I had both, and one thing I found difficult about the 12-string was getting used to the two strings below the 10th. If you're used to the chord grips on a 10-string, it will probably take a while to adjust. The 9th string as a B kind of screwed me up as well, although dropping it to D on a knee lever can produce some cool licks as well as doing its practical job. but then I'd have to drop it further down to the C# on another lever......ahhhh.

Having all that extra bass on the E9 is very cool.

Ernie

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www.home.earthlink.net/~johnd37

Listen to my CD's in my sig below
Do they sound out of tune?
Does Reece sound out?
Does Joe Wright sound out?

Phoney baloney argument.

I was always against a U12, but it was because I was scared of it, and was afraid it would take to long getting used to it.

It's taking some mind changing on my part, and some getting used to on grips, and I'm no where near getting full potential out of this guitar, but I wish I had changed long ago.

The added bottom end is just great. Love it.

Larry

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"Fessy" S/D 12, 8/6 Hilton Pedal, Sessions 400 Ltd. Home Grown E/F Rack
"ROCKIN COUNTRY"

   <  ^  >  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  <  >
F#
C# D#    D
G#                A
E                                F# F  D#
B     A#       C#    C# C#
G#                A  A  A#
F#          G#             F
E                                F# F  D#
C#       D                    C
B  A#          C#             A#
G#                A
E           C#             F  D#

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Don't matter who's in Austin (or anywhere else) Ralph Mooney is still the king!!!

When I went from S10 E9 to an S12 universal I was temporarily thrown off because the center of the neck, where the position markers are, was moved from between strings 5 and 6 to between strings 6 and 7. Without realizing it, I had been keying on the markers for my grips. To help readjust, I took a red marking pen and ran it down the side of my 8th string, to help me relearn where this root string is in relation to the position markers. After awhile I became use to the fact that the center of the neck on a uni is between the wound strings and unwound (unless you use a wound 6th string), and I no longer needed the red marker.

I am puzzled by the worries about conflicts between JI tuning for
E9 and B6. I looked fairly closely at the relationship in theory and by ear, and I have found no conflict for the main chords. There is a good reason for this lack of conflict in theory and practice. The tonic chord of the B6 tuning is the V6 chord of the E9 tuning. In a JI scale, there is of course no conflict between JI intonation for the I and V chord. Even the 6th of the B6 chord comes out right on the money. Also, Abm, the relative minor in the B6 tuning is the same as the IIIm (G#m) in the E9 tuning (the E-lower lever). Both those chords work out fine for JI. Also, pedal 6 (of D10 C6) or the uni lever that lowers E to D works out. I have not looked at the theoretical JI of the other B6 pedals, but I have not heard any glaring problems with them. So I don’t think JI or tuning by ear is any more a problem for a uni then it is for E9 alone or C6 alone. With any of these tunings, if you push it hard enough looking for every conceivable theoretical grip, you run into problems for JI tuning. But the standard chords and grips that most players use most of the time work out fine.

Also, the lack of instruction material is a bogus fear. If you learn to read tab for both D10 and Uni, you fairly easily adapt to translating the minor differences. Each D10 instructor’s tab is for a slightly different E9 or C6 copedant anyway. So when looking at material from different instructors, you always have to make minor translations anyway. The minor translations required to adapt D10 tabs to a uni are no more difficult.

There are legitimate reasons to prefer D10 to uni, and to prefer uni to D10. But lets get rid of the bogus excuses.

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Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

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Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

I guess what peeves me the most is the number of pro players who badmouth a U-12 as being a 'kid's toy' or 'just not the way to go' rather than leaving that decision up to the individual. They just laugh when people mention a single 12 universal. I can name names but won't. I HAVE heard it. I also know that the VAST MAJORITY of these players have never played a single neck universal tuning for long enough to get used to it and are NOT speaking from experience. I AM. I have done both and still prefer a U-12.

Is U-12 for everyone? Probably not. Even though I have 8 and 8 on my main guitar I recognize that there's no way that I can cram as many changes on my single neck as one can on a 10x10 D-10. That's the only real reason I can think of that would hold a D-10 player back. The only other reason is PERSONAL PREFERENCE -- which I grant D-10 players even though many of them don't reciprocate.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
My CD's: 'I've Got Friends in COLD Places' - 'Pedal Steel Guitar'
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 28 April 2006 at 09:37 AM.]

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Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

When I decided to get a new steel ('95), I stood back and re-evaluated everything I had been told, and took a good look at my personal E9 copedant (already had droped the 9th string "D", and added a low E 20 years earlier).... I could see no reason to not go the Universal route.

As mentioned above, getting used to the change in grips gave me some trouble for a few weeks.... however now I would never consider going back, and like Mike I have trouble playing a 10 string E9... it just feels like part of it is missing. I never realized how I was automatically indexing my grips to where my thumb was... very interesting actually.

With that said, I still restring my '70 MSA D10 so I have a standard C6th for quick comparisom to standard tabs (and I really am fond of the old gal ) I've forgotten half of what 6th playing I used to do (played in a swing band for many years in the '70s), so I can actually relearn on the U12, and no prob.

I know other U12 player do this too, but I added lowering my 2nd string D#->C# on the same lever that lowers my E's->D#'s... equivalent of having both G and D in the "C6th tuning" (which is of course B6th on mine). I also should be branded with the scarlet letter (L)... because I had Bud (and John) put a lock on this lever for me, they agreed to do it after the repremand proved usless on me .

To sum up, I wanted a guitar that would force me to "grow" as a steel player, and that I got, fer sur.

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Dave Wren
'96 Carter S12-E9/B6,7X7; Twin Session 500s; Hilton Pedal; Black Box
www.ameechapman.com

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"Fessy" S/D 12, 8/6 Hilton Pedal, Sessions 400 Ltd. Home Grown E/F Rack
"ROCKIN COUNTRY"

I have always played C6 from the bottom up and E9 from the top down. This solves a lot of problems getting used to the U-12 if you are a D-10 player. Naturally, if you are a single 10 player, you don't have much to fall back on in the lower register of the tuning, except, perhaps, terra firma.

Most E9 players are taught to learn the major chord string grips and I wholeheartedly agree that a competent player should be able to grab them at will. With the U-12 there is only one different from E9 (instead of 10/8/6 it is 9/8/6) and then there are three more, but those are easy (10/9/8, 11/10/9, and 12/11/10 -- just adjacent strings). Yes, it's different from a single 10 but certainly not difficult to remember or master. You don't have to jump over the 9th string and you can get the D two different ways -- by raising 9 or lowering 8. Once again, if you key in on E9 from the top down and learn to locate a key grip like 8/6/5 easily you're most of the way there.

Good luck in your quest, Bob.

I play both my Zum U12 and my ZB D10, pretty much at whim.

Actually most of the time the D10 stays set up at home for practice and the U12 goes to gigs, but sometimes on long weekends I'll take both guitars and play one Friday the other saturday.

HOWEVER, when I first went to the U12 from 25 years of D10, I put the D10 away and concentrated on acclimatizing myself to the U12. A few weeks of "indoctrination" and I was comfortable.

Having done so, I can now go back and forth between them with minimal difficulty... the primary issues are because the positions for the common knee lever changes are different between the two, and not because of anything inherent in the "U12-ness" vs "D10-ness"-for instance my E lowers are on the LKR on the D10 and RKL on the U12... that could happen even if I had 2 D10's or a D10 and an S10 E9

Larry Bell's fine evaluation and exposition on his website was one of the best aids in my making the decision to switch.

My inital attraction to the S12 was that I did a lot of double duty on telecaster and wanted a single neck guitar, but didn't want to loose the 6th voicings. Easy choice. But as I got further involved I realized a couple things, first, I'll never be BE or PF, second, the arguments pro U12 outweighed the the arguments against. Like Larry, the only legit argument against the U12, IMO, is that you can't squeeze as many changes on the guitar, but 8+5 is all I'll ever use.

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Dave Wren
'96 Carter S12-E9/B6,7X7; Twin Session 500s; Hilton Pedal; Black Box
www.ameechapman.com

I find that I frequently use my E9 ninth (D) string as a root note to the chord (major ninths and sevenths as well as 'add 9' chords. So - it's a valuable string to me just as it is, and I also use it in conjunction with my LKL(2) as well as my LKR. I also frequently need to lower that ninth string to C# (RKR) while retaining the ability to raise and lower 5th string (B to C#) on my 'C' pedal.

I'm unable to see how I'd get all that I can now if I were to go to a U12 that required me to be holding a knee-lever in place in order to have the D in the bass. Am I missing something obvious or is this one of the compromises that's peculiar to the standard universal set-up?

What's your take, Larry?

I have to say that I favour E9 to C6th by about 80-20%, so it wouldn't take much to push me in a 12-string direction - but I dread to imagine the drop in the quality of my life if I couldn't have that 'D' available whenever I felt the need....

Does that answer your question or did I miss something?

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
My CD's: 'I've Got Friends in COLD Places' - 'Pedal Steel Guitar'
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

[This message was edited by Larry Bell on 02 May 2006 at 04:50 PM.]

I switched to a Universal in '79 and both a standard E9th and C6th feel a bit different to me. To me the whole point of the universal was to integrate and think of it as one tuning.

Surely this is the true definition of lateral thinking, isn't it? I know exactly what all my 8 & 8 changes do, and why I've opted for the peripheral, or non-standard, ones, but I need to approach this when it's NOT 11.30 at night, and I'm a bit sharper than I am now.

Larry, there's no problem with the 2nd string lowers being combined with the pull that acheives the low 'D' - I don't use the 2nd string when in that mode - but the flexibility/availabibity of the D dropping to C# while allowing a B on string 5 could be an issue.

It's no good - I'm too tired!!!!

Thanks, guys....