Green vs. White

[bagman67]

So I see references to the Parsons-White B-Bender, and a Parsons-Green B-Bender, and I dunno the difference.  However, I'm contemplating/fantasizing about installing one on a guitar, and so would kinda like to know the difference and any advantages one might confer over the other.


So:  Mayfly and anyone else with experience here, I'm all ears.


Bagman

 

[mayfly]

You know, I could go on and on about this.  So get ready.  :cool01:  ccasion14:

I'll divide the discussion about history, construction, ease of installation, and playability.  I have 4 bender telecasters now, so this is all from personal experience and not third hand knowledge.


History: 

Parsons/White.  This is the first bender created.  It was a joint collaboration between Byrds guitarist Clarence White and sometime Byrds drummer Gene Parsons.  Clarence wanted some kind of device to pull one or more strings, and Gene had access to a machine shop.  Some work later,  the result was this:

The bender mechanism was 'borrowed' from a pedal steel, other parts were made from scratch, and the whole mess was bolted to the back of the guitar.  Gene made the guitar's body thicker by screwing a telecaster shaped wooden 'spacer' thingy on the back.  Clarence was a bluegrass flatpicker, so he didn't mind the extra body thickness.  He also didn't care what it looked like apparently.

Other folks heard the guitar and wanted one.  However, they were not keen on the hacked up nature of the above creation, so Gene got his designer hat on and figured out how to embed the mechanism inside the guitar body.  The result is the classic Parsons/white bender:

Much neater than the original guitar, but still a pile of work involved to correctly route the holes required.  In particular, the hole needed to hold the pivot point near the bass bout needs to be precisely machined or it will, well, fall out.  Then there's the holes for the bend pitch tuning (on the top) and the hole where the arm extends out the front of the body.  it all adds up to loads and loads of fine wood machining to get everything to work right.

This was not so great for mass production.

Anyway, Gene was happily making these custom ones for guys like Pete Townsend and that guy from Led Zep (who was that again?) when fender showed up.  I was not there, but I imagine the conversation went something like:

Fender guy: "Hey - we really like this thing.  We want to license it and put it into our guitars"
Gene parsons: "groovy man"
Fender guy: "so - what do the parts cost?"
Gene: "well, about XXX"
Fender guy: "!!!!! er, wow - that's a lot.  Well, what kind of labour is involved in doing it?"
Gene: "well, the last one I did took about YYY"
Fender guy (Grabbing his chest) "Holy Crap! that's insane!"
Gene: "yea man, it's pretty groovy."

sometime around this point, a women named Meridian Green showed up <Edit - I got her name wrong.  just fixed>.  Somehow, and again I was not around, she talked Gene into building a cheaper version that was even cheaper to install.  Then she talked fender into licensing that. 

This was the classic Parsons/Green bender:

Here, all of the mechanism is attached to a steel plate and installed as one unit.  The installer just has to route out a hole in the back of the guitar and bolt the plate to the back to the guitar.  The hole did not require machinist accuracy, and the entire unit was dramatically cheaper to install.

Next installment:  construction and ease of installation!

 

[mayfly]

ok, time to cut to the chase.

If you want one of these things, you've got 4 options:

1 - buy the fender version.  Nah.

2 - give your favorite tele and wack of cash to Gene Parsons.  Yes, he still does Parsons/White bender conversions.  I have not done this with any of my guitars, but by all accounts he's a heck of a guy and will do an excellent job.  Good for those with money but no time, although I am tempted to get one of his acoustic benders installed in a nice martin sometime.  Read about it here:  http://stringbender.com/bender/custom.php

3 - make a Parsons/White.  I have done this.  I used the kit from WD Music, which includes a body and the necessary hardware.  The body is pre-machined to accept the hardware, which is the full blown parsons/white design.  You can have a look at it here: http://www.wdmusic.com/tele_b_bender_bodies.html .

Sadly the body is a, inexpensive off-shore body that required quite a lot of prep work before it could be finished.  Other details of the kit are not that stellar as well, for example the clear backplate is badly cut and ill fitting.  All of that required fiddling to make right.  The actual bender hardware is actually pretty good  Here it is:

but you should be aware that the entire package needs quite a bit of work to turn it into a guitar.

4 - make a parsons/green.  I've done this.  Three times actually.  Each time, I started with the parsons/green kit from hipshot.  This kit includes the bender and detailed instructions.  The bender itself is made to a high standard and, unlike the licensed fender version, is light weight due to the materials used (aluminum and brass).  You can use whatever body you like, and naturally I used warmoth bodies.  Here is the kit:

and here's where you get it.

http://store.hipshotproducts.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=221

The thing with this kit is you need to route a big hole in the back of the body yourself.  The hardest part of this is creating the template.  The kit does not come with one, but has a full scale drawing for making one.  Here's the template that I made, ready to be used to cut a big hole in the back of a new warmoth body:

depending on how good you are as a jig maker this is either easy or hard.  The second hardest part is finding the exact spot to drill the hole for the pull tower.  I made a big deal about this in my build threads, but it really is not that bad.  You can get away with some inaccuracy, as the big ferrule used on the guitar top has a few mm of slop.  Once the hole is cut, the bender just bolts right on.  easy peasy.

Next time:  How both styles perform

 

[bagman67]

Trevor, I am most grateful for your exposition.  Not sure whether I'm ready to take the plunge, but I feel confident that when I do it will be an informed decision.


Muchas gracias.


Bagman

 

[NQbass7]

I don't know if this is a popular-enough topic to be stickied, but I feel like this information might be worth it. Maybe in the hardware thread? Either way, this is an epic thread. I love stuff like this where I get to be smarter by the end of it.

 

[Tonar8352]

Trevor, good job on the history and the information. I think you need to move to the states and open shop building amps, and installing benders. Make sure to bring the band with you in case the song becomes number 1.

Everyone should look into Clarence and the huge influence he had on some world-class players. Tony Rice owns and is playing Clarence’s D28 and Marty Stewart owns the original bender Tele that was made with Clarence’s 54 Tele. There are very cool stories that go along with how they each came to own those guitars.

 

[duosonic]

That's the best B-Bender background and information I've ever read.  Awesome!  Thanks.

 

[mayfly]

thanks folks!  I'm not done - more on how both styles play soon.

 

[erogenousjones17]

Trevor, that was a great read! I eagerly await the next instalment of A Brief History of Benders.

 

[bagman67]

For those in the market (including possibly yours truly) the Hipshot rig is available for USD$299 through Guitar Parts Resource.


http://www.guitarpartsresource.com/gbridge_hipshotparsons.htm




This is a savings of USD$91 over the Hipshot store. 


Woohoo!


Bagman

 

[mayfly]

wow - that's a pretty good deal!  I've never seen them available anywhere other than direct from hipshot.

 

[bagman67]

Guitar Parts Resource has good deals on a lot of stuff - but the most effed up website navigation around, alas.  I got almost all my hardware for Quty Pie through them (except of course the neckplate - thanks, Doug!), and I have been very happy doing business with them.

 

[mayfly]

And now on to how both units play. 

The basic concept for both is the same.  You press down on the neck with your thumb, and the lever (attached to your guitar strap) moves upward, which in turn pulls the b-string by a pre-set interval.  The differences lie in the throw, smoothness, tension, and how the pull interval is set.


Setting the Pull interval

Both benders have a good bender tuning range, capable of two whole tones. In practice, most people set it for a whole tone.  This is where I set mine.

With the Parsons/White, the pull interval is set with a special key that you insert in a hole at the top of the bass bout:

In contrast, the parsons/green bender's pull interval is set with a thumbscrew on the back:

Both have advantages and disadvantages.  The advantage of the parsons/white  is that it's hard to knock it out of tune.  The disadvantage is you need to fumble around for that little key if it's been knocked out of tune.  The advantage of the parsons/green is you don't need a tool, but the disadvantage is that it's easier to accidentally "un-tune" it, especially if you keep your guitar in a gig bag.

Throw

The throw is how much you need to push down on the neck to complete the bend.  There are two schools of thought around throw:  If you like to play those licks fast, you set a 'short' throw.  That is, it does not take much movement to pull the b-string a whole tone.  In contrast, a 'long' throw bender will take a longer push at the neck to achieve the same pitch bend.  You want that if you want a loooooooong sweet bend for those tear jerker ballads.

Both benders are configurable for long and short throw, but come in short throw by default.  I have mine set up as short throw.  I don't perceive much difference between the two.

More later...

 

[mayfly]

Tension

The Tension is how much force you need to push down with to get the bender to move.  Out of the box, the tension on both units are quite different.  The Parsons/White is high tension, and the Parsons/Green low tension.  In fact, the Parsons/Green tension is so low it's quite easy to accidentally pull the string annoyingly out of tune during normal playing.  The Parsons/White in contrast requires quite a push to move it.  If you have a sensitive shoulder, this one will bug you.

Adjusting Tension

Adjusting the tension is a pain in the ass for both units.  For the Parsons/White, you need to take off the back plate, take one end of the main spring out, and move the anchor point around.  The anchor point is a brass wood screw that is screwed into the body.  You can clearly see this on the right hand end of the spring in this photo:

BTW, this spring is under some serious tension.  If you have problems with, say, the tremolo springs on the back of a strat, this spring will bring you to your knees.  When I remove this spring I need to clamp some stuff down and use 14 gua copper wire on the end, pulled with linesman's pliers to shift it.  While wearing safety goggles in case things go awry.  This is a serious spring you... you... spring neophytes you!

Adjusting the tension on the parsons/green is even more of a pain in the ass.  In this case you need to remove the entire unit, take the spring off (above spring comments apply here as well),  adjust the anchor point, then re-assemble.  Normally you'd have to drill another hole in the back plate to adjust the anchor point(!), but fortunately this point on the P/G is a hook that you can tweak a bit.  For my benders I increased the tension by removing the hook, clamping it in a vice, and hammering it into a different shape.  A pain in the ass, but I got it where I wanted it.


More later

 

[mayfly]

Feel and sticktion

These are arguably the most important things for playability of your bender.  If the bender is just a little sticky for any reason, it will affect the smoothness of your bends and end up annoying the hell out of you.

In my experience the Parsons/White benders, at least the one that I made from the WD Kit, has more sticktion than the Parsons/Green Hipshot benders.  You really notice this on a bend release.  With the P/W guitar, you start releasing the bend and the bar starts moving.  Midway during the bend it gets a little stuck.  Here, the note stays at a  particular pitch even though you're trying to move it by gently releasing the force on the neck.  Then, a moment later, it will suddenly move and you get a quick pitch change - usually when you don't want it.  The Parsons/Green benders don't seem to do this.

In the case of my Parsons/White bender, I think that it's hanging up on where the bar exits the guitar on the way to the guitar strap.  It rubs there just slightly, and if the strap is on a bit of an angle, it will rub with more force.  I've found that if I don't rest the guitar on my body and let it free hang, I can get a good smooth bend release out of the guitar, but if you don't do that it will stick just a bit on release.  It's just enough to make that smooth slow bend jerky.  I've worked at smoothing the wood in that area where it rubs, and that has helped but not eliminated the problem.  I plan to try some teflon or graphite lube worked into the wood next.

Next:  summary and recommendations.

 

[bagman67]

Hey, Trevor, do you mind if I supply the link to this discussion over in the builder's forum on TDPRI?  THis is so helpful that I think those guys might also appreciate it.


Rgds.,


Bagman

 

[mayfly]

Hey, Trevor, do you mind if I supply the link to this discussion over in the builder's forum on TDPRI?  THis is so helpful that I think those guys might also appreciate it.

yea sure - go ahead.

 

[Soylent]

Before this thread, I never even thought about wanting a bender.

Now I'm not so sure.  :dontknow:  :icon_thumright:

 

[Cagey]

Guitar Parts Resource has good deals on a lot of stuff - but the most effed up website navigation around, alas.

No kidding. I've done a fair amount of business with them, but it's always a bit disconcerting. The website is goofy, there's no order acknowledgement and there's no shipping notification. Then, once you're done, there's no way to check on what you've done. So, if you wrestle your way through placing an order, you're not sure you actually did and there's never any indication after the fact. You just have to wait several days to see if what you think happened really did happen, which is indicated by something showing up on your doorstep. On the plus side, they have some good prices on what they sell and they sell some unusual things.

 

[mayfly]

Final Recommendations

Everyone should have a bender!  Here is some final bit of advice regarding how to get one.  What follows is my opinion based on my experience.  Others may have differing opinions and experience.

My Recommendation - use the hipshot kit.  Yep, get the Parsons/Green from hipshot.  It's a great bender, works well, easy (ish) to install, it's fairly cost effective, and you can use any body you want - including retro-fitting an existing guitar.  I did have one issue with the older hipshot kits:  the bumper that the mechanism rested against was one of those clear stick-on things that you find on kitchen cabinet doors.  These would eventually squirm out of the way and the bender would start to click.  I replaced the bumpers on these first benders with a piece of felt epoxied in the appropriate location.  My third bender is a newer one and they have improved it by making this change.  I have no hesitation in recommending this bender and hipshot in general.

If you are hell bent on a parsons/white, contact Gene Parsons  If you really want a Parsons/White that badly, I recommend that you go directly to the source.  He still does the conversions, and from what I've seen the results are excellent.  Please note that I have not done this myself, but would not hesitate to do it if the supply of Parsons/Green benders were to dry up.

I'll leave the last word to this gentlemen.  Enjoy.

https://vimeo.com/56350415