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Topic: Solid koa Stringmaster-style Deluxe |
Ben Elder
From:
La Crescenta, California, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 12:04 am |
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Fender Custom Shop creation, seen at NAMM:
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"Gopher, Everett?" |
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Thomas Ludwig
From:
Augsburg, Germany
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 2:22 am
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Is it a new one ? 
If they make new tuning pans, they can make replacement tuning pans  |
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Dave Van Allen
From:
Doylestown, PA , US , Earth
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 6:09 am
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| TUNING PANS!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!! |
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Drew Howard
From:
48854
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 6:21 am
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| Wow! Big news! |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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John McCall
From:
New York, New York, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 7:29 am
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| Fender does it again; it's a short scale. |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 7:52 am
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| John McCall wrote: |
| Fender does it again; it's a short scale. |
Some people would complain if you hung them with a fresh rope. 
It looks great to me. I hope it's not a one of a kind model made just for NAMM.
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Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 8:11 am
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I had 'em beat. 
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Tom Pettingill
From:
California, USA (deceased)
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 9:12 am
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Sweet, very cool that steel guitar is back on Fender's radar 
| Doug Beaumier wrote: |
| I wonder how the Koa body will affect the tone, as compared to an original Deluxe/Stringmaster? |
How it compares to an original will heavily depend on the new pickups and electronics. That said, I'd expect a proper set of pickups on a Koa body to have a big, rich, and full voice with a clear and warm midrange with smooth highs.
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Some misc pics of my hand crafted steels
Follow me on Facebook here |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 9:52 am
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If they actually introduce this - and you didn't have to take out a second mortgage to buy one - it could be a game changer.
With Fender's marketing and advertising clout, it could potentially help the independent builder who produces small numbers of non-pedal steels by bringing a renewed awareness of the instrument.
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Mark |
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J Fletcher
From:
London,Ont,Canada
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 12:02 pm
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| I think that it is cool that Fender built this guitar, though I doubt that it's not going to make any difference in the world of steel guitar. Except to the person that buys it. |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 3:04 pm
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The reason I brought that up was because of this, and I'm oversimplifying here in the interest of brevity: take one of the members of the steel guitar family, the dobro. There was a long slow climb to bring the instrument practically back from the dead. As we know, there were many years when they weren't even in production - like the Stringmaster. The popularity of Josh Graves with Flatt & Scruggs gave the instrument a little spike decades ago. Then the rise in popularity in the '70s was spiked by the likes of Mike Auldridge and at the same time the Dopyera family got back into the business as OMI in southern California, and a bunch of people took up the instrument, myself included along with a fair number of Forum members.
Jerry Douglas became much better known by non-dobro players when two things happened: after many years of primarily session work, he joined what is arguably the most popular bluegrass-oriented group in the world, Alison Krauss & Union Station. This was in 1998 and a few years later after the success of "Oh Brother Where Art Thou," which to date has sold something like 8 million copies of the movie soundtrack CD, a lot of people have taken up the instrument and there are many more builders than there were say 20 years ago.
The Fender Stringmaster and Deluxe were once pretty popular instruments which fell out of fashion, and production, not unlike the Dobro.
And yes, we can all find vintage Fender steels which are fairly affordable compared to the likes of vintage Teles and Strats, but there is zero publicity from the company - and why would there be? They haven't made the things for over 30 years. If they started producing them again and of good quality - not like the horrible Chinese-made Fender laps that came out several years ago, I think there would be a groundswell of popularity. Won't happen overnight - same as it didn't happen overnight for the renaissance of the dobro - but I could see it happening.
If there's some "cool guy" pictured in a Fender ad playing a new modern Stringmaster on the back cover of Guitar Player Magazine, the wheels could start turning.
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Mark |
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Dennis Smith
From:
Covington, Georgia, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 4:34 pm
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I was dreaming of one of these back in Nov.
Ben, anymore info? Are the legs red or is that the light? Did anyone play it?
Mark, someone should get Justin Bieber or Lady GaGa to play one or do a Hawaiian song and they would start selling more steels.
Dennis |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Dennis Smith
From:
Covington, Georgia, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2013 10:53 pm
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Doug, have him check out the new Magnatone US built point to point tube amp. The little you can hear on the NAMM video sounds good.
Dennis |
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Bosse Engzell
From:
�ppelbo, SWEDEN
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Posted 27 Jan 2013 3:59 am
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Was it any price tag?
Bosse in Sweden |
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Stephen Cowell
From:
Round Rock, Texas, USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2013 7:53 am
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Notice one thing missing... the hardest thing to find... 8string pickup covers!
Last I heard the tooling had been shipped to Japan for the tuning pans. I also hear that Mike Stevens makes his own p/u covers from six-string ones.
Is the world ready for a CNC tuning pan? Perhaps with Scruggs tuners, or integrated pedal pulls?
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New FB Page: Lap Steel Licks And Stuff: https://www.facebook.com/groups/195394851800329 |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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George Piburn
From:
The Land of Enchantment New Mexico
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Posted 27 Jan 2013 2:01 pm Msrp
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| It looks like $12,000 MSRP on that last line below the string. |
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Ben Elder
From:
La Crescenta, California, USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2013 5:47 pm
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Sorry--I had to keep deleting pics off my maxed-out (8gb) iphone this weekend (NAMM, Deke Dickerson's Guitar GeekFest and Vintage Guitar show) but a copy of the original is on my laptop at home. I'll try to take a look at the certificate when I get back there. (The ball is over and Cinderella here is back at work tonight.)
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"Gopher, Everett?" |
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Peggy Green
From:
San Jose, California USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2013 6:09 pm
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| My guitar repair guy, w/ gold records on his wall,told me my Fender Deluxe pickup could disintegrate at any moment ;(. I'm 62 playing a 61 year old guitar. I'd be very interested in the Fender instrument. If I don't disintegrate first. |
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Dennis Smith
From:
Covington, Georgia, USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2013 7:07 pm
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If it's $12,000. there insane! The custom shop guitars I don't get. Toys or art?
Dennis |
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