The Steel Guitar Forum

On most PSGs the changer and nut are anchored to the body, so you might think the neck has no effect on tone. But according to Gene Fields (GFI) a good PSG gets some resonance from the body. A solid wood neck damps some of that resonance more than a hollow aluminum neck does. So you supposedly get a liver, brighter tone with an aluminum neck.

Is a liver tone what you get from a reddish
colored steel?? Sorry! us Seymours have this wierd sense of humor!<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Doug Seymour on 26 August 2002 at 01:09 PM.]</p></FONT>

That is why people like Carlos Santana use a heavey body guitar. Carolos' is custom made by Yamaha to give him that never ending sustain. And yes, Carlos' guitar is red which is why he gets the liver tone. My guitar has a great liver tone too. I guess thats why the cat is always hanging around while I play.

I hear that Uncle Doug was seen covering up a Hammond B-3 in his garden. Didn't want to take no chances, just in case he might need an organ transplant.

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>Is a liver tone what you get from a reddish
colored steel?? </SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>The answer to this is, yes. As a matter of fact I once saw a reddish Sho-Bud with a liver tone. The E-9th neck had kind of an "onion flavor" and the C-6th neck's tone had more of a "bacon flavor".

Rick

Actually, a "liver" tone should be slightly jaundice or yellow, perhaps alcohol induced. Never mind.

Eddie......


I think what these guy's are trying to tell you is:

Tone and such is all in the ears of the beholder.....

This subject has been discussed off and on ever scence I can remember ( I'm not young either) Each person will have his/her own idea as to cabinet style,neck lenght,type of wood,and yes, even the color of the cabinet.

This is because some folks seem to think that certain color paint pigments have a tendency to dull audio frequencys and dampen naturally induced osulations(sp)in wood products.

The bottom line here is:

There is X number shades of gray here.
What you see,hear and feel about the tone etc,etc, is subjective due to the varied make-up of the Axe,type of Amps, and even (believe it or not) the weather conditions.

Case in point her is if Buddy Emmons played my rig, he would sound great, If he played your rig,he would sound great !

This tone thing will never go away as long as there are players lookin' to improve their sound !!!



<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bill Crook on 28 August 2002 at 06:01 AM.]</p></FONT>

Eddie, I think from a historical perspective, the first aluminum neck steel guitar in the modern era... and I don't mean the stamped metal guitars that Rickenbacker and Gibson put out (the first Gibson was all metal)..., was built by Paul Bigsby. The majority of Bigsby steels were aluminum neck guitars. Emmons decided on aluminum necks because of the sound, but separated the neck from the changer mounting and the peghead to solve thermoexpansion problems. Don't know if this answers your question, but at least its not a smart-ass answer.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

How come todays wood body + aluminum neck steels don't sound anywhere close to a Bigsby?
Pickups?

The tone is so significantly different that even the "it's all in the hands" argument doesn't hold water.

A local picker has a Bigsby Quad set up right next to an Emmons P-P here in Portland, and we've gone back and forth to each.

There is an overwhelming difference in tone.

Both sound great in my opinion, except one is "the current benchmark" as they say [insert grain of salt here], and one has faded into obsurity.

Why isn't anyone marketing a Bigsby sounding steel or pickup (or Bigsby-Bro), I wonder?