Emmons' p/p neck screws' tightness = tone control?

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

I have a 74' Emmons D10 that didn't have much of the classic p/p tone. So, I read with interest the following topic on this forum:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=137842

In it one contributor listed the various, specific factors that contribute to the classic p/p tone. I noticed that a very important one was the tightness of the neck screws.

So, last night I flipped the guitar over, loosened its neck screws a turn and retightened them all "finger tight" - so that they just met the underside with just a tad bit extra. Took two minutes, if that. I flipped the guitar over, tuned up, plugged in and .......

Incredible. Just incredible. I have never witnessed a more profound or marked change in an instrument's tone. There it was - a huge p/p tone. Again, at the risk of overstating the point, it was incredible.

Matthew Prouty · From: Warsaw, Poland

Does your guitar have a wood or metal neck?

m.

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

i've heard this concept also, and it makes sense. i also have wondered if wood necks would be affected by this...probably not so much...i guess i should just try it.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

My Emmons have metal necks. I'm going to do the same thing to the others this evening.

Lynn Stafford · From: Ridgefield, WA USA

I have a '66 D10 with wood necks. If I remember corectly, the attachment screws for the necks go in to the cabinet from the top of the necks and are covered by the fretboards. I don't remember seeing any screw heads showing from the bottom of the cabinet, as on a guitar with aluminum necks. If I'm right, you'd have to remove the fretboards to do any kind of tightness adjustment.

Lynn

Bill Terry · From: Bastrop, TX

I had a '67 D-10 a while back and thought I would do a general 'tighten up' on all the parts. As part of that I tightened the neck screws down really tight, and when I played the guitar again it had absolutely killed the tone. I loosened all the neck screws out again and just snugged them down with very little torque and the tone came back. It was hard for me to believe how much difference the tightness of those screws made. Later, somebody told me about this:

http://www.buddyemmons.com/_board/00000147.htm
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Danny Letz · From: Old Glory,Texas, USA 79540

How about all pull guitars. Talk about the effect screw tightness on the necks has on them. What's a general rule about how tight the screws should be?

Ron ! · Posted 31 Jul 2008 5:18 pm

Danny,

this subject has passed the parade a lot of times and some say it does effect the sound of the steel guitar and some say it does not.
There are some ways to increase the warmth in tone in your all-pull guitar.
This might get me flamed by some players because they don't believe in it but here it goes.
Take the changer out of your guitar and replace the nylon washers between your fingers with metal ones.
You can also take your neck of and stuff some cotton underneath in the tone chambers(if your neck has them).
There are ways to have your changer make more contact with the cabinet which increases the tone to.
I could go on for a little while but these are just a couple things that you can do real quick and you don't have to be a rocket scientist either to do it.

Ron

David Doggett · Posted 1 Aug 2008 10:01 am

I've never turned one over to look, but seems I remember being told the cross braces on the Emmons p/p hollow aluminum neck are concave. So if you tighten the neck screws too much, it contorts the body and locks the body and neck together too tightly, and that somehow affects the timbre. That raises questions about what the underside of an Emmons p/p wood neck is like, and if the same thing happens if one of those is tightened too much. I have never heard anyone describe an A/B comparison of similar wooden neck and aluminum neck Emmons push/pulls. I guess you would have to compare two bolt-ons to be fair.

If other makes and all-pulls don't have similar concave cross-braces under the neck, over-tightening might not have the same effect. I remember Bobbe Seymour saying that in experimenting with a prototype of the Sho-Bud SuperPro, they took the neck completely off, and it had no effect on the timbre.

chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

David Doggett · Posted 1 Aug 2008 2:27 pm

Well then, the mystery deepens. Confused

Can you tell if the neck sits flat on the body with no screws?

Are the wood necks hollow?

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Putting screws or bolts into a board, and then tightening them up too much, will take most all the flexibility out of the wood. You don't need a guitar to prove that - merely take a board and start installing screws or bolts into the face of it. Support it at both ends and notice how tightening the screws severely will stiffen the board. Shocked

All wooden bodied guitars can have their sound ruined by overtightening the screws. Ron Lashley said it takes only one screw to be too tight, or installed in the wrong place, and the sound of a steel guitar is ruined.

chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

uh oh....now i gotta find that 'one' screw..darn it..!

Danny Letz · From: Old Glory,Texas, USA 79540

Here's another question that might start something. If the screws aren't tight enough, could it not effect "cabinet drop"? How tight is tight enough? I know when I'm mechanicing, I have a feel for it, but how do you explain how tight is tight enough without resorting to a torque wrench which is difficult with screws? When I put a guitar together a while back, I felt the screws on my one owner guitar that I bought new. They were fairly tight.

Ray Uhl · From: Riverside, Missouri, USA

IMHO-I know manufactures, in some cases, are screwing the knee lever brackets on the underbody of the guitar. Considering what is being discussed, I have often wondered if this effects the tone. As Donnie mentioned, just placing screws in piece of wood will make a difference.

Danny Bates · From: Fresno, CA. USA

I'm going to have to experiment. I'll make some before and after recordings and listen carefully. Then I'll do some spectral analysis and see what happens visually. I'll also check for increased cabinet drop like Danny is suggesting may happen.

Interesting thread. I've been wondering if this neck tightening thing is really true. It would make sense that with the neck vibrating more on the body, the tone would change. I think having extra weight (like knee levers) would add mass and lower the resonant frequency.

Mickey Adams · From: Bandera Texas

A certain person that i know that works on Steel guitars informed me of this a while back. With the amplifier on, he taps the switch plate with the bar, and listens to the entire guitars response and sustain. Loosening the neck screws definately decreases the dampening of the vibration in the body of the guitar, and increases overall sustain. There is a marked difference in the tone as well.
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Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Hmm. If all this is true, maybe the neck shouldn't be laying flat on the body of the guitar. If (I said "if") the only function of the neck is to hold the fret board for a visual reference, maybe the neck should be attached to small "feet" that rest on the body of the guitar. There would be less contact between the neck and the body that way.

Lee, from South Texas

Danny Bates · From: Fresno, CA. USA

I'm done with my experiment. I recorded over 3 minutes and then loosened the screws... too much I think. I then recorded another 3 minutes.

The Guitar sounds much better with loose neck screws. It is louder, has more body and bass. The difference isn't as much as the difference between a Fender and a Rickenbacher lap steel, but if I were to try and describe the difference, this would be an analogy. It becomes more like a Richenbacker lap steel.

I guess the neck supports the strings more than I expected. My readings on my tuner dropped the notes on the C6 neck between -7 and -25 cents. Whether or not this affects the stability in the guitar will have to be seen. I guess loosening the screws make the tone rely on the body more by taking the strength off of the neck and displacing it in the body. Giving the tone more body and sustain.

I forgot to check the cabinet drop on the E9 neck but I'm almost sure, it can't be better.

I'm going to tighten the screws a little because I loosened them a lot for this experiment.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

I've noticed more than a few times, and it's been mentioned by others, too, on the Forum, that Emmons student models more often than not sound great. My guess, now, is that is due in great or whole part to their lack of a neck - just a fingerboard glued on top of the body.

Dick Sexton · From: Greenville, Ohio

I cant remember when I did it , but at some point, I was installing a change to my steel to try, and while I was under the hood, I tightened up every screw except the neck, couldn't get to them, an older all pull Marlen. After that, something just didn't seem right. Since I was having amp problems about the same time, I chalked it up to that. Amp fixed, still no tone "and" the strings picked open, sounded louder then the strings bared anywhere on the neck. It was driving me to the point of trading.
This thread reminded me of what I had done. Well, yesterday, I flipped her over and loosened every screw I could get to. End plates, rails, etc, but not the neck (can't get to them), the guitar came alive. Good volumn and sustain up the neck.

This brings up some bad images. I can picture each player that owns a screw driver under his steel trying to get that last bit of magic out of it. Not suggesting that. But if, during routine PM you've tightened everything up as I had "in my ignorance" you might want to talk to competant "Steel Mechanical Guru" and get some advice.

For me, I know at this point my mess is to loose. I'll probably go back and try to find that sweet spot of tightness, or which screws have the most effect on the "Steel Sound". By the way, I didn't find any push pull growl or magic sound in there. Wasn't looking for it anyway. Also, didn't help my playing a bit.

Good luck,
"Dick Tinkerin To Much Sexton"

Hum, I wonder if Bobbe S., Tommy Y., Ricky D. and the other great builders, rebuilders and steel servicers are having a chuckle over this.

Jay Jessup · From: Charlottesville, VA, USA

So is it too much of a reach to think that those of us who live in humid climates might need to make slight adjustments in our neck tension screws in the summer? I have heard that the flocking underneath P/Ps was partially there to keep moisture out of the wood but you have to think that some moisture would get in. Just a thought to confuse the issue further.

Eric Philippsen · From: Central Florida USA

A lot of good points and info have been brought up to the posting here. The thing is, loosening (or tightening) the neck screws does affect a p/p Emmons' tone - at least on those with metal necks. One of the best things about it is that you don't have to be a p/p guru/rebuilder to make the adjustment. And it takes just a minute or two. If you don't like what you hear, then it's just a matter of returning the neck screws' tightness back to what they had been. As for me, I'm a big believer that every guitar (and amp) has a sweet spot. Sometimes you just stumble across that and other times you tweak it a bit here and a bit there to get it. The 74' I originally wrote about sounds great now. Even so, I'm going to tweak those screws to see what happens. Dunno, maybe nothing will change! Then again.......

Danny Letz · From: Old Glory,Texas, USA 79540

I still don't understand (kind of like Bill Clinton) how tight, tight is. Are we talking kind of like an oil filter, 3/4 turn after the screw contacts the surface, just barely snug, or what? That's what I mean by how to you tell somebody how tight. I guess every guitar is different to some extent, but what is a ballpark tightness?

Clyde Mattocks · From: Kinston, North Carolina, USA

SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA, THIS SATURDAY NIGHT: A steel
player is going to kick in a knee lever and his whole
undercarriage is going to fall out in his lap and both end plates will fly off ! But his TONE was SMOKIN' up to that point !
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