cabinet drop

Billy Murdoch · From: Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.

I am just being curious.
Am I correct in saying that you take a reading of your E strings before depressing the A and B pedals and then calculate the drop from the second reading?
Are there any steels with absolutely no drop or is it just luck if you get one.
What is the maximum acceptable drop?
Best regards
Billy

Paddy Long · From: Christchurch, New Zealand

You are correct in your assumption - if a guitar has cabinet drop it will be detectable on the tuner when you push the AB pedals together. My Zum D10 has none, and I have just got a brand new Carter D10 which has no cabinet drop either - certainly not detectable on my tuner !!

Cor Muizer Jr · From: The Netherlands/europe

i have a quarter hertz on the meter when i prove my Rains D10

and as i can say ervery guitar has some one more than the other

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Cor
soundengineer/steelplayer Rains D10 8×5 RED Goodrich LDR2

[This message was edited by Cor Muizer Jr on 08 May 2005 at 03:26 PM.]

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

Billy, most steels have some cabinet drop. It's nothing to concern yourself about unless it's clearly audible, and affects your playing. From 2 to 5 cents is probably average. On a lot of steels, excess drop can be caused by too much pressure on the floor pedals. To see if your steel is affected by this, make a reading with two knee levers engaged, and see how that compares to reading while engaging two foot pedals. If you get no drop with knee levers engaged, it's not the cabinet that's flexing...it's something else (changer, changer axle, nut, or keyhead).

The only guitar I ever checked that had none was an old Fender, but they had a heavy, one-piece wrap-around frame, and a deck that was about 2" thick! Easy to see why that one didn't have a problem.

Larry Bell · From: Englewood, Florida

The most sensitive measurement of cabinet drop is by pushing pedals that don't move the LARGEST UNWOUND STRING you have.

If you use an unwound sixth, push the A pedal firmly down to the stop and measure deflection. Otherwise press the B pedal (again, firmly) and measure drop on the 5th string.

The 4th is a smaller string and won't drop as much on most guitars.

If anyone is playing a guiar with no drop on an unwound sixth (other than a counterforce LeGrande III or a guitar with a comp that pulls 6 up when A is pressed) I'd be interested in knowing the brand and year.

I've discussed this issue with a lot of builders and many of them have told me that if you build a guitar that is so rigid it has no cabinet drop the tone goes away. At least that's the word I've gotten from several notable experts. In practice, very few modern guitars are unplayable because of cabinet drop.

Tuning as close as possible as your ear can tolerate to ET ('straight up' on the tuner) will also help avoid these problems. For example, if you are checking the sixth string, if you start out with it 15 cents or more flat and it lowers even further, the problems are more noticeable.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 09 May 2005 at 07:36 AM.]

David Doggett · Posted 10 May 2005 9:10 am

After reading what Larry said, I got out my meter and carefully checked the cabinet drop on my '90s Zum universal. [WARNING: technophobes should stop reading now.] As Larry said, the biggest drop is on my unwound string 6 when I press the A pedal. It drops 3 hz (12 cents). Pedals on my uni pull three or more strings. That probably makes the drop worse than on a 10-string with only two pulls on the A and B pedals. But cabinet drop with only the A or B pedal is not much of a concern to me, and I have never noticed a problem while playing. That's mainly because those pedals are used singly only in moving passages. I don't use those single pedals for sustained chords.

I think the biggest worry is how much the E strings drop when both A and B pedals are used (because this combination is used in sustained chords). On my guitar, that drop is 2 hz (8 cents). I tune my A and B pedal stops to the E strings by ear, so my guitar plays in perfect tune with itself (to my ears). But my entire open A chord at the nut is 2 hz (8 cents) flat of my open E chord. This is only a problem when playing open at the nut. When playing with the bar, that distance is visually imperceptible, and your ear automatically corrects for it. I minimize the problem at the nut by tuning my E strings (and entire open E chord) 1 hz (4 cents) sharp. That way my open A chord is only 1 hz (4 cents) flat of the meter. Since it takes 5 cents or more to be noticeable for most listeners, both my open E and open A chords at the nut are passably in tune with the meter and other instruments tuned to a meter. If I didn’t split the difference this way, one of those chords would be noticeably off at the nut (by 2 hz or 8 cents).

When I checked my knee levers I discovered that the raise levers do not cause any cabinet drop. I believe this means that my drop is caused by the guitar body flexing, rather than mechanical slack in the changer. To test this I pressed down on the middle of the guitar and watched the 6th string. I got about 3 hz (12 cents) drop, the same as with the A pedal. That seems to confirm that the drop is entirely body flex.

Next I checked my E lower lever. The pitch of the 6th string rose about 2 hz (8 cents). I never heard of this "cabinet raise," but it's clearly there. Again, this would only affect the whole chord at the nut, because I tune the E lower stops to the other strings by ear.

Cabinet drop (or raise) greater than 5 cents raises the issue of whether to tune by ear (JI) or “everything straight up to the meter” (ET). If I tune my open E chord straight up, and I tune my A and B pedal stops straight up, my open A chord would have fifths (the unpedaled strings 4, 8 and 11) 2 hz (8 cents flat) – noticeably sour. By tuning by ear as I described above, both my E and A chords are in perfect tune within themselves (at least to my ears). With the bar, each chord is slightly offset from directly above the fret, but the distance is visually imperceptible and the ears compensate. At the nut, I split the difference (as described above), and that seems passable. You can also split the difference in tuning “straight up.” I would tune the entire open E chord to 441 (4 cents sharp), and the A and B pedal stops to 439 (4 cents flat).

The A pedal/F lever combination (C# maj open at the nut) is a real problem with cabinet drop, and tuning JI makes things worse. The F lever stop (which becomes the 3rd of the C# chord) has to be tuned to the unpedaled 3rd, 6th and 10th strings. Those are the 3rds of the open E chord, and for JI I have them tuned about 3 hz (12 cents) flat. Add cabinet drop to that, and the whole chord is being tuned 5 hz (20 cents) flat (the F lever stop itself, as the JI 3rd, is 8 hz or 32 cents flat). The A pedal stop cannot be changed from where it was tuned for the A chord. But those stops are on the 5, 9 and 12 strings, which were the 3rds of the A chord. So they were already tuned 3 hz (12 cents) flat for JI, plus 2 hz (8 cents) for cabinet drop. So these new 5ths for the C# chord match the unpedaled tonic strings 3, 6 and 10 in being 20 cents flat. So theoretically the chord is in tune with itself, but it is way flat. This is not a visually imperceptible distance, and to correct for this with your ear, you will be playing 1/5 sharp of the fret. This chord is pretty much unplayable open at the nut. Also, the A pedal was tuned to the cabinet drop of the E strings, which (as Larry pointed out) is less that the drop of the unwound 6th string. Because it is the 6th string that is unpedaled in the C# chord, I find I have to slant the bar, and even then I can never get a well intoned C# chord, even sharping and slanting the bar by ear. Playing with a group, I can play it passably (I guess because the slight intonation problem is lost in the greater intonation problems that are embodied in the whole group sound), but by myself, I only use the A/F combination in passing, and never like to land on it for a sustained chord.

If you tune everything straight up, the A pedal stops on strings 5, 9 and 12 (the roots) will be 440, and the open strings 3, 6 and 10 (the 5ths) will be about 437 (12 cents flat) due to cabinet drop. If you tune the F lever stops on strings 4 and 8 (the 3rds) to 440, these 3rds will be 3 hz (12 cents) sharp of the 5ths (youch), and will be 6 hz (24 cents) sharp of a JI 3rd (double youch). If you tune the F lever stops to match the 5ths, they will be 3 hz (12 cents) flat of the roots. This will sound good (is approximately JI) with the roots, but will sound sharp to the 5ths. If you split the difference, and tune the F stops between the root and the 5th, say around 438.5 (6 cents flat), you can slant the bar slightly to sharp the 5th of a triad and get a more or less perfect ET chord (roots and fifths 440, 3rds 12-14 cents sharp of JI), which presumably an ET tuner is used to. If the 5th is in the middle of the triad, obviously a slant won’t work. If you play the bar straight, from the root up you will have 440, 438.5, 437 (0, -6, -12 cents) – compared to JI that will be 0, +6, -12 cents, a really bad sounding chord. To me, this all sounds worse than what I can get tuning the stops by ear (JI). I have learned to play the A/F combination sharp of the fret, and my no-pedal and A/B pedal chords sound sweet. So for my purposes, tuning JI by ear solves more cabinet drop problems than tuning everything straight up. And it is a helluvalot easier, because you don’t have to have complicated meter settings memorized – you just tune everything to sound its best by ear.

You might think that having the F lever stop 32 cents flat of ET would cause problems. The only other chords I use that with are diminished chords (F lever alone), and the chord you get with the A/B/F combination (is that an augmented?). I have never noticed those chords sounding bad, but they are dissonant chords where departures from perfect intonation are less noticeable. I don’t know what the JI intervals are supposed to be for diminished and augmented chords. But if you take the notes from a JI scale, there will be notes 12 to 24 cents to either side of ET in any inversion. I think these chords will sound dissonant with either JI or ET. For me it just works better to keep my straight major and minor chords sweet, and let the dissonant chords be dissonant. And I imagine that is why so many steelers have always tuned by ear rather than eyeballing everything straight up by a meter. I would be interested in how those who tune "straight up" deal with cabinet drop.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 10 May 2005 at 10:26 AM.]

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Extreme Cabinet Drop

David Doggett · Posted 10 May 2005 11:49 am

Oh brother, I just realized that of course I frequently sustain the relative minor chord produced with the A pedal alone (C#min in the key of E). So how does that work out with my cabinet drop? The C# roots on the A pedal stops on strings 5, 9 and 12 were tuned JI flat as the 3rds of the A chord, plus an additional 2 hz (8 cents) to match the cabinet drop on the open Es on strings 4, 8 and 11, for a total of 5 hz (20 cents) flat. So these roots will be about 435 hz (-20 cents from ET). The minor thirds are now the open Es on strings 4, 8 and 11. A JI minor 3rd is supposed to be 4 hz or 16 cents sharp of the root (the VI of a JI major scale is 4 hz or 16 cents flat of the major tonic). If the root is 435 hz (ET -20 cents), and the Es with cabinet drop are 438 (ET -8 cents), then the minor 3rd interval is 3 hz or 12 cents, which is passably close to JI 4 hz or 16 cents. The 5ths of the C#min chord are now the G#s on strings 3, 6 and 10. In order to match the C# roots, these should be around 435 hz (ET -20 cents). They will be exactly that, because as the 3rds of the open E chord they were tuned to 437 hz (ET -12 cents), and the cabinet drop will bring that down to 435 hz (ET -20 cents). So the entire minor chord has the proper JI intervals. It is 5 hz (20 cents) flat of ET, but a relative minor chord taken from a JI scale is supposed to be 4 hz (16 cents) flat of the root of the relative major, so that is all as it should be for JI.

If you tune ET, then the A pedal C# root will be 440. The minor 3rds on the E strings will be 437 (ET -12 cents) because of cabinet drop. And the 5ths on the G# strings will be about 438 (ET -4 cents). So a minor chord that should be 436, 440, 437 (-16, 0, -12) for JI, will be 440, 437, 438 (0, -12, - Cool

. A simpler way to look at this might be to peg the root at 440, so it should look like 440, 444, 441 (0, +4, +1 cents) for JI, but instead it looks like 440, 437, 438 (0, -12, - Cool

. The minor third intervals have gone in the wrong direction and are 28 cents away from JI. The 5ths are off by 9 cents. This chord will sound horrible. Again, tuning by ear handles the cabinet drop better. This is no accident. Remember that the standard E9 copedant was worked out by trial and error by steelers who tuned by ear.

A pedal steel guitar is not a piano or a fretted 6-string guitar. It has its own special problems and solutions. A pedal steel is a fretless instrument that can tune all the commonly used chords pure JI, and with the bar can carry those chords to any root and any key. The pedal steel has movable JI chords, something no other instrument has.

Jim Peters · From: St. Louis, Missouri, USA, R.I.P.

David, excellent post as always.I tune pretty much dead on ET,open strings first, then the pedals and knees(5 and 4).
Ignoring pedal 1 and 4 which I rarely use, the only combination sounding off to me is the A and F combination,because of the cabinet drop on 6. I have tried splitting the difference by sharpening the E's, but the band is covering "I Don't Know You" by NRPS, and it sounds terrible with that open open fret E chord with th sharp E's. All my other changes soud fine to my ear. JI is "just" too complicated(pun intended), and causes as many sour chords as it fixes, especially when you have to play open strings. Keep writing, I'm reading! JP

basilh · From: United Kingdom

Billy, I hope you don't mind me slightly hi-jacking your thread..I've been watching for the past few years, with interest, the various issues of tuning discussed here..I don't wish to appear facetious,but, with all this talk of cabinet drop and compensators and various ways to tune, you would think that the majority of the players would be "IN tune". Whereas, a lot of the pieces posted by forumites are far removed from acceptable pitch..
I've seen steelies spend what seemed like ages tuning their guitars, only to be in another galaxy when the bar hit the strings..
Maybe a little discussion on ear training might be more fruitful than the 2-5 Hz cabinet drop question .. 15 - 30 cents up or down from pitch when playing with the bar would seem to make other tuning issues inconsequential.

BTW. I include myself in the group of "Pitchy" players, but at least I CAN hear that it's out, even if I find it hard to get it right.

I got a CD the other day from Bob Hoffnar

Much more relevant to the real world of playing than the "Other tuning issues"
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum18/HTML/000090.html

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David Doggett · Posted 10 May 2005 2:41 pm

It is much more complicated to analyze and explain what happens with the two tuning methods and what the differences are than it is to actually do either one. People should not confuse the complexity of the analysis with the simplicity of doing either one.

There are two methods.

Tuning straight up by the meter (Equal Temper or ET):

Step 1: Take a chromatic tuner and tune every open string straight up (the meter will read 440 or 0 cents).

Step 2: Activate each pedal or lever and tune its stops straight up by the meter.

Tuning by ear (Just Intonation or JI) [this is for an all-pull]:

Step 1: Tune the E strings with a true pitch (tuning fork, keyboard, meter, harmonica). Tune the other open E chord strings so they sound harmonious with the Es. Tune the "chromatic strings" (1, 2, 7) so they sound harmonious with the B string (5) as the root.

Step 2: Activate the pedals and levers and tune them so they sound harmonious with the open strings. Always tune the pedal/lever stops to the open strings.

Anything beyond the above steps is a refinement, for which there will be many variations and opinions. In practice many players use some compromise between the above two methods. But if simplicity is all you are after, then either of the above methods is as simple as it can get. There are 10-14 strings with a number of pedals and levers with multiple stops that repeatedly stretch and relax the strings. It is one of the most difficult and time consuming instruments to tune and keep in tune. If you want simplicity, play a sax. You move the mouthpiece in or out - you're done. Or play an electronic keyboard. You walk out of the store - your done.

basilh · From: United Kingdom

You really don't need to pay any attention to my opinion, but I have been playing in and out of tune for the past 50 (Fifty) years..!!

Klaus Caprani · From: Copenhagen, Denmark

I'm playing an MCI RangeXpander with a rigid frame construction. The apron and the backside appears to be massive aluminium extrusions welded to the endplates.

In spite of that I'm able to messure (not hear) half a hertz of cabinet drop or so.
I'm wondering how much of this should be rightfully named changer-drop instead. I can't see it origining from the cabinet at all.

PS. Sorry for that. I know this was not exactly what the tread was about.

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Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

[This message was edited by Klaus Caprani on 11 May 2005 at 08:44 AM.]

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I gotta agree with Basil here. There are a lot of different ways to tune a pedal steel, but what really matters is playing in tune.

Too often people think that their tuning method is the reason that they sound out of tune. They blame cabinet drop or the damn MIDI keyboard or whatever. But the bottom line is that if your guitar isn't a total piece of crap, it can be played in tune.

I really doesn't matter if you have cabinet drop or hysteresis, or if you tune JI or ET. You have to play this instrument with your ears for it to sound in tune.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra SD-12 (Ext E9), Williams D-12 Crossover, Sierra S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, C6, A6)

Klaus Caprani · From: Copenhagen, Denmark

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Hey Basil,
Thanks for the plug ! I'll be in England in June. I'll buy the first pint if we can meet.

I think its time well spent getting an intellectual understanding of tuning issues. Its not going to help if you haven't trained your ears and hands though.

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Bob
intonation help

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