Pedal Steel Sound From a Lap Steel?

[Les Anderson]

Bill, if you had not have told us, I would have sworn you were playing an older Remington D10. I have one and can get the pedal steel sound out of it with no problem at all. As you say, the volume pedal, tuning and using proper bars slants is/are the secret/s. It also helps to have a long scale neck to give it that mellow tone.

Great sound all around Bill, great work.

[Bill Hatcher]

Thanks Les.

Another thing you need to do to get some pedal sounds on the lap is to pick good keys to play in. Pick a key for the song that gives you as many open strings as possible to work with the melody and chords. That will give you some sustained notes to play under.

[Greg Gefell]

This song was done on a 10 string E9 non pedal with an E-66 pickup. Not only does the guitar have a pedal steel like sound but the E9 tuning gives you easy access to some commonly used pedal steel chords with minimal slants needed.


http://www.mediafire.com/?ewmm0yhwcm2

[Alan Brookes]

... How do you do right hand palm block/mute and still use the levers?...

You can't. The levers get in the way. Palm levers are never going to replace pedals, and they have their limitations; for instance, a lever will only pull or push one string; but they do allow you to do things you couldn't do without them. For instance, I have no difficulty picking and pushing the levers simultaneously. Unlike a tremolo unit you rest your palm on it: you don't ever hold the levers. When I get a chance I'll record a number using the levers and then the same number without using the levers, and you'll be able to hear the difference. I'd never put levers on a lap steel before, so I chose to use four levers. In retrospect, three would have been plenty. I tend to move the two outside levers out of the way most of the time.