Pedal Steel Music

Tip #1 … Stay out of Iraq next week.

Tip #2 … When playing through two amps with the third ground prong on the AC recepticle, you will always hear an audible hum. Cutting off the ground prong or adding a ground lift adaptor which can be bought at any hardware store, will eliminate the annoying 60 cycle hum. You can also plug everything into the same power strip and then plug only the power strip in thus eliminating the ground loop and the 60 cycle hum.

Tip #3 … I’ve noticed many players are replacing the nylon tuners on their all-pull guitars with tuners that are longer than the stock ones that come from the factory … this gets the tuner out beyond the end of the guitar and makes them much easier to see and faster to tune. I agree with this modification but be careful to pack your guitar in it’s case in such a way as the tuners are protected from contact with the case. Many guitars automatically have enough space because of the switch on the end of the guitar.

Tip #4 … As several of you may have noticed, when tuning your guitar, if there is a fan in the room or near you, tuning seems to be more difficult. The larger the blades on the fan and the slower the fan is turning, the more it seems to affect your ability to hear the strings in perfect tune. This happens very often in the summer on stages or in clubs where there can be fans blowing on the band. To illustrate this point, a Leslie tone cabinet that has a rotating speaker you will notice, actually raises and lowers the pitch of the note due to the doppler effect of the moving speaker. It is not just the noise of the fan but the way it actually affects the pitch to your ear. To sum up, make sure the air around you is still or else use a good tuner when in an ear-unfriendly environment.

Bobbe

Hi everyone,

Tip 1: I’ve been contacted by many people who have purchased steel guitars on Ebay and called me to get the guitars serviced, fixed and made playable. Most of the guitars are total disasters with such things wrong as cracked bodies which affects tuning cabinet drop, bad pickups that sound awful or no ohm reading, tuning keys that are stripped and sometimes serious problems that can’t be fixed. Several guitars have parts missing which are no longer available and have been stripped to make other guitars ususable.

After hearing from so many dissatisfied Ebay customers, I feel it is my duty to let the steel guitar buying public know the woes of Ebay. Most of the guitars were only worth a third of what was paid for them. For instance, at Christmas time there were several Sho-Bud Mavericks go on Ebay for $600 – $850. These were the very common variety, some with parts missing and most not in very good shape. The true value of these guitars was $150 – $200.

I feel Ebay is a wonderful place to sell steel guitars but a horrible place to buy them.

Tip 2: I see many Sho-Bud and ZB guitars being bought at low prices by customers that think they can quickly, easily and cheaply add two more knee levers. No way, not any more. Many Sho-Buds were built from ’70 to ’74 with only two knee levers. By now, all the original parts have been used up making these modern configuration 4 and 5 knee lever guitars. Before you buy a steel guitar, make sure it is what you want configuration wise. Homemade knee levers and homemade will destroy the value of what you started with. This of course, only applies to the older classics and not new guitars such as GFI or Emmons. As most of you know, Sho-Bud was just purchased in a package deal by Fender Guitar Company. Fender has stated they have no interest in doing anything with Sho-Bud, either building, selling or providing parts. This means that Sho-Bud is now a true orphan which means the bad ones are worth less and the good ones are worth more. Any Sho-Bud that I sell will be in incredible shape and ready to go for many years, regardless of how I purchased them.

Tip 3: The Emmons factory has just disposed of all the Emmons original push-pull parts. This means that the Emmons push-pull is going to be more expensive in the immediate future. Be wary when buying a push-pull Emmons from sources that don’t offer a money-back guarantee or from anyone who says they don’t know much about it because they use that as an excuse if you find out that it’s not all you thought it was. I have never seen an Emmons push-pull that didn’t require a good going through before I could resell it. I do feel the Emmons push-pull is the finest steel guitar in the world in most ways and if you have a good one, it’s value will continue to ascend forever like the Stradivarius voilin. Don’t shy away from the push-pull, just be very careful where you buy it … or buy it at a low enough price that you can afford to have me go through it for you.

Tip 4: I have sold many MSA’s in the past and I will stand behind the ones I’ve sold, however, because of the low resale values of this brand and the general condition of MSA’s I’ve been seeing becoming worse every month, I find most of these guitars are not worth what it costs me to buy, fix and resell. They have reached a point of diminishing returns where they’re no longer worth what they’re worth. If you do happen to see one on my webpage, you can count on it being a rare survivor of the breed. It will be original and immaculate and still be very reasonably priced, otherwise I won’t be dealing with MSA. The same is true for Marlin, Mullin, Remington, CMI, Pedal Master or any homemake guitars. It is not cost-effective to deal in low-volume, questionable homemade steel guitars. I want everyone to be able to count on me for delivering the hightest quality products attainable and at the fairest prices.

I want everyone to know that the phone numbers and email will stay the same during and after this move. The address is the only thing that is changing and it is:

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Midtown Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075

It is about a mile from where I am now and much easier to find.

Bobbe