Steel Guitar Builder

Guys
I need a little help to understand about changers. I am seeing double raise/double lower,
triple raise/double lower, and triple raise/triple lower. If building a guitar with up to 4 floor
pedals and up to 5 knee levers what type changer would be needed?
Please help!
Thanks
Wayne

Wayne, for that pedal setup, triple raise, double lower would suffice

Wayne -

You may just be putting the cart before the horse. I don't mean that to sound derogatory by any means but your copedant and the desired changes within that copedant will dictate the raises and lowers on the changer.

In looking at a typical E9th copedant, I note that one could "get away" with one raise and one lower per string. Now, don't jump all over that! There may be times when you want to balance out the pulls such that two strings start and end at the same time. Usually, this can be done at the bellcrank but, if one wants to really get persnicketty, the pull rod could always be moved to another hole in the changer for more precise results. You're doing nothing more than adjusting the leverages for whatever the reason. And speaking of leverages - should you have a bunch of raises and lowers on any given pedal or lever then, mechanically, it affords you the ability to make things more "playable" - that is, less effort to effect the change. Ya don't have to be built like a 300 pound gorilla. It also goes without saying that, should you decide to drastically change the copedant, then extra holes in the fingers might just come in handy.

For my money, the more the better! Without having the changer fingers hangin' out of the bottom of the guitar, that is. You must have, at least, an idea for the total height of the cabinet. That cabinet height plus the height of the changer, itself, above the cabinet is the space in which you have to work. My GFI, for example, has a triple raise, double lower changer - more than enough for most copedants.

If you don't have a ready reference to typical copedants then I suggest that you visit The Steel Guitar Forum. On the opening page there's a heading at the top called Steel Guitar Tunings. You don't have to be a member to access this. The listings will range all the way from "pure vanilla" to "outrageous" but you'll be able to find something within, say, the E9 tunings which will most likely serve your purpose.

Hope this helps,

Richard

Just noticed that Bent just beat me to the punch on that triple raise, double lower setup.

Thanks guys,
I have not started to build yet, just getting things sorted out(with all the
great help from you guys) A Triple raise/double lower is what I will shoot
for.
Wayne

This topic came up in SGF and most said 2 raises and 2 lowers is enough to do any change you need on a E9th , all my last PSG's i've made has 2 raises and 2 lowers and also the one i'm working on right now, but if you can do or have a 3 raises and 2 lowers changer like Bent said...go for it cause it's better to have more than less .

Pat C.

If you pull string five to C# with A-pedal and C-pedal, you could pull it to C to get an augmented with a lever, instead of using A-half. That's 3 raises.

A half A has been used throughout history. It's accepted that you don't hit it dead on every time - that's jazz man!
Trying to be funny
The C can be achieved by having the half tone lower on the knee lever(the most common position is the LKV) with a split tuning screw on the end of the changer.
So in other words you use your A+LKV to get the AUG

F+A+B pedals at root -1 hits it dead on too without installing extra levers. Now were back to 2 raises, 1 lower.

A+LKV would not work on a pull-release. You would get VIm chord due to high pull override.