The Steel Guitar Forum

I would say make sure the psg you choose allows for adding a vertical knee lever later on, if you go down the 3x4 route.

Pictures show a pedal bar, so no mystery there. As for it being short, didn't the ZB and some other steels back then have the clutches placed pretty high up on the legs (probably for ease of adjustment when sitting behinf the guitar), with quite long inner legs showing – so these ones have just been...

One video published two years ago, NOTHING anywhere on the Internet since. Would be a very interesting thing, if it exists... ...and if the price was reasonable. Is the guy even alive? It might be a bit confusing, like having the gears and pedals in your car in different places depending on what mod...

I completely agree with you Jon, especially concerning the outer strings. But I am not surprised. I have seen so many really good armpit-guitarists who cannot string their axes correctly – I would even say they are in the majority by quite a good margin. Too few wraps, too many wraps, stringing back...

If you hurry, maybe you can still get one from Luthiers Mercantile, who sadly are about to close down soon. They do (at least they used to) any scale in a large number of different woods, I got a birdseye 22,5" from them a couple of years ago.

You can get a pickup with any string spacing you want from Sentell pickups. I had them make a Console Grande-style with custom spacing, good quality at a very reasonable price. Choose wisely and you won't need to cut any wood.

I would agree that an Excel steel is very tempting, their engineering looks secnd to none. But I would not be comfortable paying a deposit to an octagenarian one-man builder more than 10,000 miles away. I wouldn't hesitate to buy an existing second hand Excel, though, if I needed one more PSG (which...

wrote:Yah brushed aluminium neck would be a hot look! Then we'd have to wade into the wood neck vs aluminium neck discussions though

Then it would look something like this. And what if we added carbon fibre legs?

Would look even better with a brushed aluminum neck...

That is one seriously cool looking steel, apart from the "decorative" strip on the body edges and the neck. Would look sooo much better without them. And what about losing the mica altogether? A satiny oil & wax finish on plain maple would be even cooler. Luckily I don't need one – but...

I think finding a convincing fiddle sound would be much more useful. I usually know in my head exactly what parts a fiddle should play in a country song, and those would not be very difficult to translate to the pedal steel. That would be very useful for home recording. (I've tried a real fiddle, an...

...just listened to EH:s demo of the String9. Sounds absolutely NOTHING like a violin or a string section...I'd have to pretty deaf to fooled by those sounds.

Absolutely gorgeous. Just needs three leg sockets!

Some more Swedish Big Band jazz just for fun: Firstly by a whacky comedian (think Steve Martin in his SNL days, turned up to 11 or more), showing his slightly more serious side. Not the best recording, but I've got the album and it's really good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNO0mZDRXiM And here'...

Oh yes Jim, he was quite a big pop star in the late sixties/early seventies. Originally from Turkey, I believe, but has lived over here since the early sixties. Big band jazz isn't a big thing in Sweden these days, but as far as I know he has always been well respected in jazz circles. Great singer,...

There you go:

Some regular electric guitars and – especially – basses have a dead spot somewhere along the neck, usually caused by the neck's natural resonance frequency clashing with the note of the string. Seems to be what you are experiencing here. This can sometimes be fixed by adding mass to the headstock, l...

I don't even leave my house above 80 °F... 55-70 is my comfort zone, preferrably with some clouds in the sky.

Hi guys. The only thing missing on my pedalboard is a phase shifter (not for steel, just for regular guitar), I'm looking for the sound on Waylon's Luckenbach, Texas in a reasoanbly priced pedal with adjustable speed and depth. Back in the day I used an EH Small Stone, which was very noisy... Any re...

Totally agree with Roger, only I pull the strings quite vigorously to make sure they are fully stretched before fine-tuning.

Try Stewmac or Allparts. If the knobs are different, they can probably be swapped from the old ones.

I would definitely go 4x5, to future-proof your steel. At the very least, 3x5 for the sake of resale value. Manufacturers come and go, and parts needed to add another pedal or lever later on may become unobtainable. Just think how many steel brands are no longer being built – Zum, Derby, JCH, ZB, Fe...

Jimmie Crawford & Russ Hicks – their "Chicken pickin' good" album is the best example you will find anywhere. "Fowl Play" and "Roostin' the Rooster" are the definitive chicken pickin' tracks. None of the others mentioned here come close, not even Lloyd! Sadly not av...

Thanks for the link, Ken!

Has anyone tabbed the songs from this superb album? I think it contains some of the finest E9 playing ever, bar none (pun intended).

I'm mainly looking for Alberta Bound, Second Cup of Coffee and Cotton Jenny. Hardly complicated songs per se, but trying to figure out how Curly did it is not easy.