Changer material, what do you think?

Bryant Aycock · From: Pikeville, North Carolina

I'd like to hear some ideas about the best material to use to make the changers. I have heard stainless or hardened steel and aluminum. What do you think?

Scott Duckworth · From: Etowah, TN Western Foothills of the Smokies

Ben Rom guitars use Brass...
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Johan Jansen · From: Europe

Beauty is the ears of the beholder, I believe in brass Smile

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Scott, that's right I use brass. For funny reasons as well as a practical one.
I thought this way: If a church bell or ship's bell could sound so beautifully crystal clear, with lots of sustain, maybe that would translate some of those pluses onto the tone and sustain.

The practical one is that Brass is harder than Aluminum and you avoid those pesky grooves worn from the strings on the rounding of the finger.

A minus might be that brass tarnishes a bit and if you don't like to have to give it a polish every now and then, you can always have the brass finger coated with industrial strength chrome.
Another minus, in some eyes, would be that it adds a bit of weight to the steel - for those who like the flight-weight guitars.

An alternative to brass would be to have your aluminum fingers anodized. They then turn out harder than Japanese arithmetic and eliminate grooving.
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Bill Ford · From: Graniteville SC Aiken

Bent, Would the chrome over the brass change the sound? Also aluminum can be plated, don't know about changing the sound(tone) qualities. I read where one of the PSG makers would drop an aluminum finger on a concrete floor, then stainless, etc, aluminum having the best ringing sound. I'm not arguing a point, just saying. Also have toyed with the idea of making a stainless cap/cover for a badly worn changer finger, if it works, you would need to do all for a consistent tone/sound.

Bill
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John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

Bent,
I though we had a conversation about using Bronze/Bell Bronze a while back???
Best,
JB

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

This is one of those questions where it might help to ask "Whhat do most all manufacturers uses right now?" but also "What have the manufacturers of the most outstanding (sound-wise) guitars used in the past?" Winking

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Bill, That is what I am concerned about...it might change the sound? Funny you should ask by the way..just today I talked with a machinist/ engineer and he claimed it wouldn't make any difference (this guy also plays lap steel) But once we got into maybe using industrial chrome which goes on with a .040 thickness he seemed to change his opinion. We also agreed that regular chrome which is .002 to .004 thick is not hard enough and will serve no purpose other than being decorative til the string wears thru.
So for me, I will stick to brass for now and maybe work on the option of hard anodizing aluminum, which might be a different sound again...
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

John, yes, I remember that conversation. I do have a big plate of bronze sitting here if the event of bronze fingers should arise. The same engineer also said that his thought was brass produces the best sound. Bronze is harder and hard to work, and more useful where a lot of rubbing is involved, like in a bushing. Lo and behold I do use bronze bushings in the cross shaft holes the oil-impregnated ones. I also think that bronze tarnishes more than brass. But the bronze plate is still sitting here Smile

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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Donny, we know that most of the outstanding builders use aluminum of some type. A few use stainless steel, a few use brass.
However, I believe I might be on to something with my brass fingers. I'll convey a conversation I had with one of the best in the business. He said: I listened to the sound clip with your guitar. You use brass fingers don't you? I said yes...
He says; all my life I have been warned against using brass but after listening to your guitar, I am tempted to try one of my own. For now, for this model I am currently making, I'll keep using brass.
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John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

Bent,
"I thought this way: If a church bell or ship's bell could sound so beautifully crystal clear, with lots of sustain, maybe that would translate some of those pluses onto the tone and sustain. "

Are those bells brass or are they bell bronze? I thought they were bronze???? The best banjo pots were bronze, not brass.

Douglas Schuch · From: Valencia, Philippines

I am no instrument builder or expert in this field, but would caution that most of these metals have a HUGE amount of variabilty - aluminum, stainless steel, bronze, steel - all have many different formulas for their production, and I would not be surprised to learn that tone can be drastically impacted by using different alloys. Certainly the durability can be quite different. Any serious study of the various options for fingers (and other steel parts) would have to test not just these 4 basic groups, but the many different alloys within each group. In other words, a big task! And don't forget the Super-Pro pot-metal.... On second thought, go ahead and forget it.

Doug
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

John, those bells are most likely bell bronze. I think, because bronze lends itself better to casting.
The metals in brass and bronze is very close in composition
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chas smith R.I.P. · From: Encino, CA, USA

Craig Baker · From: Eatonton, Georgia, USA - R.I.P.

Long time ago, I lived near the Schulmerich plant in Sellersville, PA. They manufactured everything from handbells to large church tower bells and carillons. I spoke to someone there in an effort to find the perfect alloy for tone and sustain. Their answer made it clear why my Fender 800 had absolutely the worst tone and sustain on the planet. For sustain you must get away from ferrous metals. The best direction to go is with brass, bronze or aluminum. Chrome is very hard and defeats the benefits of the softer metals. The Fender changers were Chrome-plated hardened steel. They will last forever and never tarnish, but you'll never sound like Weldon, Hal, or Lloyd if you play a Fender 800.

Best regards,
Craig Baker 706-485-8792

cmbakerelectronics@gmail.com

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

Fender pedal steels had poor sustain due to the small contact area (that shaftless "knife-edge" changer) and the low mass of the nut and changer pieces. Nothing was tied together like it is in a modern steel. Anyhow, I think there's a lot more important things going on in a pedal steel to create the sound than the mere choice of changer materials. Many steels with the same changer material sound vastly different.

And by the way, I don't think we can really throw out ferrous steel as a "tone metal", because clock chimes, piano strings, and yes...most guitar strings are ferrous steel!

Winking

Dave Hepworth · From: West Yorkshire, UK

Hi I think Donny has a point.There are 2 main factors in my opinion that will facilitate a good sound .

The changer material and it's axle and total support

How good the coupling is to the rest of the guitar .

I had a 90 s telecaster which had compressed steel as saddles and a thick chromed base plate .I placed a tuning fork on the body and it gave a good loud resonance.I placed the same fork on the saddles and on the base plate -the sound was at least 75 percent less with loss of high end . No wonder I got rid of the guitar.

I do believe tone comes from the body which adds its own timbre -but it can only do so if there is maximum coupling to the string.
The changer and it's axle and support must also be of material which will resonate - perhaps bell metal for ALL 3 mentioned May a great idea .
Perhaps coupling could be enhanced by replacing the nylon tuners with metal ones - why dampen the pull rods which MUST take vibrations to the body .Which then suggests metal not delrin bearings too. Just my thoughts based on a non resonant telecaster design. Regards Dave

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Tone and sustain are two different things. A lot of sustain does not mean there will be good tone.

A steel guitar body that has a lot of acoustic resonance will tend to quench sustain, but it may give a pleasing tone, Vibrations in the supporting body structures will tend to dampen or cancel the string vibrations.
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Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

A lot of resonant properties relate to the density and elastic (spring-like) properties of the metal, also the overall dimensions of the part in question. Not to forget that strings are 'active' and everything else is 'passive'.

I'm more inclined to believe there's a best metal, and size and shape for any individual part.

I have to believe that the wood properties of the cabinet still reign supreme. All the steels I've seen are maple...is that necessarily the optimum, and why or why not? There has been some suggestion in the past about the effect of grain on tone, too.

Dave Hepworth · From: West Yorkshire, UK

Not sure I can agree with you on this Bill.you are implying that a resonant body will dampen sustain -surely this will set up an oscillation a bit like people walking over a foot bridge that is too resonant to the periodicity of people walking over it..The result is an increase in amplitude of the original input signal.
Am I missing something maybe .I am honestly Open to explanation if I am wrong.Perhaps It is like electro magnetic induction The greater the induced current the more you get a back EMF in opposition - the more resonance then it I will cancel out sustain??

Jim Palenscar · From: Oceanside, Calif, USA

At the risk of letting the topic drift just a titch, a bell doesn't transfer the vibration to anything but itself and air and I don't really see the relationship between a bell and a changer. Certainly the shape of the bell has something to do with its tone. I have the greatest respect for our esteemed colleague Chas and his metallurgical knowledge and also know that the Emmons pushpull changer fingers were made from 2024 aluminum. I wonder what they'd sound like w 6061 T6? Frank Carter, great friend and builder of the highly esteemed Infinity pedal steel guitar, made a set of brass rollers for one of his guitars and couldn't take them off fast enough. I also have great respect for Donny's knowledge of steel guitars but if changer finger contact area was a large determinant of resulting tone, why do BMI's sound so good w a changer axle of about .125" diameter (as opposed to a changer axle diameter of .562" for a Franklin or new MSA, etc)? Why so some folks look for Mullen Pre-RP's instead of the RP model- is it because of the effect of anodizing the changer fingers on tone? Bud Carter, to whom I bow for his knowledge and masterful engineering of the pedal steel, did a tremendous amount of research affiliated w a university measuring the various characteristics of woods including grain spacing and angle, the effect of knots and imperfections, etc. on vibrational transfer from one end to the other. My humble recollection of my conversation with Bud was that his conclusion was quarter-sawn or rift-sawn maple w narrow straight grain was the best selection for a steel guitar. So why do some of the earlier BMI's sound so good- being constructed of composite (pressboard) wood sandwiched between two layers of formica? I do know that this is based on my impression of tone and that mine is only one opinion of thousands but others whose opinions that I value have played and heard the same guitars and have been also equally impressed. Ed Packard and I measured about 15 or so characteristics of 30 different guitars and looked at the amplitude and sustain of each with a computer and I still cannot draw a conclusion of what it is that makes a guitar sound good to my ears. Ultimately it is my belief that it is the unique combination of the sum of all of the parts that give each guitar its own tone and every single one of them is different- even when constructed by the same person with seemingly the same material. The greatest determinant is still in the hands of the player.

Dave Hepworth · From: West Yorkshire, UK

Hi Jim
It certainly seems a dark art and probably an inexact science.It is a very interesting topic .Can I ask you when you did the research did you use lasers to get interference patterns off the body/ changer etc.I know they did this with Stradivarius violins to decide why they sound as they do .I believe it was put down to the lacquer the maker used !!!

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Going to jim's comments about the sum of the parts...Back when I used to have great concern about tube amplifier tone...I came across a fellow who 'blue printed' guitar amps for clients who thot their amp had the magical tone...all components were profiled in detail, so that when any of the components needed replaced...one would know the precise parameters required to select a replacement. Clearly, even precision manufactured electronic parts have sufficient variability to have major audible impact on something as 'calculable' as a guitar amp.

I think b0b onetime referenced some psycho-acoustic phenomena that the player hears and feels vibration simultaneously and the combination of those two things together makes us perceive tone differently that an audience member.

A lot of tube amp tone is about exactly that...the 'feel' of the amp, as opposed to its absolute tone. A lot of players love the tone of Mesa Boogie's for example, as long as other people are playing them.

Jim Palenscar · From: Oceanside, Calif, USA

Hi Dave. Dark art for sure. No lasers for this one. We used a program that was called TRUE RTA = Real Time Analyzer = Spectrum analyzer) that plots harmonic content vs sustain/decay (basically time). Lottsa potential variables but we attempted to be as consistent as possible in performing the measurements.

Dave Hepworth · From: West Yorkshire, UK

Hi Jim.
Thanks for the reply.I understand what you did - time and frequency parameters .

I believe the laser interference pattern gives spatial location of maximum resonance/movement .
So maybe the two techniques could be employed on a "test bed steel " replacing different components and even bodies to give the optimum materials combination.This would make a great PhD research subject for someone and would hopefully take the lid off this mystery once and for all.

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