Of course we both know that you are asking for the impossible. Show you the paper you say. We both know that this is impossible since my friend just told me what he did as we talked about this subject. I would think that his word should be good enough for both of us. His point was that the ideal resting point for the string was for it to touch at a minuscule point on each side of the groove but not in the bottom (for example a round-bottomed groove would kill the sustain)
I believe that this point has been researched enough, without the need for further proof.
I have these gauged rollers on the guitar that Dave Seddon owns and I have received several positive remarks about the amount of sustain in it. However unscientific this may be, it still adds to my assertion that grooves do enhance sustain. I believe that a string vibrating mostly back and forth will benefit from the contact point on each side of it.
I find it tough to believe that the builders who chose to use gauged rollers thru the ages, were collectively wrong in their assumption.
Richard nobody is making blanket statements about one being better than the other, nor did I make that implication. As a matter of fact, please re-read my post where I merely said "FYI - IF you want to try it". Nor did I say that this grove plays a MAJOR role in the overall picture of a fine sounding steel. But as you assert, that the issue of this roller maybe contributes 1% to the overall picture, and the sum is 100 say, then leaving it out of the equation allows us to arrive at 99, not quite the sum... If that is so, then we can look at other things as well and say "it hardly contributes"...before we know it we'll land on 90 and so on.
The max transfer of energy (to where?) is the vibration throughout the body and back thru the strings and enhancing the overall tone picture. The Emmons PP builders strived for this sound transfer partly with the finger contacting the body of the guitar. It has nothing to do with steels merrily hopping across the floor
I can agree that we might be making too much out of gauged rollers and such...sure we maybe are, but then I'll throw right back at ya "we are making too much out of knife edges". We all have our pet hangups and beliefs. Rollers is obviously mine, knife edges might be yours
Sure, maybe no-one knows what makes a PSG tick. Ron Lashley Sr. came awfully close though, with his un-researched work.
We will just have to agree to disagree then I guess. No biggie. I enjoy these discussions as well, so let's discuss
There comes a time, however, where one has to call a halt to the research and the discussions if one is aiming to get that guitar off of the paper and onto the floor.
Movin' on, my friend!
