Brass Rail guitars

[connie_mack]

doc rock

i take it you are a lead guitarist.

i never stated fact that the brass rail came from pedal steel manufacture. i stated that i used facts to back up my assertion that it could have.

so far, you have not backed up yours with anything but mentioning some guitar names and sitting on a very impressive collection of other peoples work. since your argument seems to revolve around the age old socratic method of "because i say so", i guess we'll just have to take your word for it that moseley was in no way influenced by pedal steel guitars or bigsby, or anything for that matter. it's all just coincidence. fascinating take on the world, i must say.

but you do seem to like to make snide and smarmy logical jumps. ergo, i guess the german carve was just something he pulled out of his butt and had nothing to do with the time he spent at rickenbacker.

.

I have yet to see an analog to inlaying a hunk of brass in the neck of a guitar in the pedal steel world.

why don't you look at a pedal steel guitar. you will notice that the overwhelming majority of them made for the last 60 years had aluminum necks. if you understood why that is, you might understand my thought process.



now, tell us how your amps go to eleven.

[jtr654]

Thing are getting a little to heated here I think that maybe both are right on some points and shake hand and walk away. No one except Semie can answer for sure and I don't think that going to happen.

[MWaldorf]

Now, now, fellas, no need to get ornery.

I think it's interesting to consider what influenced the design of these guitars. Personally, I don't see much steel guitar influence in the brass rail idea, both because other builders were trying out similar designs and materials, and because it was close to two decades between Semie working with Bigsby and the Brass Rail. Semie started using the german carve pretty much right away, so it's easy to draw the line to his time at Rickenbacker. Also, Semie didn't make any steel guitars, or at least not as factory models, until the Melobars in the late 60s.

Mel

[Dennisthe Menace]

Now, now, fellas, no need to get ornery.

Mel's right guys, there's no 'learning process' established when it becomes a 'who knows the most' type discussion.
This Forum is about members SHARING what he/her might of learned/or experienced about the Mosrite Guitar/Bass
instruments...nothing more-nothing less......now kiss and make up ..............

[brutus]

Relax

[Deke Dickerson]

Hey guys,

I'll throw in two cents here just to calm everybody down....

The solidbody electric guitar was invented because when electric instruments came out in the 1930's and 1940's, the lap steels were made of solid wood and the first electric guitars were generally hollowbody archtops with pickups put on them. In noisy honky tonks, the steel guitars could get louder and sustained more.

So, when Merle Travis approached Paul Bigsby about making the first "modern" electric solidbody guitar in 1948, one of his ideas was to make it a neck-through-body design, in his words, "like a steel guitar." So Connie Mack has a point about solidbody electric guitars in general owing a debt to the steel guitar....

On the other hand Adam is most definitely correct that as guitars evolved from the 1960's into the 1970's, to suit the modern styles of rock (and country) music the general vogue was to make the instruments heavier, denser, and loaded with things like brass tailpieces, brass bridge saddles, brass nuts, etc. Every major manufacturer did this--Gibson, Fender, Ovation, Rickenbacker, Mosrite, Travis Bean, Veleno, etc. etc. etc. during those years. So I think that the Brass Rail was definitely more of "the era" than it was necessarily copying steel guitars or pedal steel guitars.

As I am fond of saying, there's an element of truth in everything....you just have to find the right way to b.s. about it. ha ha

Deke

[Veenture]

...yeah guys, guitars and pedal steels go together in my book.
Here's a tune, designed for the pedal steel but played on an ordinary guitar (well...) by none other than Nokie Edwards himself ...and only as he can
(this was at the Sunhouse in Amsterdam 2002 ...and I was there!!!)

Incidentally, notice the neck-through-body design on Nokie's HitchHiker Mosrite inspired guitar helping along some wonderful sustain.

Enjoy

[connie_mack]

yes, they do. just another reminder

http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/PluckedStrings/ ... r6190.html

[zarfnober]

Call me crazy but, I think the point C mac is making is that sometimes ideas sit in peoples heads for a long time, parts(materials) get used here and there by different builders and just like the solidbody electric guitar, more than one person is doing the same (sort of) thing at the same time and people decide to argue about it. Who did what first?

I really don't think it's a stretch at all to see the relationship between the early Bigsby stuff, steel guitars and Semies brass rails. And I think more than a few bulders were thinking along the same basic lines. Now maybe Semie wasn't doing the "trick" stuff for Bigsby but, he was there in his shop. Ideas are seen and born in these environments.

I think Cmac and Adam are both right and really just arguing little details.

Now if you want REAL sustain, my Ventures II has none.

Rocco

[jfine]

Deke makes a good point. Let's not forget that the first solidbody guitars were lap steels, and one of the inspirations for early solidbody Spanish guitars (and for the vibrato tailpiece) was to have a Spanish guitar that would have the sustain of a steel. The Rickenbacker Frying Pan prototype had a neck that was shaped for Spanish playing, or Hawaiian with a high nut. Merle Travis stated in interviews that he wanted a guitar that would sound like a steel; Leo Fender actually used a lap-steel pickup in the Broadcaster/Telecaster/Esquire, and Bill Carson was quoted as telling Leo he wanted a guitar that he could simulate steel parts on, when the Stratocaster was being developed. Whether Semie was directly influenced by this or not, I don't know, but the evolution of the electric guitar has certainly been a quest for more sustain. In the early days of the electric guitar (early-'30's-late-'40's) it was not uncommon to have a guitarist in a big band who used his Spanish, either acoustic or minimally amplified, strictly for rhythm, and a steel for solos. And that clip of Nokie is just killer!