The Steel Guitar Forum

I did jest somewhat Bill, the Fender you refer to as the "Diamond Head Model" is generally referred to as having "Trapezoid" pick-ups. Where you get the terminology you use from is a mystery ? I've never seen a triangular diamond. :roll: http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic....

The other aspect of the longer scale lengths is that the harmonics are much easier and ring better. I have a 26" Stringmaster and the tone is mind boggling.. but yes the slants, especially in the lower frets, are more difficult.

Not sure about the guitars on Hawaii Calls, but the Fender I refer to is a 22" dual eight. The strings actually pass through the pick-up body.

Both the volume and tone controls on the 26" Stringmaster are behind the pickups on the "Outboard" end of the guitar's lower neck.

When I want to use that approach, I just use the E9th neck. To each his own, but I just prefer to keep the A6th and C6th tunigs pretty much standard.

My 10 string "Herbie" A6 pedal steel(a 24" Remington Sustainmaster) set up is very similar to the guages Rick showed. On the lower octave, I go just a teeny bit heavier. Here's mine(note that I use an E on #9 instead of D, but I use the same guage string. I also use these gauges on my...

Mark MacKenzie wrote:I think I'd call it A6...

Perhaps a "modified" A6. All of the A6 tuning I am familiar with are: (top to bottom)

E,C#,A,F#,E,C#,A,F#,E,A

Michael....

Yu should be able to find a good computer geek somewhere in your area who could take your hard drive, mount it in another machine and recover all your stuff to a new hard drive.

I've been through that several times and managed to get back virtlually everything

I'm still a newbie to steel. I have a Ernie Ball VP Jr. I use it for regular guitar and naturally put in in line with my lap steel. Mainly just cause it's nice to be able to quickly cut the sound when changing instruments, tuning etc. I never really used it for volume swells on guitar much. Used it...

Most pedal steelers use the volume pedal very sparingly. Probably because -- as someone else here pointed out -- it really interferes with your right knee lever use. I know I find that to be true, but then I'm not a super pedal player. Since I use the pedal heavily on non-pedal, I sometimes have tro...

Ultimately you'll want to go to C6 or A6. But for just starting out I think the Open E is ideal. The main reason is that -- if you already have familarity with standard guitar you'll be able to quickly see the comparisons. Many of the steel guitar greats started out in Open E, including Shot Jackson...

I've pretty much used one forever. I understand all the comments above. I find that a lot of the time when I'm learning something new or just fooling around, I don't even use the amp. I find that this does make me use better technique. But when I'm plugged in, either on my non-pedal Fenders or my D1...

Some pictures would help. To my knowledge, there were no D-8 Stringmasters built with 3 legs, just single neck models. That's correct. I have an original Fender Catalog from 1954 that shows all their products of that time. All the Stringmasters had 4 legs. (In the '54 catalog, there are no single n...

Bill-I am glad you mentioned Herb Remington and his albums. I have them . He does a great job on them with only 4 pedals on A6 tuning. That is some to the songs we played back in the old days as they were the pop songs of their day then. I still play, "Once in a while", "September So...

I recently stumbled on a You Tube of Billy Walker's "Charlie's Shoes" and the steel player was none other than the Big E. I later found a thread on here discussing that and it noted that the final cut that was released had Billy whistling instead of the steel solo.

While I'm partial to country,there are a lot of excellent examples out there of steel guitar playing all kinds of music, besides county, western swing, Hawaiian, or blues, that I really like. Buddy E has some great stuff like Blue Jade and Deep Purple. Some of the greatest steel sounds you'll ever h...

I don't recognize him, but he does has a very smooth sound. I notice he uses the volume control pretty heavily to do some muting and this gives a really fluid sound.

Here's a little bit of trivia from Elvis' time on the Louisiana Hayride in the 50's. I grew up in Shreveport and hung out at the Hayride as much as I could get away with. In my tweens and teens I played steel with several kids bands around Shreveport. One of my best friends also happened to be a &qu...

Bill, how do you hold the bar, per your index finger? Is it straight, or curved? For those that don't slant much, a straight finger would probably aid in the lifting of the bar a bit, but it's the re-entry impact sound that I have still to eliminate. Ron, Sorry I didn't answer sooner, but I've not ...

I hope you'all will be able to forgive this olde man but, I've watched this video a dozen or more times and I STILL CANNOT SEE where Alvino operated the electrical "cut-off switch" that Speedy was alleged to be using with his fabulous bar slam-instrumentals. These were close-up videos and...

It's good to hear folks out there still using the Open E tuning. Since you can't get more bsic than that for the guitar (any type) it's a great anchor. I started out taking steel lessons back in the 50's from Shot Jackson in Shreveport, Louisiana. I was about 10, as I recall. Shot started me out in ...

Here's a great one: The original recording of Charlie's Shoes" by Billy Walker, recorded April 21, 1061, with Jerry Byrd on steel: http://www.lloydgreentribute.com/AustrianSteelguitar/Forum.htm On November 20, 1961, the song was re-recorded w/o Jerry's steel (he played bass on that session), t...

Mike Perlowin wrote:I have all his CDs. They're all excellent but my favorite is "All over The road" which contains songs by Hendrix and Zappa, among others.

Mike...

I'll second that. I love the "All Over the Road" album. I've only got it on Cassette and I've almost worn it out.

I got a copy of his West Side Story album and I was amazed at the beautiful sounds he created.

Well guys, as Joe says, it does take a lot of practice and time to get it where it's comfortable. As little as I play now, I can tell a big difference in the smoothness. After a while your mind just takes over and you don't think about it. I'll have to practice a lot more to get back to that point. ...