The Steel Guitar Forum

What are your thoughts about a MSA Classic D10? Are they any good?

I have a Classic D12 which I think is basically the same guitar with a few extra strings. I love it. It sounds great and stays in tune well. It is a heavy beast but I don't think it is any worse than most double neck steels.

A bit heavy. Very well designed and well made.
They're cheaper because they made oodles of them.
Easy to work on and nice guitars.

Heavy, but very good guitars! Those with the aluminum pickup surround (sometimes called a "neck stub") are the better ones, but any "Classic" is worthy of consideration. The last of the breed in the older MSA's (1983 and earlier) were the "Vintage XL" and the "Classic SS" models, and these were fine guitars, too. These guitars set the standard for all the best guitars today with their use of precision-machined aluminum and stainless steel rods.

If you look at the pictures on this thread, http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... hlight=msa
you will see that some of the older guitars have the neck extend all the way to the pickup. Others have the pickup surrounded by an aluminum fixture.

The ones with the neck extended to the pickup are dieboard and mica. The others are maple and lacquer. Both of these were called "classic."

Since both models had the same name, we can't tell you very much till we know which one you are referring to.

I had one of each, and preferred the maple one, but both were excellent instruments. MSA set the standard by which all other steels were measured.

People diss on the dieboard guitars, but when I had Donnie Souther's guitar to work on, and when I had one, I loved the tone. It kinda had the scooped mids honky-tonk growl like a Bud

Lane Gray wrote:People diss on the dieboard guitars, but when I had Donnie Souther's guitar to work on, and when I had one, I loved the tone. It kinda had the scooped mids honky-tonk growl like a Bud

One major league player told me he prefers the dieboard MSAs over the maple ones. It's all a matter of taste.

This track http://www.perlowinmusic.com/Track14.mp3 from my West Side Story CD starts off as a dialog between the rival gangs. I used both my maple and my dieboard steel to represent them. The maple steel has the first line, the dieboard has the second.

As you can hear, the 2 steels sound a little different. The maple guitar is a tad richer, the dieboard a tiny bit thinner.

Later in the track, other characters from the film also sing, and I used some effects to simulate their voices.

Here is a link to the scene in the movie that I depicted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyUV3hIL-G0

Mike Perlowin wrote:
One major league player told me he prefers the dieboard MSAs over the maple ones. It's all a matter of taste.

Exactly! Among other steels I have are a Millennium and a push/pull, but nothing thunders on the low end like the dieboard MSA. It's like a Hammond B3 organ with two cabinets.

And now you know why Curls liked 'em.

Been playing m.s.a d-10 classic and vintage xl d-10 for
on and off for 25 years. very good guitars for the money. heavey yes but, they have great tone.
here is don pack playing a msa d-10
https://youtu.be/PiLzmBX8lVk

https://youtu.be/9TnH_2zfq4I

p.w

They are dark sounding and growly throughout most of the neck. Love mine! I get some great tones out of it for playing jazz. I actually prefer the tone of a dieboard classic to a maple classic but the maple cab guitars are pretty sweet too.