Gene Fields / The Man, Designer, Builder & Player

Reprinted from Steel Guitar World Magazine, Issue #27, #28, June, August 1996. Used with permission.

Introduction:

Gene Fields designed his first pedal guitar in 1955. He joined Fender Musical Instruments' Research & Development in 1961 and remained there for 23 years. His designs included the P.S. 210 Keyless Pedal Guitar, the Starcaster thinline hollow body guitar, the 2nd generation Marauder solid body electric and was the first with a keyless bass which was never marketed. He also worked with Leo Fender on the Mustang bass, the Musicmaster bass, and the Bronco economy guitar and others. His last 6 years were in the string division. There, he was responsible for the introduction of automatic string winding machinery, the development of several sets of strings for bass and guitar while heading up the R&D and quality control department.

After leaving Fender, he joined Sierra in Portland, Oregon designing and building solid body electric guitars and basses. Next was a move to M.C.I. Intertek R&D and later as general manager of the pedal guitar division. When M.C.I. was sold to the Fred Gretch Co., he formed the Gene Fields custom shop, later ot become GFI Musical Products designing and building GFI pedal guitars.

I used to sit and marvel at the P.S. 210 in the Fender catalog years ago. That was a haggard wish book by the time I was done with it! I never dreamed I would someday meet the man responsible for that guitar. Gene is a very good person and a great friend. If you ever get the chance to hear him pick, it'll knock your socks off! When you hear what he can do on that guitar you'll say "How did he do that"! Ah ha, one neck is with the bar and the other is fretted.

Russ Rask (Editor)

Part#1

My first pedal guitar was a Multi-Cord, 6 pedals, 8 strings. This changer offered any number of strings per pedal to any number of positions. The only other pedal guitars available at the time were the Gibson Electraharp and the Bigsby. I chose the Multi-Cord because it would do anything I wanted, or so I thought. The concept was great, but when I adjusted a pedal to move two strings, other strings would also move.

I learned to live with this system by using the pedals to retune the strings that were not supposed to move. This was not a problem as all of the strings could be moved with each pedal. This system still was not satisfactory, however, as you could still hear the string de-tune, the return to pitch as the pedal progressed.

Dissatisfied with this guitar, I started building my own.The first model was built on the kitchen table of an upstairs apartment, while the downstairs neighbors complained every time I used a hammer. My tools consisted of a 2" clamp on vise, a 1/4" Black & Decker drill with a small drill press stand, and a hacksaw miter box. The pedals were the strap section of a bar door hinge.

My brother, who was working as a machinist at North American Aviation research at the time, made my pick-up coil forms out of clear Plexiglas. I bought magnets already charged. I bought a six pound sledge hammer with no handle. After gluing the magnets to the coil form, I placed the sledge hammer on a 78 rpm record player with the handle hole over the center post, the coiled form magnets holding it in place. This "coil winder" had to be blocked up to a comfortable eye level. It would run about 70 rpm with the weight of the sledge hammer an the drag of the magnet wire, giving me accuracy of approximately plus or minus 30%.

My second guitar was a 12-string single neck, built in the same "machine shop." This was in 1959. My good friend (later to become the best man at my wedding, which he will never forget), Bill McDougall of Steel Guitar World Magazine, took pity on me, taking me to Sears and buying me tools, including a band saw with 10 to 1 speed reducer, which allowed me to cut wood or steel. In exchange, I gave him the first steel I had built, which he still has to this day.

About this time, Al Petty came to me with a set of heel and toe pedals he had made out of wood with small hinges on the front. At the rear of the heel pedals was a slotted board, the purpose of the slots being to hold the pedals in line. We developed a new set out of steel. These pedals were band sawed out of 1/4" steel, the front bearing block being heavy wall tubing, with a pad welded on the back. These pedals were rigid enough to stay in place.

Except for the Multi-Cord and the Gibson Electraharp, pedal guitars at this time only had one position raise and lower. With 21 pedals, Al needed more changes, leading to a completely new design of the levers in the changer that gave him a two-position raise and lower. This, to my knowledge, was the first two-position raise and lower system. Al asked for an extra set of lowers, which he took back to Fender to show Leo, along with the new pedal set-up and a drawing of the knife changer plate system, later used in the 2000 and 800 pedal guitars. The 1000 and 400 were also converted to this system.

All of this led to me being called in by Leo for an interview. After about a year of negotiating salary, I was hired to work at Fender R & D.The first three months were to be spent in the plant learning production methods. This training period turned out to be more than 3 years of moving from job to job. This included several positions on the guitar line, from beginning assembly to final set-up and testing of both guitars and steels. Then I was moved to the amp line, doing everything from covering to assembly, electronic testing and sound testing.

After moving into R & D, I worked on a system to make the pedal guitar cable system pull in a straight line, also eliminating the small pulleys. This would allow the excess play to be adjusted out. This system was never used. The steel guitar project was dropped as I was requested to work with prototype speaker enclosures.Another project on the list was the second generation Marauder. When this design was completed we constructed eight prototypes.

I worked with Leo on several projects, including the Mustang bass, Musicmaster bass and Bronco guitar. I was also involved in checking mechanical drawings. This included checking drawings to make sure the dimensions added up. It also meant checking drawings against mating part drawings to make sure they fit together.In 1968, I was assigned the pedal guitar project, the only guidelines being better and lighter. The result was the P.S. 210 Keyless pedal guitar. As this instrument is radically different from any other instrument, I have been requested to describe its development and the reasons why it was developed. That will follow in another section.

The next project was a new thin-line, hollow-body guitar to compete with the Gibson 335 series. The result was the Starcaster. This was followed by a solid body version of the same instrument which was never released.

In 1975, I was asked to solve the problem of the so called dead spot that appears on all bass guitars, usually on the "G" string around the 5th and 6th fret. Without going into detail, this was found to be a resonant frequency of the neck, resulting in a keyless bass design which was completed in 1976, but never released.

In 1977, I was transferred to the Squire string division in Battle Creek, Michigan, to update string design, as well as machinery. Bass strings at that time were deliberately deadened to sound more like an upright bass. As the market changed, we developed strings with more sustain. We also changed to automatic machines for better quality control and much greater safety to the operator. I had the opportunity to develop the first roller wind system to operate on automachinery, as well as a dual re-reeling system that would wind two cover wires at the same time on smaller wound strings.

During my time at both Fender R & D and the Squire string division, I was highly involved in solving production problems. We also set the standards for quality control. The greatest asset out of all of this was the chance to design not only instruments, but also jigs and fixtures, and create production methods.

In 1984, after 23 years at Fender, I resigned to join up with Don Christensen at Sierra to build electric guitars and basses. I set up shop in the back of his building. This required special machines not available on the market. I had to design and build poor-man's machines to do the special jobs.

1. Fret saws for guitars and basses

2. Fret board radiusing sanders.

3. Sanders for final carving on the back of the neck.

4. Special pin routers.

5. Club press.

6. Jigs and fixtures for all of the above.

These guitars were aimed at the top of the line, as I knew I could not compete with high production machinery at the low end. We introduced 12 guitars and basses at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, California, in January 1985. We had great comments on the performance and workmanship, but nobody even asked the price. The hard lesson learned here was, if you had not advertised in Guitar Player Magazine for at least 5 years at $3,000.00 per month, dealers won't trust you to be around long enough to establish a demand for your product.

At the NAMM Show in New Orleans, I met John Burkhead of MCI Intertek who offered me an R & D position with MCI's pedal guitar division. I was given the go-ahead to redesign what ever was needed. After careful study I could not find anything I wanted to change on the changer and linkage. I did find end-plate screws loosening up on some older models. This allowed the end plate to move when pushed, as the stop plate was mounted to the end plate, allowing the tuning to be affected.

As I had already used a welded frame on the Fender Keyless, I was sold on the system and proceeded to develop a welded frame for the MCI. This also required a cross rod that could be added or removed without taking the frame apart. With the adjustable cross rod, we had total control of the cross rod play. Butcher block maple bodies were also added. This did not change the tone a lot, but it did give greater consistency in tone from one instrument to the next. Extruded pedals were also added along with a new pedal board that required no pedal brackets. This model was called the Rangexpander up to the day MCI went out of business. From that point on, it was known as the EMCI.

After leaving MCI, I returned to Fender for two months as a consultant with the string division. I was also contacted by Fred Gretch Co., not for pedal guitars, but for the reissue of the Gretch thin-line, acoustic electrics. After having my daughters follow me from L.A. to Portland, then to Texas, I did not want to relocate. This led to the Gene Fields Custom Shop, later to become GFI Musical Products.

I look back at my history and realize that just little job change could have led to a different path and never would have had the chance to do what I love most: to earn my keep, an opportunity that most people never have.

Part#2

In 1968 I was asked to design a new pedal guitar from scratch. The only guidelines I had were to build it better and lighter, and to include knee levers. At that time, a major complaint on pedal guitars was the large 7/8" diameter of the changer fingers, causing a high frequency rattle or singing sound. This was caused by the string vibrating against the finger just in front of the intonation point. To eliminate this required a small radius which would increase string breakage. Most players today have either grown up with this problem or have gotten used to it. Some manufacturers, including G.F.I., have dropped the diameter to 3/4" without a big sacrifice in breakage. The reason I am elaborating this point is because it led to most of the other radical changes as follows.To eliminate this problem I moved the changer to the opposite end of the instrument. This allowed me to use a small diameter bridge, producing a much more solid sound, without the high frequency vibration.

This led to another problem, locating the keys on the right end (from the player) of the instrument would create a shallow angle at the bridge, and sacrifice of sustain and tone. To avoid this meant using something other than keys. This led to a Keyless tuning system used on the P.S. 210, it was not just to be different.After the experimenting with the Keyless system, we discovered more advantages due to the elimination of the excess string length.

a. No movement of string across the nut.

b. Shorter pedal action due to less string length to stretch.

c. More sustain- the section of string inside the key housing vibrates, absorbing energy from the main playing section.

In order to have a tuning knob large enough for good leverage, every other string was mounted in a different row. This allowed the knob to be almost two times the width of the string spacing.The next major obstacle was shaft deflection in the changer. To avoid this I used a flat knife edge plate, similar to my one contribution to the 800 and 2000 Fender pedal guitars. The lowering Lever had a "V" groove to mate with the knife edge plate. The raise lever mated with the lowering lever with the "V" groove system creating a changer with two moving parts per string. All the other linkage was designed to operate on this knife edge principal, with the exception of the bell crank and the pedal. By using the knife edge system, it was not too difficult to add a shift system that would transfer all pedals and knee levers from one neck to the other, offering 9 pedals per neck, up to 4 could be knee levers as long as the total was nine. This was accomplished with one moving part. It worked well as long as you did not shift while pressing a pedal. If this happened, it would not shift. However, if you released the pedal and started over, it worked fine. The neck switch was operated by the shift lever. The pickups were designed with 12 magnets for 10 strings. The two outer magnets were closer than the rest, this pushed the magnetic field a little higher plus, the coil was a little longer. It was my belief, that the Ist and last string of a pickup did not have the same environment as the strings in the middle. The end results proved this to be true, however, it was often mistaken for a 12 string pickup. These pickups were wound much heavier than the earlier Fender pedal guitar pickups, creating a fuller tone while retaining good high frequency response.

The first model of this instrument was Hydraulic. A 36" cylinder was used to drive a H" with a mechanical lever, to drive the larger cylinder, by using a large cylinder to drive a smaller one. The unused portion becomes a reservoir, this allows a closed system-to be used for each pedal. No master cylinder needed. Less connections - Less leakage. The system worked well as the weight of your foot and a small amount of added pressure would move 10 strings. This system was dropped for two reasons, one being cost. This was 1969 and our cost then, would have been $400.00. For us to make a profit, and the dealer to make a profit, the price of the instrument would doubled from it's original list price of $1500.00. The second reason was not knowing how to run pedal rods and knee levers through the bottom of an oil pan without having leaks. As no hydraulic system is leak proof forever, and some musicians like to wear white occasionally.

The hydraulic frame was all welded aluminum, with milled end plates welded to aluminum angle rails front and back, to support a maple neck. I was so impressed with the tone of this combination, I wanted to use it in the production model. I mounted the bridge directly to the frame, the maple neck was then mounted tight against the bridge. The nut was mounted on the maple neck. This allowed me to use the aluminum frame for tone coloring while the bridge to nut length was controlled by the maple neck.

The changer was operated by set screw bars similar to the multi-cord. However, the system that pulled the set screw bars was held in a fixed plane and could not pull off center, a major problem with the multi-cord, was on the first pedal guitar ever designed. The Harden Pros. Patent was issued in 1932. This set screw bar system allows up to 10 strings per pedal and as many raise and lower positions as there pedals, as each pedal has no effect on what the other pedals can do. To change a tuning simply remove a tuning screw from one hole and put it in another and adjust. Compensating and stops can also be accomplished with this system. One important feature it doesn't have is balanced pulls as the string moving the farthest will start moving first and in most cases this will act as a natural 1/2 stop.

Extrusions were used for both the frame and pedal board. "T" slots were extruded in both pedal board and frame to accept a 10-32 square nut. This allowed both pedals and knee levers to be moved right or left to suit the players personal taste.

Another advantage of this system was the fact that the pedal spots were built into the changer, eliminating the possibility of thermal expansion and contraction in the changer.

Like most prototypes, mistakes were made. If the tuning and linkage system was not adjusted properly, some parts could fall out of place. This was corrected with a simple bracket. Another mistake was in the adjustable lowering springs. These adjustments offered a small advantage to people with a little mechanical knowledge. Most problems were caused by adjusting first, then reading the manual.

This instrument was the first Fender pedal guitar with knee levers. When the orders came in with many different pedal set ups and pedal-knee lever combinations, Fender marketing and manufacturing decided not to become custom builders. At this time all pedal guitars were dropped. (PS 210, 400, 800,1000, 2000) I was very disappointed as I felt my whole future was at stake with this instrument, however, I could not blame them as the pedal guitar does not belong on a production line.

Text from the PS 210 Brochure:

Extensively researched and engineered with the musicians in mind, featuring 10 breakthroughs that you've all been waiting for:

(1) The new tuning mechanism pressure is always applied in one direction. A string can be lowered to pitch without adjusting out-play as required with a geared key.

Instrument can be tuned with the right hand while holding a chord with the left.

Excess string length which vibrates and cancels from the fundamental is eliminated, allowing much great sustain.

The mechanism allows the instrument to be 9 inches shorter.

Strings can be changed faster and easier.

(2) The changer unit operates without the use or pins shafts. Friction and noise are virtually eliminated.

One to ten strings can be activated per pedal. To change or add to a tuning, simply move or adjust screws on the adjustment screw bar as required. Pedal tunings can be changed in less than one minute per string.

Each string can be raised or lowered to as many positions as there are pedals, depending on the elasticity of the string.

The changer unit is located on the left of the player, with a minimum angle and roller bridges, to instill perfect intonation and eliminate string breakage.

(3) Pedals, knee levers, and pickups are shifted from one neck to the other with a simple trouble free lever. In addition, a switch is provided to turn pickups on regardless of lever position.

(4) An all new linkage systems is used, eliminating cables, pins, shafts. and pulleys to minimize friction and noise.

(5) A new pickup is offered with wider frequency response and more power.

(6) Body is aluminum construction. Combined with the new pickup it produces a tone never achieved before.

(7) The neck, made of solid curly maple, also controls the distance from bridge to nut. This controls de-tuning effect caused by temperature change.

(8) Both pedals and knee lever are mounted on a sliding track, easily adjusted from side to side to the spacing desired.

(9) Thumb screws mounted on pedals to adjust out all excess play in linkage.

(10) New quick clamp latches on pedal board for faster set up time.

23 1/2" scale. 12 3/8" wide. 271/2" long. And it weighs 65 pounds, including the case and legs. Volume pedal is optional.

Extra knee levers available. Walnut burl effect. Packed in a single, rugged carrying case, it can be unpacked, assembled and ready to play in a minimum amount of time.

The standard P.S. 210 is equipped with eight pedals and one knee lever. For optional pedal and knee lever combinations consult the Fender Price List.

Standard Accessories: Hard shell plush lined case, cord, polishing cloth, rubber-tipped telescoping tubular steel legs.

Optional accessories Fender volume foot pedal, Fender tone and volume foot pedal. II Walnut burl finish only

For prices and ordering information consult the Fender Price List under Numbers 14-1426 thru 14-1439.