UPDATE August 4, 2026:

Alan got together with Ross Shafer (Six-Nine Design and designer and builder of Sierra pedal steel guitars) in early August, 2026. Together they finished the assembly of both Beta Prototypes. Refer to all the photos below.

Check a quick video of the Prototype:

The rationale for two Betas: Eventually, it will be useful to have one instrument for continued testing while a second can make the rounds among several pedal steel players for real world testing and "user feedback."

Also, the cabinets of the two instruments are built of different materials. One is curly maple because … of course it is.

The second? As described in other parts of this website, the pitches coming from the amp or headphones are not the same as the low volume sounds one might hear acoustically from the strings or body.

Even though at a low amp output, the acoustic sounds are not heard, we want to lose as little of the physical strings' energy through the body as possible, since that is vibrational energy not making it into the pickup. We're using a different material on the second instrument to test if we can reduce that loss. The idea is to have as low an acoustic volume as possible. The whole exercise is a kind of A/B test of cabinet material.