Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'll guess 1957. Now, pull those pots and let's have look at the numbers there just to be sure...

Looks lovely. bet it sounds amazing.

Yeah -- it has a great sound, Matt, and welcome aboard the RRF !

Got a new Dunlop long dawg tone bar for it last week and have been experimenting with changing string gauges several times and with some different tunings. Have settled on an improvised version of an Em tuning for now, as I'm thinking David Gilmour/ Floyd and Dark Side of the Moon.

Since I'm a novice, I've got a question for you other console steel players. Do you rest your right hand on top of that nice horseshoe magnet ?? With my size hands, I find I am scooting my hands way over to the right, just to be playing the tone bar around the 10th, 12th and 14th fret positons... so the right hand, by default, ends up positioned on the horseshoe. It feels comfortable, but I have no idea if this hand placement is transgressing some steel-guitar players etiquette ?


Biggest challenge for me as a steel novice is consistency in the right hand picking attack, so all the notes ring out clear and at the same volume. I'm tending to strike "louder" with the thumb and have inconsistent volumes in the string plucking with the middle and fourth fingers. As with anything, it's going to take Practice .... practice .... practice

Here's a picture from the archives, (photo credit to Diane V) of my CW-8 Console Steel in action, when we tried a rendition of Pink Floyd's "Breathe in the Air" at a Ricken Jam session, (last Spring) at Backline Rehearsal Studio, on the occasion of celebrating when Jonathan had his first-born.

Supposedly this Console Steel dates to 1961, before they put the Jerry Byrd endorsement name on the Rickenbacker nameplate ...