However this is fast changing. When Paul Franklin started pulling the 1st string a whole tone it began a new trend. Following with his raising of the 2nd string a half a tone will make this knee lever what b0b said, in the future. More and more steel players are adding these two changes on RKL as they do away with pulling the first string a half a tone.

A,B,C pedals are pretty standard
E to D# and E to F are pretty standard
third lever lowers 2nd string 1/2 step and SOMETIMES a whole step and SOMETIMES has the 9th string lower as well.

Anything beyond that is a crapshoot, in my observation.

Every guitar that I sell on the floor, new or used, unless otherwise specified, will be shipped with a "standard set up". (3 pedals and 4 knees on the E9th neck)

Judging from the majority of customers that I have sold to over the past 10 years, over 95% of them use a "standard set up", sometimes refered to as a standard Emmons set up.

And Bobby is correct, MOST steels being shipped (according to my telephone survey of manufacturers) are a "standard"; As follows:

A, B, C pedals left to right

LKL raises the E's

LKR lowers the E's

RKL raises 1 a half a tone and lowers 6 a whole tone.

RKR lowers 2 a half a tone with half stop; and lowers 9 a half a tone.

IF they ship the guitar with 5 knee levers, LKV will lower 5 and 10 a half a tone.

Regardless of what some players have, the above IS standard. Meaning that MOST players have it. Again, RKL is fast changing as I stated in my previous post. I predict that the PF changes on strings 1 and 2 WILL be standard in the not too distant future.

"Standard" is just a great starting spot and probably won't be the final tuning in your life, but listen to great players like Herby Wallace and you'll realize that this is a wonderful "standard". This is exactly what he uses, like many other great players do.

If you are a new player, don't start learning on some non-standard tuning, no reason to and it will hurt you badly when trying to learn from teaching materials like tab and videos,and when playing other steel players guitars,or having them play yours and it will hurt the value of your guitar at trade in time. Also, every guitar you ever get will need to be changed to "your" set-up. This means $$$$$ unless you take the time to do it all yourself.

Why don't I and many older steel players play a standard set-up? Because there was no standard when we were learning, no tab, no videos, no teachers etc. About all that was available was Buddy Emmons when he'd come through town. He scared most of us to death.

P1 raised B's to C#,
P2 raised G#'s to A,
P3 raised #4 and #5 a whole tone each,
LKL raised the E's,
RKL lowered the E's,
LKR raised the F#s to G
and RKR lowered 2nd string a whole tone with a barrel adjuster half stop.

String 6 was a .22 wound string and would not drop down a whole tone without changing it to a plain string (when I added a knee lever to do that in 1975).

I still have these basic 4 knee levers on my current Super~Pro, plus 6 other custom changes on the additional knee levers I added over the years.

There was one steel player, Steve Smith, who's 1st and 3rd pedals were reversed, as were some of his knee levers (to make sense with the reversed pedals). He called his setup the Jimmy Day setup.

------------------
Bob "Wiz" Feinberg
AIM Screenname: Wizcrafts
Sho~Bud Super~Pro with 10 and 10, L710s and aluminum fingers from Bobbe Seymour. Nashville 400 amp.
Keep Steelin' but don't get caught

[This message was edited by Wiz Feinberg on 02 July 2003 at 10:02 AM.]