The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi, I'm new to the forum, but I'm hoping someone here can help me with something! I have been considering purchasing a Duesenberg Multibender for a strat or tele, but after talking to a guitar builder/tech friend of mine who is currently working on a guitar with one of these units installed, I realized that this device is close to, but not quite what I'm after.

I want to be able to play a chord on a guitar in standard tuning while bending and/or adding vibrato to a single note of the chord. That way I could play chord melody stuff and make the melody line sing out/bend in a similar fashion to the way that I would play it if I was playing just the melody line by itself.

I envision this device working the same way as the Duesenberg Multibender in that the levers could be assigned to two or more of the higher strings, but with more of a traditional whammy-bar type of action. Ideally it would have a range of minimally a whole tone up and down in pitch from the fretted note and be free floating. I think a system like this is would be more musical and useful to me than a traditional guitar tremolo system given the music that I play.

Does such a thing exist? If not, can a Multibender be modified to do this? I am guessing that if anyone has experimented with this sort of thing, it will be someone here!

Thanks for your help!

Might work, Jackson's builds some good benders.

Thanks! I'll check those out

AFAIK those Jackson benders work like most others mentioned, you can either raise or lower a given string, but not both on the same string. What you're after, a bender that will raise and lower the same string with a reliable open tuning at rest should be doable within a fairly compact mechanism but you're likely going to have to build it yourself.

The tunable stop points for the raise and lower are easy to accomplish, but it's going to require a stiff spring like a whammy bar and a little ingenuity to create a reliable and stable open tuning stop that doesn't require a lot of space. You called it "free-floating" but it really can't be too "free", it needs to include a reliable means of returning the string to the correct open pitch each time your release the bender after a raise or lower. The Emmons PP changer mechanism does this rather elegantly within a fairly compact space, two levers (the fingers), two stop screws and one stiff spring. That would be a good mechanical reference point to model something that would fit comfortably in the small space necessary for something like this.

I have a prototype Jackson double bender lap steel. It can do a three semitones raise with the right string tension. The nice thing about the wrist lever is that you can pick reasonably easily with the lever engaged. Allowing you to get a lower.

This is about bender guitars, not steel guitar building. There is now a section for benders and slide guitar (Almost a Steel Guitar), I'm moving there.

Ian Worley wrote:AFAIK those Jackson benders work like most others mentioned, you can either raise or lower a given string, but not both on the same string. What you're after, a bender that will raise and lower the same string with a reliable open tuning at rest should be doable within a fairly compact mechanism but you're likely going to have to build it yourself.

The tunable stop points for the raise and lower are easy to accomplish, but it's going to require a stiff spring like a whammy bar and a little ingenuity to create a reliable and stable open tuning stop that doesn't require a lot of space. You called it "free-floating" but it really can't be too "free", it needs to include a reliable means of returning the string to the correct open pitch each time your release the bender after a raise or lower. The Emmons PP changer mechanism does this rather elegantly within a fairly compact space, two levers (the fingers), two stop screws and one stiff spring. That would be a good mechanical reference point to model something that would fit comfortably in the small space necessary for something like this.

Thanks for this (I just saw your post)! I've been thinking about this a fair amount. I think the free floating part would not be necessary, although it would be a great thing to have. All I really want to be able to do is to bend up a semitone or whole tone on a single string and add vibrato to the target pitch. That means dipping above and below the target pitch slightly. If I had the stop set for 3 semitones up and the action of the lever was smooth enough, I think this would work for a whole tone bend up with vibrato. Then I could release the lever and the pitch would return to it's starting point controlled by the stop.

That would allow me to hold a chord and bend one note in the same manner as I would with my left hand, ie. bending up into the pitch with vibrato for that singing "true vibrato" sound. You steel guitar players do true vibrato all the time with your slide, dipping below and above the target pitch/fret. I've noticed that the better guitar players do this too. If you add vibrato to a pitch that you have fretted, you're just bending above the target pitch and back again. In order to do a sweet true vibrato with your left hand on a standard electric guitar, you have to bend up into the pitch from below.

I'm thinking that the Jackson The Edge bender for telecaster might work. It appears to be the highest quality system for electric guitar, although I haven't tried any of these so I don't have any personal experience. It doesn't use bearings for the cam as far as I know, but perhaps the action is smooth enough to allow for what I'm after. I like that the steel guitar style benders allow you to bend down when going up in pitch - that is essential for playing multiple strings while bending, as you steel guitar guys are well aware of. I'll look up The Emmons PP changer mechanism, I have no idea what that is.

Ian Worley wrote:AFAIK those Jackson benders work like most others mentioned, you can either raise or lower a given string, but not both on the same string. What you're after, a bender that will raise and lower the same string with a reliable open tuning at rest should be doable within a fairly compact mechanism but you're likely going to have to build it yourself.

The tunable stop points for the raise and lower are easy to accomplish, but it's going to require a stiff spring like a whammy bar and a little ingenuity to create a reliable and stable open tuning stop that doesn't require a lot of space. You called it "free-floating" but it really can't be too "free", it needs to include a reliable means of returning the string to the correct open pitch each time your release the bender after a raise or lower. The Emmons PP changer mechanism does this rather elegantly within a fairly compact space, two levers (the fingers), two stop screws and one stiff spring. That would be a good mechanical reference point to model something that would fit comfortably in the small space necessary for something like this.

By the way, do you know of someone who might be interested in building something like this or modifying an existing bridge system? You've hit the nail on the head for what I'm after in an ideal world. Thx

Dustin Neufeld wrote:By the way, do you know of someone who might be interested in building something like this or modifying an existing bridge system? You've hit the nail on the head for what I'm after in an ideal world. Thx

I don't think there is an easy or practical way to build something like that as a mod to an existing system, you'll probably need to design and fabricate it from scratch.

Ian Worley wrote:

Dustin Neufeld wrote:By the way, do you know of someone who might be interested in building something like this or modifying an existing bridge system? You've hit the nail on the head for what I'm after in an ideal world. Thx

I don't think there is an easy or practical way to build something like that as a mod to an existing system, you'll probably need to design and fabricate it from scratch.

Do you know of someone on this forum that I could contact with the knowledge and skills necessary to build something like this for me? If I decide I really want to try to make this happen, I'll have to hire someone. Thanks again for your input!