//// pictures of our sound-making machines ////

[DoS]

Nice! Pictures of Prophet-600s always make me sad though, because the one I have has been in need of repair for a couple of decades…

[ghost]

Ah shame, what’s the issue? Mines had some problems with dodgy encoders and some glitching, but I’ve cleaned it up and installed the Gligli update and it’s running superbly now. Sounds fantastic.

[sbaio]

My vacation travel setup: Currently I’m using mangl with the arc and it’s great. Cheapish dictaphone for lo-fi fun, small AM/FM radio because I love sampling analog radio’s hissing and buzzing and occasional ring mod like sounds. Sony PCM M10 for recording. And OP-1 of course.

[taylor]

caved, sold a bunch, got the plumbutter. So excited.

[DoS]

what’s the issue?

Unfortunately the Prophet doesn’t power up, even with a changed fuse. Several keys got bent in transit too, so it’s probably going to be quite a big repair job.

[namke]

Currently on a minimal voyage — I thought it was about time to use some of the stuff that I have recently fixed:

Dark Energy needed a new VCA chip (diagnosis assisted by Dieter Doepfer himself!), whilst the FX500 needed a whole lot of pcb traces repairing due to previous rough handling.

Used here: https://namcom.bandcamp.com/album/by-rights-i-shouldnt-be-here-at-all

[ghost]

That sounds a little more serious. Good luck getting it sorted!

[kbit]

If it doesn’t power up at all the power supply would be the first thing to diagnose. The 600 has a relatively easy power supply to service, but would benefit from professional tools to repair (i.e. delicate traces, large discrete diodes that are difficult to desolder without a desoldering station). Of course there still could be some issues once it boots up

Also the keys being bent is relatively easy to do yourself if you have the time / patience to disassemble the keybeds. There is a guide here that can help; the metal posts where the bushings are can be bent into alignment with a pair of needle noise pliers.

https://www.waste.org/~knobs/prophet_600_keyboard_bushings.html

[DoS]

the keys being bent is relatively easy to do yourself if you have the time / patience to disassemble the keybeds. There is a guide here that can help; the metal posts where the bushings are can be bent into alignment with a pair of needle noise pliers.

Thanks for that and the other information - that looks potentially very useful to know.

[oot]

Just got this beast, so excited!

[Pineyb]

I’ve been playing pedal steel for 40 years. It’ll keep you going for a lifetime. I don’t recognize that steel though. Do you know what brand it is? I would like to see a couple more pictures too.

[oot]

It’s an AWH. Swedish brand. As far as I could tell it’s fairly obscure. I’ll post some more after work.

[oot]

Sorry if my last post came off as curt.

The guitar is as far as I can tell an AWH Eminent. AWH was a Swedish one man operation that seems to have operated between the late 60’s and early 80’s. Information about AWH is pretty scarce but it’s one of the more common pedal steels here in Sweden, since pedal steels are overall very rare. What I’ve seen said of it is that it’s mechanically a very good guitar (at least for its time) but the tone isn’t a classic.

This is what it looks like from the front:

The changer window is located on top of the guitar, which I haven’t seen on any other model I’ve researched. The changers are also tuned with regular screws using a common hex screw:

The pedals are connected to the pedal rods via ball sockets, which I thought was interesting:

I haven’t seen the arm rest on other guitars of this model and it looks like it’s been attached by drilling holes through the chassis and then screwing on tight. I can’t tell if it’s original or not but it is very comfy:

I’ve yet to figure out the elenctronics. It has two three-position switches, the left turns it on in either top or bottom position, the right doesn’t seem to do anything:

This is the steel that came with it. Much, much thicker than my dobro tonebar. I know pedal players use a somewhat heftier bar but I’m unsure if this one is actually good or just a brick:

Proprietary volume pedal:

Inside of the changer mechanism:

It’s great to be talking to a master though! I’ve played lapsteel and dobro for a few years but this is totally different and I’m very excited to learn. What copedent(s) do you commonly play?

[Pineyb]

Nice looking guitar! It looks like it was influenced by MSA and ZB Custom guitars that were made here in the USA. The changer design is unusual though… I haven’t seen one quite like that, but it looks sort of like a sideways version of the ZB changer. But it looks like you are raising strings 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 and lowering 2, 4, and 8. Thats a pretty standard setup for E9. If it stays in tune reasonably well, then you should be in good shape.
The ball and socket arrangement for attaching pedal rods is the most common way that it is done. Emmons, Lamar, and a few others do something different. The ball and rod arrangement was used in the early Sho~Bud guitars. The parts were available from automotive shops, and were typically used for carburetor linkage… Sho~Bud also used motorcycle brake pedals as the first pedals on the guitars.
The arm rest is definitely aftermarket. Personally, I’d lose it, as they can cause some bad right hand habits to develop.
Pedal steel bars are usually pretty heavy… it’s a personal choice, but I wouldn’t go too light. I have seen those two rounded end bars before… some guy in the States was making them a while ago. I can’t remember who it was though. The length looks good though, which is important.
Some steel guitars have switches and other controls, some don’t. They usually turn pickups on and off, or activate a coil tap. You’ll have to trace the wiring, to see what it is supposed to be doing.
The volume pedal looks like a pretty standard Goodrich 120 knock off. They are good pedals, and you can replace the pots when they get scratchy. You can also go crazy with active pedals from Hilton, and Telonics… I still use a Goodrich.
I play 10 string E9, 10 string C6, and 12 string Universal E9/B6. Check out the Steel Guitar Forum for lots of information

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/index.php

Watch out, this can get as bad as modular.

I currently have 6 pedal steels… 2 Sho~Buds, 2 Emmons, a Williams, and a ZumSteel.
A couple of pics…

This is the Copedant on the U-12 guitars
EMMONS S-12 COPEDENT Sheet1.pdf (18.9 KB)

[oot]

Thank you so much for all this information! The setup definitely seems to be for E9 as the 3rd string is thinner than the top. I got it out of tune but I’m gonna at least try out E9 for a while, even though I feel C6 calling for me more.
I have small hands and this bar is really pushing it in terms of width. I’m gonna try using it for a while though as an exercise.
The volume pedal already does have a scratchy pot but the action feels great so I’m definitely keeping it.

Those guitars look really neat, especially that Zum looks beautiful! (although U12 is scary to me )

[Pineyb]

Do you have any knee levers on the guitar?
You can play a lot of 6th style music just by lowering the E strings a half step, commonly with the left knee moving right. (it might be different on your guitar). That puts you in B6.

Assuming that your pedals are set up in the Emmons arrangement, by pressing and holding the first two pedals, you are in A6 tuning.

[rumorazzi]

I love sampling from cassette tapes!

rumo_razzi

[casualdecay]

Okay kind of a failing on a technicality here because they don’t make sound… but my wife runs Paradise MIDI making custom, hand-made midi controllers that run on Teensy. Not sure if there is a better thread on lines to post these but I thought people here might be interested!

Paradise MIDI

[LLK]

Probably one of the prettiest most exciting midi hardare I’ve seen in a long while

[casualdecay]

Thank you for the kind words! I’ll definitely pass it along to her.
Also I did not say this in my first post (but it is in the bio on her instagram) but she does take commissions for totally new controller layouts too. She’s just about to start working on one that’s 12 buttons (in a chromatic / keyboard like configuration), 6 knobs and 6 sliders. That will be pretty cool I think. Also future projects include D beam style motion sensing (she’s done this with CV already for me to use with my eurorack gear) and XY joysticks.