate something altogether different.

Is that why most of us put a piece of carpet under our steel guitars? So the tone isn't "sucked" into the floor.

This thread is developing in a way that I had not expected. I didn't want to say too much in my original post so as to avoid biasing the thread but what I had in mind was this. Is there a 'deadening' effect from having the steel sitting on the legs of the player over having it sitting on a relatively small support base of three metal legs?

I have (I think) arrived at a way of establishing the 'best' place to put the screw on legs which I feel would, in effect, allow the instrument to float in space with minimal external effect. I am looking to remove external damping so as to maximize sustain obviously.

Thank you all for the amazing contributions, regards, Allan.....

I would be interested in hearing your thought on leg position. I have a single neck 6 string and a double neck 6 string that both are legless right now. I have been thinking I would put some legs under them. Three legs each but spacing and position is still a question.

Rick, as I see it, The thing is to find the place where the legs will have the least effect on the guitar. What that means in practice is finding the place where there is least movement in the body of the instrument at normal frequencies. Now, that actually changes when you play a high not as opposed to when you play a low note. So, with that said, consider the situation that arises when you play a chord. I am sure you can now see that the whole process is becoming complicated.
The process that I am working on scans the frequency spectrum and finds the 'best fit' position from the point of view of null motion points. I am at the early stages so far but the system shows a lot of promise. I am making a set of three steel bodies right now (when the cold allows me to work out in my semi-heated shop) to continue the experiments.
As any builder will tell you, one of the first things that you do when selecting a piece of wood for a guitar is to hold it up and tap it with a knuckle to listen for the ring. Well, where you hold the wood will change the ring quite a lot. If you play around with this effect a little you can establish the point(s) where you can hold the timber to get the best ring effect. The place where you are holding the timber at that point would be the best place to put the leg if it were a guitar you were 'knocking' on. If the wood is ringing while held there in the fingers then the leg would have minimal effect also. Now, that is all theory. So, what I intend to do is to plot the best leg points on some raw baulks of timber, (done) then cut out some typical body shapes, (underway) and then re-plot the points to see what changes. I will then complete the build on at least one of the guitars and see if the results follow the theory. There are a lot of variables as far as the practical application of any collected data goes too. The selected optimal points must also be points that will work from a physical stability aspect. Note that I have gone a long way past just tapping the wooden pieces.
How far all of this will go depends on many things. I would like to try different finishes, different fretboard types and a few other variables also. But that is a long way down the road. *insert big, heavy sigh here* Unfortunately I also need to earn a living so I don't have quite all of the time in the world.
For now Rick, I would look at what others are doing with instruments of the same or similar type and copy, copy, copy. Empirical data is still very powerful.

Dang, again I am writing a book!

Regards, Allan.....

Erv Niehaus wrote:We dealing with a contradiction here.
Buddy Emmons said that when he checked out an instrument, he would stum the strings and then feel if the vibrations were radiating down through the legs. If they were, that was a sign of a good instrument.
The postings above indicate something altogether different.

It's NOT a contradiction. It merely shows a tight, integer instrument. For the way these instruments ARE built, it certainly a good thing to look for.

What we are discussing, is a different approach to building an instrument, or the validity of such a different approach. Would we have such a different instrument, then BE's test would have lost it's validity on SUCH an instrument only.

... J-D.

Rick
You may want to consider one of my stands. They are rock solid and you won't have to alter your instru

ments.

Yep Mark. I've seen it on an other thread. I like it. Very similar to MSA's stand. NOT tightening the guitar down, but merely positioning it. The sound board can vibrate as freely as it would on laps.

... J-D.

For a "traditional style pedal steel" believer like me, would this have any merit...: Simply screw the legs into a vibration-deadening fiber material insert in the end plate... so the vibration would not travel down the legs but go back thru the body. Or would this kill too much of the vibration in the body?

Hi Bent,
I think that your 'fiber insert' would be more likely to absorb the vibration rather than returning it to the body of the guitar. This is more feeling than fact on my part.

The reason that I am currently working with lap steels in this regard is that they are relatively simplistic when compared to a pedal steel. The tests and experiments that I have been doing started out with a board, my measuring equipment and a method that I came up with to introduce the correct vibrations to the wood. In all honesty, I don't know what I would have had to do to start the procedure for the same study in a PSG. The pedal steel is such a complex system in comparison with a lap steel.

Regards, Allan.....

So, Allan, by knocking on the piece of wood you find the timbre of the timber? (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.)

J D Sauser wrote: The sound board can vibrate as freely as it would on laps.

I'm not sure I get this. When a guitar is resting on your lap, its vibration is being damped over two fairly large areas, i.e. your legs. So it can't vibrate freely. Even though the vibrations mostly aren't going through to the floor, a lot of vibrational energy is still being absorbed by your legs. Particularly with my acoustic guitars, I notice a distinct loss of tone and volume when I place the guitar on my lap vs. strumming it in an upright position. (And I have really skinny legs!) I think this happens to a lesser extent with my electrics as well. I don't have any guitars with legs for comparison, but why would metal legs necessarily have a greater impact on tone than the flesh-and-bone variety?

You did knot think that I wood let you get away with that without having to bark at you for it I hope. (except that I love sappy jokes)

Allan.....

Ben, if you have read the complete thread you will see that there is quite a breadth of opinion on this matter. When I started the thread I was just trying to get opinions/thoughts from people with, hopefully, a few different experiences and different types of guitar.
I am working on a theory that playing a steel on the lap does indeed deaden the sound to a degree and that wrongly positioned legs can do this also, even if to a lesser degree. I have developed a rig that is showing a lot of promise in working out the best place to put the legs to minimize the problem.


Regards, Allan.....