You’ve most certainly heard a pedal steel guitar before, most likely in any ‘old’ country song, or more specifically, any country song that doesn’t include the word ‘truck’ in its lyrics. Pedal steels are strange devices, looking somewhat like a 10-string guitar with levers that change the pitch of individual strings. Historically, there have been some attempts to put a detuning mechanism for individual strings in normal electric guitars, but these are somewhat rare and weird. [Gr4yhound] just nailed it. He’s come up with the perfect device to emulate a pedal steel in a real guitar, and it sounds really, really good.
The imgur album for this project goes over the construction of the ServoBender in a bit more detail than the video. Basically, four servos are mounted to a metal plate below the bridge. Each servo has a spring and cam system constructed out of 3D printed parts. The detuning is controlled by an Arduino and a few sustain pedals retrofitted with hall effect sensors. Simple, really, but the effect is astonishing.
[Gra4hound]’s contraption is actually very similar to a B-Bender where a guitarist pushes on the neck to raise the pitch of the B string. This setup, though, is completely electronic, infinitely adjustable, and can be expanded to all six strings. Very, very cool, and it makes us wonder what could be done with one of those freaky robot guitars, a soldering iron, and a bit of code.
Video below, because you should watch it again.
Man that is just cool. Very effective mechanical and electronics engineering , so simple. and a great end result.
why dont you concentrate on plain guitar and leave the pedal steel to be a real pedal steel guitar you are far away from the true sound of a genuine pedal steel guitar my friend. you will never be able to reproduce the sound of the……BUDDY EMMONS THE JIMMY DAY RALPH MOONEY TOM BRUMLEY JOHN HUEHY JUST TO NAME A FEW THOSE ARE THE STEELMEN THAT MADE THE NASHVILLE SINGNER SOUND SO GOOD.
What a knob this guy is
I think you are missing the point. It is not to replace the pedal steel but only add to the versatility of an elect 6 string guitar. Just as the B-bender did for Brent Mason etc. But as technology rolls and the old pedal steel home style manufacturers die out I think something akin to the pedal steel will come forth in a new way and form. I own a pedal steel and it is a nightmare to maintain. If you look at the underbelly you will see why. It is kind of ‘steam punk’ in there. I definitely can see that the instrument is ready for a modern update that somewhat gets rid of the all mechanical shenanigans and replaces them with electro mechanical sensor type systems that produce a very similar sound and feel as totally a mechanical instrument does.
Holy cow! A HAD post about a musical instrument with ACTUAL music! Props!
Yeah! Listened a few times!
True, sounds great!
I’m filing this under ‘shut up and take my money!’ Not only does it sound great, but it has a nice finished look to it.
On a related note, does anyone know what songs he’s playing?
The last one sounds like “from the westside to the eastside”
sounded more like amazing grace
+1 for amazing grace. I could listen to this guy play his wacky guitar all day long and not get bored. Hurry up and release an album!
“While I was in Korea, you were gettin’ gonorrhea.” Great guitar though!
First one: Polka dots and Moonbeams
Thought the last song sounded heavily influenced by fleetwood mac’s albatross
Could a string breaking cause the servo to get damaged from the counterweight? It certainly looks like a really cool way to do it and it sounds awesome.
great idea but overengineered
two strings is sufficient
http://www.inthequeue.com/cbnet/articles/9703BassPlayer.htm
millions of peaches can’t be wrong
Millions of peaches?
Peaches for me?
Peaches for free
peaches come in a can, put there by some man…. in a factory downtown…
LOOK OUT!
I read your post, and thought wow I haven’t heard this song in years. Then a few hours later, I jump in my car and lo and behold, it is playing on the radio. Coincidence? I think not *dons tin foil hat*
What do you get when you put some musical chops together with some engineering abilities?
Answer: Guitar Coolness!!
Why not have the servos pull down instead of on a cam. You’d have greater force and smoother control and a better response time.
Love the music, you should start a YouTube channel.
I think pulling down would be too much friction on the string where it meets the bridge, eventually breaking the string. Using the cam, he’s essentially stretching the string laterally without using the bridge as a rigid pulley. Plus, this is basically bolt-on, whereas having the bender pull downward would mean cutting a hole in the body for it to fit.
It takes a good guitarist with the mind of an engineer (or a good engineer with a musical bent) to even come up with something like this, so I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. It certainly sounds great, I’m an average guitarist at best, but I didn’t pick up any issues with response time or control.
As a good musician you know all instruments have their quirks and part of playing is working with the quirks.
It’s just in the current design he feeds the wire through four drilled ot screws (difficult to machine which is why he prob went with brass) and the string is stretched over two edges. Lots of broken strings that way. If you went with a rod for the bridge and fixed the other end normally, then generated the force down on each string seperately between those two points, you could cut down on the sharp edges.
And it uses an arduino!
There is nothing not cool here.
Some nice chops too!
So when can I buy one?
after you make one and sell it to yourself
It’s more than I expected, variable bend no less. This could work on the next version of the sustaining steel I am making. Since it only takes one hand to bar the other is free to bend hand levers not needing foot pedals. I am already running everything on a laptop battery, I don’t need the additional power drain.
The counter tension not “weight” concept would be best if in line, not at right angles. I would like to hear if it remains stable in tuning after wear. Tuning by good trimpots is appealing. The photos still don’t show the details of the counter tension springs well enough. The differential tuning concept still has merit, it might hand levers easier to manipulate.
Nice idea, nicely done, and nicely played. The only thing I’d be worried about is stress on the servos. Just a thought as an alternative way to do it; Rather than stretching the string, if you altered the bridge so you could move the bridge peices back and fourth by about an inch (smoothly, so you’d have to do something about the ends of the hight adjustment screws) and fix the strings on a fixed point on the body, you could then use the servos to move the bridge pieces, effectively shortening the string (Similar to using a guitar slide) rather than stretching the string. This’d probably be a bit trickier to engineer (as it’d need a fair amount of re-engineering of the bridge) but woulden’t need the counterweight springing, and would reduce servo wear.
Still, really nicely done
The problem with movable bridges (and I’ve had many guitars with them in a traditional manual style) is that it would be much more difficult to do “on the fly”, servos or not. And wear would still be an issue; the closer you move the bridge towards the tailpiece, the more force is necessary to push the bridge under the tension of the strings. On the neck side, the string tension is spread out over the majority of the length of the string, but between the bridge and the tailpiece, there is a lot less string to work with, making it very difficult to force the bridge closer. This puts a lot of friction on the taut tail end of the string, making it much more likely to break.
True. I hadn’t thought of that. In that case, I suppose that you could always put an individual servo-operated slide on each string around the bridge area or something like that. It’d probably need some sort of cover to stop you keeping catching it, though.
Very sweet build! +1 for sure. I would only recommend two simple changes/additions. GraphTech saddles on the bending strings to help minimize friction, and an awesome chrome plated cover to go over the servo plate which would be reminiscent of the old Telecaster “ashtray” bridge covers. With the servo plate covered, people would be listening to this guitar wondering how does he get that awesome sound!
Okay. Enough! Take my money already!
More questions. How long to change a string? Wound string at sliding point will fail at winding first and buzz. Still can’t figure out springs at servos. They are not part of counter tension.
Steel guitars use a roller action at the end of a lever, so standard strings slip in to the lever. Most importantly there is no sliding action across the bend.
Mechanical tremolo! Just a bit of code and you’re there!
What a cool sound. I also wonder about changing a string and what it might involve.
I’ve posted a video at http://youtu.be/i-XejSDKvl4 of me playing “I’m on Fire” (Bruce Springsteen) performed on a hybrid guitar/pedal steel I bought a while back. It’s a fantastic sounding instrument made by MSA Pedal Steels back in the early 80s using a Peavey T60 electric guitar. As cool as it is, it’s also problematic. For one, it does not stay in tune for too long. It’s also extremely heavy and cumbersome. I tried building a similar guitar with hexaphonic pickups (google it) and individual digital pitch bender pedals for each string, but the string bleed through was too much. I’d be curious if anyone knows others that have taken stabs at constructing a similar sort of guitar/steel hybrid and would want to share ideas. I did try to contact the maker of guitar from the above video but never heard back. Please let me know. You can reach me through my website at http://www.russellchud.com
Isnt this best achieved via DSP, good foot pedal controls and a hexaphonic pickup? That way you could pitch up or down and more in software
ah sorry – failed to read last comment