The Steel Guitar Forum

Get a Freeloader from Brad Sarno. I have a Carter 12 with an Alumitone and the Freeloader adds a lot of tonal control without muddying up the signal. I guess my question is this - how can I alter the 'sound' or 'warmth' or 'tone' or 'character' or 'feeling' of my pedal steel to make it sound less 'b...

I haven't kept up with what they're doing these days but Mesa was making two channel amps where each channel had multiple voicings available including the option of two clean channels.

I've always used a regular Ernie Ball volume pedal with lap steel. With correct foot position position my knee barely moves. It's raised a bit from the height of the pedal but I'm used to that. Move your heel closer to the pivot point of the pedal and you'll find that your calf will move forward and...

Rather than the middle 6 of E9 I'd go with the top six of the McAuliffe E13. There's a lot of E9 stuff going on in there. Retune either of the bottom two strings to E as needed.

E
C#
B
G#
F#
D

I'd probably use the standard 8 string A6 tuning with and out of order B on top and a D on the bottom. And then tune the whole thing down to G. But that would be for me, not you.

B
E
C#
A
F#
E
C#
A
F#
D

The price looks attractive but the shipping is $450 and it's listed as an 8-string lap steel when it's obviously a 10-string pedal steel.

I'd proceed with caution.

How about the Boss Katana 100?

Keith Calmes wrote:Any advice, folks?

If you like the way it sounds just play it. I have one of these and the "fretboard" graphics don't match the scale length. I could never play it in tune.

Fred

I almost always have the option of some kind of distortion available with both lap and pedal steel. Often just to thicken the sound or make it it a bit edgy. A distortion that transitions smoothly from clean to dirty works best for me. I use the volume and tone controls on the guitar (if it has them...

The idea of a buffer is to remove the load from the signal source. The source is the pickup. The load is everything else. Pickup=>shortest cable you have=>buffer=>everything else.

Another vote for the Freeloader!

I used an Ernie Ball with lap steel for years. No complaints sitting or standing. I use a Moyo now.
Fred

The first thing that comes to mind is that it allows adjusting the height of the lever at rest.

I have an old Gibson Melody Maker guitar with just a single coil bridge pickup. I tried different capacitors in the tone circuit and I could never get warm without getting muddy. What finally worked was adding a coil like the old Gibson varitone circuit. Basically a coil, a capacitor and a pot. The ...

David Matzenik wrote:I get the low G as a flat 7. How do you use the Bb?

Look at it as A# and you have an F#7 chord. It's the same as the Jerry Byrd C6/A7 but in A: A6/F#7 with an extra b7 making your A6 an A13.

It's a C scale in thirds. All the diatonic chords in a major scale are there. I fooled around with it a long time ago because I wanted more chords without a lot of bar movement. I gave up on it because there are no inversions without a lot of movement. And I'd rather have more dominant chords if pos...

Bill Lawrence lost the right to use his name and continued doing business under the Wilde name. His daughter is running the business now.
https://www.wildepickups.com/

Do the knee levers still fold up with the flags on them?

I've used a lot of different distortion/fuzz/overdrives on lap and pedal steel. I always end up coming back to the original Tech21 Sansamp. It's really versatile but not very intuitive. I usually have it near my right hand rather than on the floor so I can make adjustments on the fly. I still use a ...

Okay, so by now, I have tuned the outer neck to Leon's E13 (tuned down one step to D13). Sounds very interesting :D But I have no clue, where to start from. Any advice on songs or maybe tabs? Where are the basic chords? Many thanks in advance ... Other than the obvious E dom chords you also have D6...

I like the idea of a low F and a reentrant E. It's similar to the E13 tunings I like. I would probably put the reentrant string at the top making the standard dobro tuning the middle six.
Low to hi F G B D g b d E

George,
Is the part tapped for the stop screws or have you put in some kind of threaded insert?

Reverb.

I don't think there's any need to revoice the steel channel. If your steel is too hot and it distorts the input or you have to run the volume most of the way down, swap in a 12ay7 for the 7025/12ax7 input on that channel. I'd probably go with a lightweight 15' speaker unless I wanted it to be a smal...

When I first started playing with pedals I took the pedal steel to the first rehearsal after I got it. Instead of the lap steel. When I got confused I just moved my left foot back a bit and it turned into a console steel. One caveat is I've never played country or western swing and the people I play...