Here we are again, a lot of you folks have conveyed to me that you have enjoyed reading along with my build stories. So with the situation that has effected the shipping part of our business, Outwest Music has had no choice but to change direction for now. It actually lets us take a breather and get back to basics. So with that all said, there are a lot of new projects coming out from us in the future like:
1) We will be soon starting to manufacture/produce our own line of pedal steel guitars. Please follow along with our build thread once it’s posted on this forum.
2) We are also going to be building three one of a kind pedal steel guitars. One D-10 and two SD-10s. We will be using a combination of custom lacquer and tinting finishes, anodizing and a mixture of Outwest newly designed undercarriage in conjunction with existing upper parts from some very well known steels such as MCI, Emmons Legrande, Derby just to name a few. If everything goes well these should be at the very least eye candy.... and like my Rare wood steel 2.0 thread please feel free to follow along as the build progresses. Here is a link to the original Custom steel build 2.0 on this forum in case you wish to re read it.
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3055_001_13 by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
key heads derby by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
derby pedals by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
changer parts by Wayne Brown, on Flickr3) Which brings me to the next project. It’s sort of along the same lines as above however, with a flair or twist. Through my career in the pedal steel guitar industry I have always enjoyed feedback on any guitar that is being/has been produced. Giving me more of an understanding of how they are/and were built and how they work. I have enjoyed reading the forums and the contained information also talking with such great builders/repair people as Bud Carter, Del Mullen, Jimmy Crawford, Lynn Stafford, Ricky Davis and a host of many, many others. I have through the years talked with a lot of steel players far and wide, novice to the worlds finest. I got there opinions on a lot of different brands and models of pedal steel guitars. So which brings me to the next topic of conversation.
NOTE: IN MY OPINION ONLY (this is not a debate thread).
In my opinion on every guitar manufactured there is a design flaw or something that makes it unique. You can also see the builder’s train of thought through the progression of the build to get the desired results and in some cases continuing on with different models, brands. I will not get into my opinion on these as I think they are all great guitars and were built with a specific outcome in mind and intended usage.
Older MSA’s, are no exception to this observation and are arguably one of the most stable platforms that has been produced. I in fact have a beautiful one seen here on the above link and I absolutely love this guitar.
Opinions told to me by players on these guitars through out the years the MSAs were long lasting and built like a tank however they had a few short comings…
• One, Is the use of plywood cabinets on the classic and semi classic models which was probably a cost saving and time measure to get these guitars to market. It was well established/known that there were a lot of these guitars manufactured from 1966 to 1983. However, I am a firm believer in real wood is better for harmonic resonance. As for examples, my favorite, Takamine Guitars as well as Martin, Taylor and Gibson just to mention a few. These guitars have a long track record for sounding absolutely wonderful that used real wood.
IMG_8145 by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
IMG_8148 by Wayne Brown, on Flickr•Another is the guitars had pigeon holes on the changer end plate for the pull rods. This caused three points of contact with the pull rod instead of the modern day guitars with 2 point contact. Therefore in order for the pulls to work correctly the pull rods had to very straight through the changer plate in order not to rub or bind.
msa end plates by Wayne Brown, on Flickr•Also I have heard a lot about the sound of the original MSA.
The original MSA single coil pickups @ 11K , The Barcus Berry pickups @ 12K and the super sustain pickups @ 18.7K. I have heard that these could be thin sounding or muddy compared to what is available in today’s market.
msa single coil by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
barcus berry by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
super-sus- by Wayne Brown, on FlickrNOTE: Once again this is not a debate thread. Just an observation.
So Outwest is going to address these issues one at a time to make over some older MSAs... to update, make pretty LOL and make them sound wonderful.
First we will be changing out the old cabinet’s, whether it is a plywood classic or an old wood XL for new solid maple cabinets. This will give a fresh new look to an older guitar. As always in this shop we love lacquer guitars and will be making them all with a colorful finish. From blonde to transparent red, green and blues. Maybe even some new and unique ideas as well. Lori is suggesting an old standard (Sunburst)…and I really like pearl additives. Hmmm…Let the testing begin.
maple wood msa by Wayne Brown, on FlickrNext we will be fitting these guitars with my favorite steel guitar pickup the BL xlr-16 pickup. This was designed by the late Bill Lawrence and his wife/widow Becky Wilde. She is still making these pickups to this day with all the same commitment to excellence as the originals with one slight small change you can now split the coils from humbucker to single coil. We have bought a lot of them over the last year from her and we will be installing these on our MSA redo’s and all of our production guitars in the future.
BL 2 by Wayne Brown, on Flickr
BL 1 by Wayne Brown, on FlickrSo with the introduction said we will start to test out some color schemes and bring some well deserving older MSAs into the year 2026. Stay tuned folks. .....I will also start the other threads on the forum once we get some of the production done as there are a lot of parts that need to be manufactured for those builds as well.
thanks
Wayne
