The Steel Guitar Forum

Rest in peace, my friend. Thanks for everything.

Congratulations on your retirement, b0b! I haven't been on the forum lately as much as I used to be, but you know I've been here since the very beginning, and connected with you even before, on AOL and Usenet back in the early 90's. I think it would be hard for those steel players who weren't online...

Jon, I'm glad you have it. Hopefully you can use it. Funny about the holes, but I just made what he requested. I'm sorry I never got to meet Stu in person. I'm sure we would have hit it off. He sent me a couple of his CD's, too, which I enjoyed listening to. Fine player, great guy.

Stu had seen my post about the bar holder / organizer that I made for myself, and asked me if I could make one for him. Almost all his bars were 15/16". I made it to fit his collection and sent it out to him just days before his passing. I never knew if he had a chance to use it.

Having a D on top of the eight string C6 tuning would be of more benefit, I think, to pedal steel players who use that and have already incorporated it into their playing. I have tuned that way to record a particular part occasionally, but I don't think I'd use it much overall. Personally, I think t...

I am so sorry to hear about Stu. It's quite a shock, as I had been corresponding with him only a few days ago. Rest in Peace, man.

Anybody have any idea how these would sound on a lap steel? Would I be able to get that old time tone or would they be too bright? :?: Andy, I have Alumitones in almost all the steels I have built, although two of those were stolen in a burglary of my shop last year. The two Double 8's I made have ...

Ha! I don't know it would be sexy to anybody, but I'll take it, thanks! Actually, I think I got the idea from the test tube holders they use in science labs, so there ya go...

Today’s project…A thing that no one needs- except me, I guess. I made this bar holder out of some rosewood and acrylic I dug out of my scrap bin. Over the last three decades or so, I have managed to accumulate a number of bars of different sizes and materials. I actually do use all these bars at var...

I love this. Acoustic volume level, relaxed playing. Inspires me to play. Nice job on the video / audio, too.

I had a steel shipped to me via Greyhound, and it was great. Very economical as well. The box was hand loaded into the bus baggage compartment and not handled again until it was unloaded at the destination. Some routes may require a change of busses, but still, the handling is minimal. The receiver ...

I only met Mike once, back in 1996, but he was an online presence even before the earliest days of the steel guitar forum, going back to steel guitar groups on AOL and Usenet in the early nineties, if I'm not mistaken. He was one of a very few steel guitarists to carve out a place for himself in the...

Thanks for the nice comments!

Bored at home, making music videos... If you dig jazzy blues, here's a short version of an old Barney Kessel tune that I used to enjoy playing in jazz groups, called "Bluesy". It's mostly a guitar thing, but for this video, I included some old school pedal C6th as well. Even use my "B...

That was really nice. A very engaging piece of music, and great production. Thanks for posting.

Thanks again, everyone! Paul, to answer your question, There are a lot of ways to do this. My recording method is pretty simple, although including video adds another layer and is a little more complicated. The order of things may vary, but for most of these, I often start with a MIDI scratch track ...

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

I know a lot of folks have already seen this on Facebook, but here’s a swing tune that I wrote a few years ago for twin steels, but never recorded until now. I’m playing my 1950 Fender Dual Pro, and my 1959 Stringmaster. The tune is called “Steel Guitar Strut”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Here's a not very impressive version that I did 11 years ago when I was just getting my feet wet with lap steel (though I'd been playing pedal steel for years). It's the first song I learned on the B11 tuning. It borrows a bit from Jerry Byrd, and a little from Jules Ah See. I'd do it very different...

I once watched Robert Randolph change a string during a song, in less time than I've ever seen anyone do it, while keeping a vocal going the entire time. This was in the early days of the Family Band, before he was playing large enough venues to have a tech to step in and take care of such situation...

I believe that Bud Carter is generally credited with the scissor changer mechanism as we know it today for all pull guitars, Though he didn't claim credit for it. I do remember him telling me that he basically modified and refined the design invented by Leo Fender, but I'm not sure exactly in what w...

I'm a proponent of the high G on the C6th / C13th, but something worth mentioning is that I find it works better on a short scale guitar like 22 1/2", than on a longer scale. The reason is that with a shorter scale, you can use a heavier gauge string like a .014 that has more mass, and a meatie...

Although volume pedal technique is essential for pedal steel, I find that when playing lap or console steels, I often don't use one at all, or if I do, it's mostly just to adjust overall volume rather than for expression. It just depends on the style you're playing.

The clamp that's attached to the leg is something I got from Amazon, designed for a motorcycle or bicycle handlebar. It has a double ball joint thing with a 1/4-20 stud, to which I attached a phone clamp from a selfie stick. It's secure, can be adjusted to any position, and holds the unit well. Avoi...

I have also been using this unit for quite a few years now. It's the perfect solution for me. Sounds great, easy to learn and navigate, and can be clamped to the leg of a steel easily. Most of the 100 or so effects are just silly, but it's got more than enough decent reverbs, delays, eq's, and compr...