My new Emmons Push-Pull

Duane Becker · Post by **Duane Becker** » 10 Feb 2002 6:43 pm

Well its not new, but its new to me. I recently bought a 1968 Emmons pp serial #1224. Anyway, I have never really worked on one, just seen a lot of them and had many of the older Nashville players tell me that they were one of the greatest pedal steels ever. I bought some knee lever kits and the video that Seymour made on the pp. The guitar came with a copy of a manual for the pp. But with the manual and Seymours video, I found that the pp was not that hard to work on and tune. Also, I have found that the pp stays in tune very, very well. Now I am a Sho-Bud man and always will be, but I have fell in love with this Emmons push-pull. The pp's are just not that hard to deal with and I cannot understand why so many people think that they are. Any thoughts on these comments? Duane Becker

Bruce Hamilton · Post by **Bruce Hamilton** » 10 Feb 2002 7:07 pm

Congratulations and welcome to the club

. I think most people don't really understand whats happening under their guitars at any time and do not want to take the time to find out. With an all pull you can do make a copedent change fairly easy and you usually don't have to take into account how the change will affect any other changes on the same pedal. With a push pull these things have to be considered. However the physics of the system are bog simple and anyone who has worked on steels for even a small amount of time should be able to figure it out. Again I don't think most people want to be bothered. But then again they don't know what they are missing!!

Robert Rogers · Post by **Robert Rogers** » 10 Feb 2002 8:48 pm

Congratulations!You will love it.I just got a 1974 rosewood and mans its got that EMMONS PUSH-PULL SOUND!Its a d-10.With 8&4.I hope you have fun with it.E-mail me if you want to.

Robert Rogers

Ray Montee (RIP) · Post by **Ray Montee (RIP)** » 10 Feb 2002 10:03 pm

I sure do appreciate you guys all swinging around and finding good things to say about the Emmons P/P. I purchased mine in about 1972, standard pickups and pedal set-up. I have NEVER had any trouble with mine since new. It has ALWAYS stayed in tune! I seldom ever have to make any fine-tuning adjustments
and I've banged it around now for some 30 years. String breakage has been minimal.
At one point some years back I wanted to sell it since nearly everyone was getting or promoting ALL PULL machines.
Sure glad I didn't join the throng.
You're gonna really appreciate your guitar in a few months time. A fine piece of equip-ment.

John Lacey · Post by **John Lacey** » 11 Feb 2002 7:18 am

Congrats, Duane, now you got the best of 2 tone worlds! I'm really mechanically challenged, but out of necessity it's amazing what you can learn to do. With the books and video you have and common sense about leverages and stuff, you'll be sailing on that puppy soon. I'm just learning some of the subtle stuff about shock springs now that I never really thought of before, especially dealing with the C6th. pedals. I've been able to smooth out the pedal feel now. There are a bunch of people on this forum that will help you out if you get stuck. I think that the P/P has a little less margin for error in setup than the all-pull has, but the up side is that there is an enormous variety of feel and travel that comes with it. If you need some more help in setup, read Bruce Hamilton's excellent explanation of setup on my website. http://www.cadvision.com/laceyj/index.html

Duane Becker · Post by **Duane Becker** » 11 Feb 2002 7:53 am

Thanks guys for the reply. Actually I do have some questions, and at this point, I will start to post them on the Pedal Steel section. Which by the way, I should have posted this there to begin with. Daune Becker

Hamilton Barnard · Post by **Hamilton Barnard** » 11 Feb 2002 7:53 am

Congradulations, I have #1243. It's as tough as nails and has tone from heaven.

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My Marshalls.

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 11 Feb 2002 8:27 am

The major criticisms that kept me away from push-pulls for the first 25 years I played were that they were difficult to set up correctly, very noisy underneath, and were unreliable, compared to all pull guitars. One day, I got up the guts to buy a 1969 p/p S-12 and, from that point, I never looked back. It was not that difficult to set up -- even with a universal tuning. There are a whole new set of quirks and challenges that you must learn to deal with, but the same is true of all pull guitars. It stays in tune better than my newer all pull guitars. I have had little mechanical things -- like one of the changer hooks catching on the raise finger on my Eb lever, preventing it from lowering correctly. Just a quirk, but it took me a day or so to troubleshoot it. But I've had string ends stick in an all pull mechanism and cause similar problems that were difficult to diagnose.

I have never had a recording engineer complain about rod, pedal, or undercarriage noise. I just finished a CD with mics on my speakers, no more than 4' from my guitar. I listened carefully to the steel tracks alone and NO NOISE.

I believe that most of the negatives about a push pull are either overblown, misunderstood, or just plain wrong. It is a simple mechanism that meets my needs very well. I have yet to hear an all pull guitar that creates the sound I hear in my head as well as my push pulls. I will always own one.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2000 Fessenden S-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Emmons D-10 9x9, 1971 Dobro

Bill Terry · Post by **Bill Terry** » 11 Feb 2002 10:50 am

I just bought my first P/P back in January, a black '67, #SN 1140D. I was a little concerned about the setup issues, having heard the same horror stories. But I also kept seeing that a 'properly setup' p/p was a pretty solid guitar.

So to ease my mind, I bought mine from Mike Cass, based on some very positive recommendations from folks I trust. Not only was I sure that the guitar would be set up properly, putting my copedant in was part of the deal. I wasn't disappointed, the guitar was in great playing condition when it arrived.

I went through an adustment period getting used to the tuning differences between my '88 LeGrande and the P/P. However, once I had it tweaked to my ears I found that the tuning was very stable. I seldom, if ever, have to touch the endplate adjusters, as it's very stable. Are all p/ps that good? Apparently a lot are...

As far as 'slop', 'noise' and all the other gripes I've heard, mine doesn't seem to have those problems. Again, I believe that a good setup is the key. I had several phone conversations with Mike about some of the 'tricks' that he's learned over the years to deal with some of those complaints. The P/P mechanism is fairly straightforward once you see it first hand, but I think it takes years to gain the amount of knowledge and expertise that guys like Mike have.

Oh yeah.... it happens to sound pretty good too...

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Allan Thompson · Post by **Allan Thompson** » 11 Feb 2002 1:21 pm

PUSH PULL, it`s what it says, couldn`t be simpler. I`m not mechanically minded but i manage to keep my P/P up and running smoothly. Once you`ve got the changer in tune all you have to do is get the pulls and pushes to bottom at the same time. Personally i wouldn`t play anything else.
Welcome to the club.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 11 Feb 2002 2:55 pm

Moved from 'Steel Players' to 'Pedal Steel'.

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