Although progress slowed during late 2024 and early 2025, due to various real life issues, as of August 2025, work is well underway on the Beta Prototype.

Cabinet: Two bodies have been built of different materials. One is the classic figured Maple (I mean, how could we not?). The other is of a different material, veneered in Wenge. Read more about the rationale for two prototypes below.

The rationale for two Betas: Firstly, 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."

Secondly, as mentioned above, the cabinets of the two instruments are built of different materials. One is curly maple to be somewhat traditional.

As for the second instrument? 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 very 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 energy not making it into the pickup. We're using a different material on the second instrument in order to reduce that loss of the strings' vibrational energy into the body. 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.