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Author
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Topic: How good/bad are Mavericks?
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Bobby Lee
Sysop From: Cloverdale, North California, USA
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posted 25 January 2005 04:50 PM
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I played a gig last summer on my Maverick, to an audience of punk rock kids. My sister and I were the opening act for a punk band. They all loved the sound of my steel guitar. I forgot my bar, and had to do the gig with a glass pill bottle instead. No problem...
Like I said, Ed, it's the musician who makes the music. The music doesn't come from the guitar. Blind tone tests are silly. Music can contain all kinds of tones. The audience will always choose the music that touches their heart, regardless of tone.------------------
 Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra SD-12 (Ext E9), Williams D-12 Crossover, Sierra S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, C6, A6) |
Herman Visser
Member From: Rohnert Park, California, USA
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posted 25 January 2005 08:48 PM
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Here we go again bashing starter guitars.There is a reason they are known as starters,to see if this is what you want to play, with out spending all the rent money.I think $300to$500 is a reasonable amount to find this out.After you buy Amp. Bars,picks,Vol peddle,and instruction another $400 total just short of $1000 for something your not even sure youll ever learn to play.
TONE: well I think most new guys know good tone in a steel, but that is not whatI was after.Just wanted to learn chords and bar placements to start.If the starter lasts only 1yr.I think its done its job. And to think that the little steel that could gets me started to bigger a better things then I applaud it!.
There is not one person on this Forum when selling his Guitar will say HO! you started out on a Maverick I cannt sell you mine,reminber its a starter that got him there.
And to those that want to burn these Mavericks think about this-NO good musicans I think would go out and burn any Guitar let alone a playing steel guitar.Would I buy another 3x1 again (NO)but most new guys dont know any better,I do now.
Reading post like these kind of take the wind out of peoples sails and thats not right.People need to be encouraged to keep playing and not to be told their the proud owners of $400 worth of fire wood (Tony White is selling his pile for $500)
I almost drop the Forum a few mons.ago,because of all the negativity, I hope it stops
PROUD OWNER OF A PILE OF FIREWOOD ( SO WHAT)I am haveing Fun. |
Ed Naylor
Member From: portsmouth.ohio usa
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posted 26 January 2005 05:56 AM
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All the negative comments about the Maverick and other guitars, only makes it harder yto get people started. The MODEL A by Henry Ford really got people in the mood to travel around. I also feel this is kind of an insult to SHO-BUD that really was trying to get people into a Steel at a price they could afford. I am surprised someone hasn't sued SHO-BUD because the Maverick kept them from being a star. ED |
David L. Donald
Member From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand
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posted 26 January 2005 06:01 AM
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My buddy just got a Maverick, a nice wood one, and is now getting a handle on it.He is very pleased and says it sounds great.
He is an recording engineer, plays great guitar and has good ears. If you think of the Maverick as a 10 string lapsteel with a couple of pedals added it is a pretty cool unit. If you compare it to a full boat Carter, MSA, Fessie, Fulawka, Emmons, Sho-Bud, Sierra, Zum, ad infinitum,
then it comes up short. But more than just playable. I think if it were an E13 with a few pulls it could be really cool. |
John Schjolberg
Member From: Golden Valley, Minnesota, USA
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posted 26 January 2005 07:57 AM
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Hey Bobby Lee - when you put on your homemade LKL, did you happen to put it on the C pedal shaft? And is it raising or lowering the Es? Just wondering. |
David Doggett
Member From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
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posted 26 January 2005 08:38 AM
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When I sold my custom lacquer Maverick a couple of years ago to get a formica Fessy U12, my few local fans were dissappointed. They loved the look of the natural wood and those red and white card suit symbols. They didn't care that I was getting a better sound and had more than 20 times more changes.  |
Bobby Lee
Sysop From: Cloverdale, North California, USA
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posted 27 January 2005 08:33 AM
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My LKL raises the E strings. It's my only lever. I probably used some of the parts from the third pedal. All of the parts from the undercarriage were removed for a few years while I played as a non-pedal guitar, standing up. When I rebuilt it, I just put the bare minimum on it: A, B and F. |
Kenny Foy
Member From: Lynnville, KY, USA
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posted 27 January 2005 05:04 PM
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Just wonderin if the Maverick I have is the standard of the industry. It's birdeye with the teardrop or gumbee tuner head. It has the flat fretboard. NO coat hangers. It has the big rods underneath but where it connects to the changer has the fishhooks about 1 inch long like underneath a push/pull. It also has what I believe is what they call brass barrels w/ springs behind them. Does not have the single tree pull system. DOES have string rollers on the nut. One knee lever. It's actually the only one I've seen built like this.Some of you pros out there mite have some info for me. Thanks for any responses. |
Lem Smith
Member From: Fulton, MS. U.S.A.
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posted 27 January 2005 08:17 PM
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Kenny,
Sho~Bud built a pro model S10 before the Pro I came into being. I forget the particular model number stamped on the bottom of them, but I figure that's probably what you have. The Unofficial Sho~Bud page, which is linked from b0b's link pages has more info on the particular model numbers.Hope this helps,
Lem |
Michael Haselman
Member From: St. Paul Park, Minnesota, USA
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posted 28 January 2005 10:30 AM
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I just remember, 1st guitar was a Maverick, first instruction book, Winnie Winston's. My Maverick had no lower capability, so I couldn't do the songs as Winnie was teaching. It lasted 3 weeks before I got my Pro I that I played for 24 years. |
Kenny Foy
Member From: Lynnville, KY, USA
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posted 28 January 2005 10:44 PM
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Lem, It does say Maverick on the front of the guitar and that what confuses me. It is very well made underneath and maybe be a million out there like it. It just doesn't seem like it made like the others mentioned on this topic. Thanks again. |
Lem Smith
Member From: Fulton, MS. U.S.A.
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posted 29 January 2005 05:53 AM
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Kenny,
The older Mavericks were like the one you're talking about, as far as I know anyway. It's the newer ones that have the contact paper finish on them, no rollers, and they aren't nearly as nice as the older Mavericks.For some reason, I didn't catch you saying in your earlier post that yours was a Maverick... I thought it might have been one of the other S10's. I've seen pics of some Mavericks that sound like what you're describing, at least on the outside. I don't remember about the undercarriage. Lem |
David Doggett
Member From: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
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posted 30 January 2005 12:04 PM
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Kenny, the original Mavericks were maple bodies and raised necks. They weren't birdseye, and some were enamel painted colots, but some may have been natural lacquer. The key heads had the tear-drop bent point, with plastic keys and no nut rollers. The endplates were aluminum. That's the kind I had, but I don't know what the undercarriage looked like, because mine was replaced with the next type of undercarriage. These were birdseye maple natrual lacquer, tear-drop key head with Grover tuners and nut rollers. The end plates were wrinkle coat black. The undercarriage was ball-end pell cranks, yokes and coat-hangers (actually the pull-rods were a little thicker than coat hangers). These were probably the nicest Mavericks of all. Yours sounds like one of these, with some Pro parts or push-pull parts on the undercarriage. After that, they came out with the vinyl covered ones with no raised neck, and Fender ash-tray style key heads. I don't know if these sounded or played any worse than the earlier ones, but they were uglier than a bamboons a** laced up with bamboo. The ugly factored just killed your desire to own or play on these things. |
Joe Shelby
Member From: Walnut Creek, California, USA
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posted 30 January 2005 07:37 PM
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After about two years of saving my pennies
from summer jobs, and selling off a Fender Mustang/Vibro Champ amp (as well as my first
steel, a Stringmaster double 8), I purchased
a Maverick from a 30% off discount house in
Texas. It took two months to get it. It had
the standard 3+1 pedal setup and nut rollers,
and it was the earlier raised neck/natural finish version.
I really wanted to get a ZB student model, but couldn't afford it.
Within a few months I got a couple of sets of
Schaller tuners to replace the less than accurate Grover Sta-Tites that were on there.
A friend of my Dad's helped me drill out the keyhead. We actually disassembled a couple of the Schallers to make them fit properly in the fifth and sixth string positions, which was a hell of a trick. (Sho Bud simply
ground the end of the tuner shafts to make
things fit to keyhead casting).
A few months later I ordered two knee lever
kits from Sho-Bud to expand the somewhat limited pedal changes. For all the grousing that goes on here, nobody talks about (what I
think was common knowledge at the time)how
difficult it was to get parts orders filled
whether you owned a Pro or the "lowly" Maverick. I eventually sent a letter threatening legal action (I was 17 at that time) if I didn't get those knee levers. Shotly, they arrived in the mail...
I know I installed one in the RKL position to raise the first and seventh strings up a
half step. The second was in the LKL position
and I think I somehow rigged it to raise the E's to F (it's been thirty years...).
I got a Korg WT-10 and even so, it was a constant process of tuning and retuning. Worked on (what there was) of the undercarraige to take as much slop as possible. Still, for unexplainable reasons, I
sometimes had to raise the back legs up to get enough pedal travel (especially for the third pedal).
Within that first year, I started playing out, between the SF Bay Area and Texas with the first good band I was in. That Maverick went to the Great American Music Hall, the Armadillo World Headquarters (we opened for a
guy named Alvin Crow who had some guy named Herb who opened with Buddie's Boogie...), the
Austin Paramount, the Palomino (Jay Dee Maness watched and I sweated. Later he offered to let me play through the two Fender
Twins he had; I thought, now I'm gonna sound
more like him and less like me...I was scrambling back and forth between my steel and those Twins trying to get any semblance of tone. I think J.D. was probably pretty amused by that).
Finally, I did buy a pro model doubleneck.
The point of all this (are you asleep yet?)is
that with all the problems (staying in tune,
being the major one; I liked the tone for the most part) I wouldn't trade anything for the experiences I gathered in the two years I
played that guitar. I couldn't afford anything else and learning to max out what I
could of the mechanical shortcomings was good
experience for things that I did later.
The inflated prices on ebay is the real issue to me--a Maverick is only a Maverick
and shouldn't be advertised and sold as if it were something like a Pro 1, or a collectible, because it is neither. | |
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