the pedal steel guitar

… and its many peculiarities – #1.

Mechanical pitch-changing for individual strings and groups of strings, puts varying stress on the pedal steel guitar. Although by appearance and overall design and solutions most PSGs with All-Pull changers are more or less identical, how well the various makes and models hold up for optimal tone, stability and playability, varies greatly.

It is all in the details, and with an instrument that contains so many compromises it is hard to see how any builder can manage to get everything perfectly balanced. After more than 35 years search I have yet to run into the perfect pedal steel guitar, although some definitely are better than others.

I'll leave to others to “rank” makes and models according to individual preferences, while I focus on isolating and dissecting some of the problems and peculiarities players of pedal steel guitars may run into.

hysteresis on the changer

The “slip/hang on the changer” hysteresis phenomenon is caused by too low friction to hold the string steady on the changer during lower, causing it to slip as the tension is lowered and the string contracts, and too high friction to make it slip all the way back again when raised back to neutral. As a result it hangs and pitches too high in neutral after a lower, until it gets kicked/vibrated a little, or gets raised beyond neutral and then released.

It all happens in the area where the string clings to the changer by surface-friction alone - the stretch I have marked in red on the first picture. As lower-action on the changer-top for the forth string is only about 1/20 inch, good luck in seeing a 5-10 cents “slip” and “hang” with your eyes alone. Easy to hear though…

This is a problem on some but not all PSGs, as it depends on many factors. Length of string from top of changer to hook-up point, is one factor – the shorter the better.
Length of end-twisting on the string matters too, as the twisting alters the friction between string and changer. One brand of strings may slip while another stay stable. And, the string-gauge matters too.

cause…

What maybe isn't so obvious, is that both tension and friction between string and changer-surface decreases when change goes towards lower, and increase when released back towards neutral. That is why the string may slip at/near fully lowered note, but doesn't overcome the friction to slip back when released.
Raising it beyond neutral after a lower will “over-tension” the string, and will at some point make it slip back despite the increased friction. But such an extra raise-action does of course not always (or rarely ever) fit in with the music played.

solutions…

In theory one can increase friction over the changer so the string won't slip at all, or reduce friction so it will slip back properly every time after a lower. Neither is practical the way most changers are made today, but it does explain why some changer-constructions show less tendency to slip/hang than others.

Locking the string down about two-tenth of an inch (5mm) past the top of the changer, so it can not slip at all, will solve the problem without affecting tone or how far one can lower the string. Not much space for such a locking mechanism on today's changers though.

The “O-ring bumpers” found on some PSGs, will, when set/adjusted right, bump and ease the lower-scissor back to neutral thus cover up and then eliminate the high-pitching effect of the "slip/hang on the changer" hysteresis. I regard it as a stop-gap solution, but it works.

hysteresis-issues elsewhere?

a: Most players who experience hysteresis, seem to focus all their attention on the nut-rollers. While hightened friction on badly maintained nut-rollers will tend to cause exactly the same slip/hang effect, regular maintenance will secure freewheeling rollers and eliminate the problem at that end entirely.

b: There is a slight delay in how the strings themselves settle on pitch as they tension and stretch during a raise and contract during a lower. This delayed pitch-stabilisation is measurable on a pedal steel guitar, but is too small, and righten itself too quickly, to be of concern.
The “O-ring bumpers” mentioned earlier, will reduce or eliminate pitch deviation caused by string-pitch settling.

a problem, or not…

Some will recognise the “slip/hang on the changer” hysteresis phenomenon as a genuine problem, and some will not. To some it is a real dealbreaker, while others won't even notice.
Some who do notice the problem will falsely conclude that it is caused by failures anywhere but at the changer-top, and may end up hunting for and attempt to fix the problem in all the wrong places. One can easily damage good instruments that way.

There are those who write the phenomenon off as inevitably linked to how pedal steel guitars traditionally have, and always should, be made. Simply said: fixing such “idiosyncracies” would destroy the instrument's uniqueness.
This is of course total nonsense, but “traditionalists” with such believes do hamper healthy evolution of the instrument.

sheer luck, or…

As my main pedal steel guitars didn't exhibit this particular detuning problem “right out of the box”, it took me a while to recognize it as a problem.

It was only after I modified my “S10 E9” to “Extended E” with extra low-tuned strings (See: E major w/chromatics) that I noticed a slight slip/hang effect on the lowest string when it returned to neutral after a five half-note lower. Being an extreme change that I don't use much, I deal with it by varying bar pressure to control pitch for that string until it corrects itself.

As it is as difficult to implement a perfect solution to this hysteresis phenomenon on my main PSGs as on other brands, I have so far not bothered fixing it for the extended low “E” string. If on the other hand it had exhibited the slip/hang problem on the fourth string “E” after lowers – or any other of the higher and most used strings for that matter, I would have gone for a solution, or shopped for another brand/model that fared better.

While I listen for hysteresis whenever I test-play a pedal steel guitar that is new to me, I recognise that there are so many other inherent peculiarities with this instrument that each individual PSG deserves a “summing up” of all its strengths and weaknesses before concluding.

sincerely georg; sign

Hageland 25.feb.2018
last rev: 28.sep.2023

side notes.

series of case studies.

I'll write a small series of case studies, focusing on whatever instability or weakness I over the years have found on a majority of pedal steel guitar makes/models I have owned or taken for a test-run.
For one who literally hate to play an instrument that doesn't respond reliable to any input, a few cents tuning-instability and/or other weaknesses can be pretty frustrating. Figuring out where any particular problem originates, and what can and/or should be done about it, can help in overcoming some of that frustration and make playing this contraption more fun. Besides: I do find such troubleshooting processes quite interesting in themselves.

For those who haven't observed the same as me, or who see these issues as non-important; if your own PSG doesn't show one or more of these weaknesses, and/or they cause no problems for you, praise yourself lucky and carry on playing.

contributions:

Posts about problems people observe flow into the Steel Guitar Forum somewhat frequently. I have included links to a few of the most relevant threads.

solving an old problem

Hysteresis is not a new problem, as many players have encountered it over the years and landed on various solutions. Avoiding the problem altogether is one way – not applied by many.

about Lloyd Green's tuning…

Among his most significant deviations from the standard E9 setup is the fact that Green does not lower his fourth string to D# sharp. Green initially lowered both E strings with the same knee lever, but removed the change from the fourth string in response to mechanical issues, leading him to work out different means for achieving the increasingly popular features it afforded:

I removed that change in 1966 because of the inconsistency in pitch return, deciding to be in tune instead. By discarding this change I was forced into finding new ways to simulate the same sound. There are many, including strings 2 & 5, 4 & 5 (with the E-F lever), bar slants and a number of other replacements. I never once missed the change and, indeed, found many new voicings which add a wider, deeper resonance to the tonal range.

Source: INSTRUMENTS AS TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE:
CO-CONSTRUCTING THE PEDAL STEEL GUITAR
Timothy David Miller Scroll down to Page 144 for the quote and more.

all about the tone

I'll slip in some personal thoughts about what matters most in an instrument: the quality of the tone we can get out of it.
Regardless of mechanical perfection; if an instrument isn't capable of delivering the intended tone when excited, it isn't worth much.

Although I'm not much of a player – mainly for not practicing all that much, I know what “makes these contraptions tick” in quite some details, and also how to modify them mechanically and soundwise to my liking. That audio-electronics has been part of my profession for 50+ years doesn't hurt either, and I have pretty strong audio preferences.

I'm personally not much for “fixing the tone” of an instrument that doesn't meet minimum requirements, by help of amp settings and other electronic means. Those “extras” are for occasionally modifying tone and adding effects (in my book), and slight adjustments to venues.
A pedal steel guitar, with a good (new) set of strings and a decent PU, should be a stable platform that delivers what I want through a more or less flat/linear and neutral amplifier. If not it isn't worth my time.

Of course: to make a good instrument respond and sound the way I want it to, requires a lot of me as a player. What I cannot play, the instrument obviously can not deliver. Guess it is up to me then…
It is not all in the hands, but most is.

short story:

Years ago, a (now late) friend of mine had tried just about all brands and types of picks available on the market in an attempt to get the softer pick-attack sound he preferred. As I set up my own PSG at his place and just checked its tuning by playing some, he remarked that I seemed to get the exact, soft, attack-sound he had been hunting for for years, and wondered what type of finger-picks I used to get that sound.
As my picks (still) are a cheap no-name type stamped out of iron-plate – about the hardest picks one can imagine, and then shaped and polished by me to my preferences, he was dumbfounded by how I could pick softer than he could with plastic picks. Was it my particular instrument that allowed for the soft attack-sound, or what was it?
I explained to him that it was the shape and degree of polishing of my picks, and where and how they hit the strings, that made the soft attack-sound possible, lightly helped by how I adjusted my equipment to avoid attack-clipping in the pre-amp stages.
I then demonstrated it by playing some on his own PSG, getting the same attack-sounds as on my own. And, I showed him that I could pick to make it sound as soft or as hard as I wanted with those same picks. I also showed him how slight changes in attack angle, and how and where on a string to hit, could make all the difference.
I could not give him my picks, as they are unique in so many ways and have been my preferred picks for a couple of decades. I could however help him get the attack sound and tone he wanted, by introducing him to slight changes in how to pick and how to set his amplifier.
Seemed to work well for him right away, and he was happy to finally being able to get the tone he wanted.