The Steel Guitar Forum

I have played a Carter D-10 for about 13 years, and a few months ago my curiosity regarding U-12 kicked in, and I bought one. The first things I noticed were 1) the B6th pedals are less comfortable to reach, and 2) all my levers become compromises, especially in B6th mode. I felt as though I was gaining ground on C6th with my D-10, to the point where 2 levers were not enough, but I just can't seem to make sense of E9/B6 because of the lever compromises?
What have I missed? Have I not given U-12 enough of a try? I like the compact and lightweight body, but I wanted to expand musically, not give up certain changes.

A few solutions may exist.

You will have to post your copedent ... and what body size is your uni?

Hi, Tom, I'm having a hard time uploading the copedant via my phone, but here is a link to the for sale ad, which includes the chart.

Basically, the body is as small as a U-12 can be; keyless, single frame with no extra real estate anywhere.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... lliams+u12

Lincoln Goertzen wrote: What have I missed? Have I not given U-12 enough of a try?

probably just need a little more time to hunt out the sounds you want. you may need to find different string groups and grips.

That's a pretty full setup. What aren't you getting?
I think you need to give it more time.

I played that guitar for two years while I learned the Universal tuning. It isn't a complete D -10 but close as you'll get. I thought that I needed the 8x6 ,but after "getting " the hang of the uni, I'm happy with a 7x5 guitar. Part of the trick is finding some of the C6 moves in the A6 positions .

Definately a few things on there I would have to learn to use. .. on the other hand. .. missing things I have on my Uni. .. which is a 5x5...

I think one of the main things I would miss on your copedent is the b to c raise. ..a knee lever c to c sharp on a d10. At least a few uni players add the raise to the boowah and cancel it with the vertical. Double duty.

There is tremendous Uni power in a g sharp to a sharp knee lever...aka C6s P4 on a D10.

Just off the top of your head make a list with two columns...headings E9 and B6. Then order your changes in relative importance to your playing approach...only one change allowed per line. Then we can assess how to optimize your copedent.

You have a loaded rig and you should be hitting 90 percent plus with it.

I tried universal a long time ago. I am a pretty simple minded player and as much as I like the idea of getting both necks on one, 2 necks just made more sense to me. It sounds silly, but I really like having the D on the E9 without hitting a lever.
I play a high G on my C6, so I'm pretty old school. So please disregard this post.

p.s. looks like a fantastic Williams and is nicely loaded!

Lynn,
I spent a few years with a U12 and feel the same way you do. I sat down at a D10 and everything just lays so simple on it.

If I ever try out a 12st tuning again I will not try to
get both necks on one. To many complications and compromises. I would just expand on my own C6 tuning.

BTW: The standard C6 tuning can already get most of the sounds people want to hear from the E neck.

Unless, like me, you're overdependent on the various unison convergences of E9, a lever to raise the Es to F, an A pedal that raises Cs to D and a B pedal that raises As to Bb...

Thank you all so much for your thoughtful replies. You gentlemen are the best! I'm feeling more encouraged already.

What am I not getting? Well, I'm not getting my head wrapped around the concept of two combined tunings. "One big tuning" it ain't, at least to me. I'm still thinking two tunings, or at least two modes. This leads to the following problem(s):

When I plan out my E raises and lowers in E9th [mode], I think of them as raising and lowering the root in the no-pedals position. Then when I plan out my C-B lower on my C6th neck, I aim to place it on the same leg, so that it becomes an intuitive change. This doesn't work for U-12, for the obvious reason that a "root" lower in E9th mode becomes a "fourth" lower in B6th. Same for my LKV, which lowers B to Bb. "5" in E9th, "1" in B6th. Thus my beloved E9th changes become moot in B6th, and adding some of my C6th changes to the RKL and RKR ruins my E9th changes.
Maybe I'm just way over-thinking this, and need to rely on muscle memory. Any thoughts?


Here is my thought process for the last few weeks on my D-10:
I love the sounds that Doug Jernigan gets on both E9th and C6th, so I have set up my C6th right knees to be as close to his as possible, instead of the "standard" Emmons changes. Transferring these changes to my U-12 just doesn't work, as illustrated above. If I were to change anything else about my C6th, it would be to get some left knee levers installed and set up like the rest of Doug's.

I also am thinking really hard about moving my E lower to my right knee, because having both on the left makes smooth changes really hard. I know it will be difficult to change now, but somehow it seems like it might be worth it.

I have tried three different ways (MS Excel, MS Word with Table, MS Word without Table), and I can't figure out a way to post a copedant.

So, my necessary changes (Thanks for that thought, Tom) are as follows:

E9th Standard ABC pedals, and e-raise on LKR
B6th standard pedals 5-8.

I need to figure out where to put the following:

- e-lower- No shadow of a clue where is best anymore.
- reverse pedal 6- I'm thinking LKL2? Paul Franklin appears to have combined P8 and Reverse 6 on LKR. That would be very cool if it works out in my setup.
- b-string lower- this is something that I use on LKV on E9th, and RKR on C6th. No idea where is the most efficient place to put it.
- 6th string G# lower to F#. I have that on RKL on both steels right now, but I'm not opposed to moving it and relearning if there is a more efficient placement. I'm also not opposed to changing F# to G# if that makes more ergonomic sense.

I don't use the 1st and 2nd string changes for much of anything. Maybe there's a bunch of music there that I'm missing, I don't know.

Thank you all for your help, and your kind comments about the Williams. I think it's a great guitar, and I hope to be able to play it to it's potential someday.

First, a way to mentally approach the "one big tuning".
Don't. Think of it in terms of all the individual "pockets" or positions of each neck, each there ready for you to switch gears. It sounds like the same thing, but there's a subtle shift in the thinking.
If you spend more time on the C6th and you have enough holes in the changer, you could tune it to B6,and have a knee pull 4 and 8 from D# to E.
I put that on RKL in my MonsterBud, and RKR hosts P5.
I'd not worry too much about the inverse 6, since you have a D on string 2 and you can pull 8 back to E by letting go of the standard D# lever (or applying the Alexander raise: I got the idea from him)
The 6th string lower, I'd put it on LKR, where Reece Anderson put it (he used a half-stop at G as well)

For starters. ... while e lowers on right or left leg is a personal judgement call for regular E9... the uni tuning shifts the balance in favor of e lowers on your right knee. ...

Think of it this way. .. how many combinations are you unable to get with the e lowers on the lkr.. then add in comfort accessing the b6 pedals...then add the idea that splitting the E raise and lowers on different legs gives enough similarity to having a string 6 double lower to possibly repurpose that change.

More recently I did a spreadsheet comparative analysis of e9 B6 vs E6 E9 base tunings. .. and the latter was significantly more efficient in its ability to achieve maximum changes on minimum real estate. .. that is the new direction I am pursuing.

There was a good thread started by Mike Perlowin a few months back where he asked Uni players to post their copedents. .. the results ranged from very regular Uni s set up like D10s...to highly personalized integrated copedents.

One of the funnest things about the universal is the amount of time you get to spend designing your copedent. ..lol...ive got years and years invested in reducing mine from a generic 7x5 to a personalized 5x5..Although would be most complete as a 6x6... I am with b0b on the point that after 5x5... the complexity starts working against your playing...so the objective may very well be to find the minimum rather than the maximum.

My belief is that the Uni approach is better served with designing an integrated copedent rather than hard fitting together a D10 copedent. Ultimately. .. when you design your own copedent that fits with your understanding and musical needs only then you will be satisfied.... work to be done.

keep in mind that no matter what setup doug jernigan uses, the reason he sounds so good is because he has practiced, studied and played as much as all the great players do. he has been one of the absolute best experts on the instrument for over 40 years. there are maybe ten or twenty players in his category out of many thousands.
no one is any 'better' than doug.

The logical "best" place for the E lower is on your RKL. I couldn't break years of habit, so I left it on the LKR. I'm 6'1" with long legs, so reaching pedals was no problem for me... and the Williams has the lock lever for extended periods of playing the 6th side.

You should drop the 2nd string to C# on that lever as well to give you the D on top of the C6. I don't like lowering 2 with 4 and 8, as it messes up some standard E9 licks, but it does make the most sense.

The B to Bb really works on the LKV for both 9th and 6th stuff.

Do look at Larry Bell's excellent page. He has put a lot of thought into the Uni concept, and there are lots of good ideas there.

http://www.larrybell.org/id5.htm

And you could look at Carl Dixon's monster Uni tuning, which does have almost everything.


http://b0b.com/tunings/CarlDixon.html

Lincoln, I hope I don't cause more issues here but you may consider a tuning that Mike Perlowin turned me onto several years ago. I think he got it from BUDDY. The thing I liked about it was that the E9th portion on the first 10 strings remained the same. As I'm getting older I wish I'd given that tuning more effort because the D on string #9 was still there without having to engage a lever.
I'll ask Mike if he can post it here as I've lost my notes on it.
Good luck to you.

When U12s first came on the scene, a lot of top players started playing them, Buddy included, and it looked as if that was going to be the way of the future. I saw Junior Knight playing an MSA U12 at a club in Dallas in around 1980 and he just blew me away. I was considering making the move, but then noticed that after awhile a lot of the players were going back to their D10s, including Junior. When asked why they'd gone back to the D10s, the consensus seemed to be that the U12s left them missing the "essence" of the E9 and C6 sounds they were used to getting on their D10s. So I gave up on the idea and stuck with what I had. In retrospect, I'm glad I did as only a few of the D10-to-U12 converts ended up staying with the U12 as their main axe.

Age and circumstances must come into it. I started on a nice old D10. Then I built a uni out of curiosity and I admit it's a bit of a compromise. On the other hand, I can lift it! I've started rehearsing with a band once a week and although the twin-neck looks nice set up in my music room, at 64 I'm not up to wrestling it into the car any more.

Do I miss the 9th string D? The rest of the band don't seem to.

Ian Rae wrote:Age and circumstances must come into it. I started on a nice old D10. Then I built a uni out of curiosity and I admit it's a bit of a compromise. On the other hand, I can lift it! I've started rehearsing with a band once a week and although the twin-neck looks nice set up in my music room, at 64 I'm not up to wrestling it into the car any more.

Do I miss the 9th string D? The rest of the band don't seem to.

At 69 and with a bad back, I understand the weight issue. My response was I tried switching to an S10. But I soon realized that even though I normally only play a few songs a set on C6, I REALLY missed it on those songs.

So now I'm playing D10 again, but I carry the legs, pedal rack and rods separately. But there is no question you can get a lot more C6-sounding stuff out of a U12 than an S10.

There's the new Excel 12 string that switches from E9th to C6th with the flip of a lever (disregard two strings per neck).

As I recall, Junior Knight told me his MSA had a lever somewhere that basically converted his U12 to a fairly standard E9 tuning and copedant, with two extra strings. Don't remember the specifics, but maybe raised the 4th and 8th strings a half step to E? Seems like he said he played it in that mode quite a bit of the time.

I also discussed that approach with Bruce when we were working up the order for my Zum in '82 and he discouraged going that route. But neither Junior or Bruce were talking about a conversion lever that would basically toggle the entire tuning between E9 and C6. That's an intriguing concept. But I'm afraid I'd have to send my right hand to a "re-education" camp if the C6 mode would start at the 3rd string.

A bunch of folks... including me.... have fiddled with a way of setting up uni guitars with lock levers of some sort to give the complete 6th and 9th tuning. It is more or less doable, but some of the string gauges get a bit iffy. Billy Cooper was working on an experimental GFI for a while, but abandoned the project.

Forumite Tony Glassman was using this for a while...



I've seen some similar setups incorporating a center set of levers for the 6th side.

The Excel guitars look interesting.

The U-12 is basically a different animal than a D-10 and should be approached that way. If I was playing standard country gigs 5 nights a week, I would be playing a D-10 guitar. I don't do that. Most of my work is in Pop, Roots, Blues, or Rock. The U-12 is a really great choice for my purposes.

Lincoln Goertzen wrote:When I plan out my E raises and lowers in E9th [mode], I think of them as raising and lowering the root in the no-pedals position. Then when I plan out my C-B lower on my C6th neck, I aim to place it on the same leg, so that it becomes an intuitive change. Maybe I'm just way over-thinking this, and need to rely on muscle memory. Any thoughts?

I applaud your looking for intuitive changes. It's hard not to over-think copedents; it's part of the fun, as Tom suggests.

6th string G# lower to F#. I have that on RKL on both steels right now, but I'm not opposed to moving it and relearning if there is a more efficient placement. I'm also not opposed to changing F# to G# if that makes more ergonomic sense.

I like the G# lower on RKL unless it's needed for the E lower. (I personally would eliminate the F#7 for an extended E9.) It makes sense with your root lower thinking. There appears to be no ergonomic reason for F#->G#, but I can imagine an argument for the F# lower; I suspect it would facilitate muscle memory slightly--that is, it seems more intuitive to me.

I had no particular dog in this hunt, but with respect to what Bob H. says, I'm amazed at what Sez Adamson can do on C6.

On a 12 string, are the string spacing the same as a 10 string? Or are they closer together? Thanks in advance

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