When slide guitar or steel?

Mitch Adelman · Post by **Mitch Adelman** » 30 Jan 2011 5:23 pm

I play guitar and steel in my band and do slide on guitar as well. Some bluesy/rock songs do better with slide but I've played them on overdriven steel as well and sounded good, although I felt I was doing slide blues licks on the steel. Just wondering is it even worth playing slide guitar anymore when you could choose between that or steel? Has anyone else thought of bagging the slide guitar parts and just use the steel? Thanks.

Andy Sandoval · Post by **Andy Sandoval** » 30 Jan 2011 8:37 pm

After hearin Doug Beaumier playin a blues jam on his lap steel I'd definitely put my slide guitar away. Click Here

Jim Robbins · Post by **Jim Robbins** » 30 Jan 2011 9:52 pm

Totally different instruments (in my humble opinion). You can play steel-like parts on slide and slide-like parts on steel, but the feel is different, the approaches are different and the technical limitations and opportunities are different. 2 obvious things you can do on slide guitar that you can't do easily or at all on steel: play with the slide against open bass strings and play with the slide and fretted notes with your fingers. 2 obvious things you can do on steel but not slide: play with the slide against open high strings; and use pedals.

I have thought about bagging the doubling shtick--to the point where I will no longer play both 6 string and steel on a gig unless there is a powerful motivation.

Dennis Wood · Post by **Dennis Wood** » 31 Jan 2011 5:02 am

I agree with Jim, totally different. I fight this battle all the time. I play both steel and slide but i can't get my steel to sound like a LesPaul with a tube screamer. Its kinda like a guitar with b & g benders emulating a pedal steel. Together again can be done, but its not the same, and i can play freebird on my steel, but again, its close but not quite there. All this is just my opinion.

Has anyone ever tried a two neck steel with a six string neck with frets that could be used for slide like a conventional guitar? I seem to remember Gene Fields of GFI having a steel like this at the convention years ago.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 31 Jan 2011 6:38 am

I like the rawer sound of a slide guitar compared to the same or similar licks played on steel, assuming there are no effects involved. The slide compared to the steel bar is lighter and a little fret rattle and string buzz are also things to consider.
My favorite slide player is Jesse Ed Davis.
But Al Perkins played bluesy stuff on steel pretty good too.

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 31 Jan 2011 9:00 am

Can't seem to get this kinda sound with my pedal guitars. It may have to do with the high output of steel pickups. I have an old Shobud S-10, 6 and 2, in an extended bottleneck G tuning. Tuning works well, but still experimenting with the pedals and levers. I have a friend who's now winding pups, so I think I'll have him rewind with the tap more in the 6-string arena. Here's the kinda sound I'd like to get.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI37YTIOV4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIj8fgJg ... re=related

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 31 Jan 2011 12:07 pm

i saw lynrd skynrd on tv last night. free bird even! the slide guitar was a bunch of crap. i couldn't believe that people were drawn to this sloppy nothingness as an art form. a child could do that. you can utilize the steel with a decent overdrive and play much more tastefully, in my opinion. i use an old ibanez fat cat stomp box and get nice results.

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 31 Jan 2011 7:18 pm

Check out this video from 9 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkSnoeTWR4I

John Wilson · Post by **John Wilson** » 31 Jan 2011 8:05 pm

The Seymour Duncan Twin tube has been mentioned many times here on the forum. I own one and it makes even marginal SS amps sound great.
I was fooling around the other day with my BMI S-10, The TT through an old Fender M-80 (single 12") SS amp and I was able to get really close to the David Lindley tones on the Jackson Browne albums.

If mine died or went away, I'd be looking to replace it like yesterday!

J.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 1 Feb 2011 5:45 am

I was an obsessive slide guitarist from Duane through into the 80's, including some Indian stuff - I'd actually rather hear Bhattacharya than Trucks. But when I got a pedal steel a decade ago I stopped playing slide, thinking the obvious.

However, Sonny Landreth finally re-converted me back a few years ago. On a six-string guitar (or seven, my preference) playing through a jacked amp, there are things happening with the resonances between strings that we go out of our way to avoid on PSG. It's like angels and demons, left/right, black/white, you need them both. I got fairly proud of my ability to ape Duane licks on a C6th steel, but Landreth? No way, he's got a whole world loading into that Dumble.

Mitch Adelman · Post by **Mitch Adelman** » 1 Feb 2011 7:22 am

Great points everyone.You hit it on the head Dave about those string resonances, even through same setup, which differ between the steel and guitar slide. I use a glass slide which offers different timbers and ways to be soulful (like Butch and Sonny). Still, is it worth the hassle of switching and does the average listener even pick up on the difference?

Ryan Barwin · Post by **Ryan Barwin** » 1 Feb 2011 9:41 am

For me, it's just not worth the hassle of bringing and setting up another instrument. I can get very close to a slide guitar sound on both necks by overdriving my tube amp, and using a glass bar. I also change my blocking to something more similar to how I'd do it on slide guitar.
For recording, I'd definitely play slide guitar rather than PSG, but I wouldn't bother doing that live, since 99% of the audience can't really tell the difference.

Clete Ritta · Post by **Clete Ritta** » 1 Feb 2011 3:55 pm

I love both, but have been concentrating on steel, and now especially C6 since it is more comfortable for me for single lead type playing than E9.

Ive only played steel for a few years now, but started with Allman and Winter as major influences on slide guitar back in the 70s.

Clete

Mark van Allen · Post by **Mark van Allen** » 1 Feb 2011 4:05 pm

Even through years of playing 6 string onstage, I never put much effort into mastering slide guitar, since I was playing PSG. These days I play a 6 string lap on some of the rock stuff to cop more of a slide vibe. They really are different animals, with a whole set of subtleties native to each instrument.
Derek's touch, sublime. And the stuff Sonny does behind the slide, wow.
I'm just glad there are so many stylists and approaches to soak in.

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 2 Feb 2011 5:26 am

Why not both?

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 2 Feb 2011 6:55 am

Seriously, it wasn't until I put a second pickup on my pedal steel that I could get in the same ballpark as Derek, tonally. Now the behind the slide stuff that Sonny does, I don't have a clue how you could do that on a steel. But it's not enough to make me take up slide guitar. To be honest, other than Derek Trucks and Sonny Landreth, I'm just not that crazy about the slide guitar (I prefer Duane Allman's guitar playing to his slide work, for exampe).

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 2 Feb 2011 10:12 am

From what I've read it was Jesse Ed Davis that made Duane Allman pick up the bottleneck.
He played in the D tuning on that song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdD5lRge3a0

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 3 Feb 2011 5:24 am

I actually play PSG guitar because of Duane Allman, more or less - I just got really frustrated at what I couldn't make a slide guitar do, even with obsessive attention to muting, arpeggios that spanned several frets etc. I just wanted to sound like Duane Allman imitating Miles Davis playing Beethoven's Sixth, or Miles Davis imitating Duane playing Bach, or Henryk Szeryng imitating Ravi Shankar playing Miles or... you know. I still largely treat it as a ten-string slide guitar with six different tunings that can flash in and out, as opposed to the pull-to-unison bends and voice-within-chord playing that screams "steel guitar".

I tend to like mandolins best when they're playing something out of "their" dominion of bluegrass, I like guitarists who can play with melody and not just sequences of guitar tricks. The three steel guitarists who seems best able to float above the ruts are (obviously) Mr. Perlowin, Earnest Bovine (heh) and Dave Easley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI19M5cZ4rk

When all the other steel guitarists can play these "licks", so to speak, I guess they'll be the new set of cliches to transcend.

Right-o.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdxjMywf ... re=related

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 3 Feb 2011 9:31 am

Here's a song that I did at the Phoenix show this year that's usually associated with the slide guitar, you be the judge.

It Hurts Me Too

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 4 Feb 2011 6:01 am

That's great playing, Dan. I fergit sometimes... Dave Ristrim made one great rock n roll steel album too, then burbled back under (probably, lost money on the whole thing...)

But still, some of the best guitars for slide tone are the lighter ones, SG's and Strats and Harmonys, and a lot of people use a very light glass slide - under an ounce, even. So the slide is sufferin', the strings are sufferin', the guitar is sufferin' AND the amp too. 30 lb. pedal steels are like too good-sounding, in a solid, hi-fi way.

I suspect trying to apply overdrive to a full-spectrum signal is where I get gunked up, at least - most electric guitars have a pretty narrow frequency-band output compared with a PSG, so maybe the pre-gain EQ could be adjusted, or I've been tempted by some of these multi-band overdrives, the Soundblox is one. This guy has a lot of thought in it:
http://www.amptone.com/#eqconcepts

http://www.sourceaudio.net/products/sou ... ortion.php

You can put the "Meequalizer" pre-drive, here:
http://www.joemeek.com/gbqe.html

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 5 Feb 2011 7:42 am

Dan Tyack wrote:Here's a song that I did at the Phoenix show this year that's usually associated with the slide guitar, you be the judge.

It sounds like a slide guitar!

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 5 Feb 2011 1:44 pm

Mike P, the slide on the big string at the end of your solo is cool. Do you remember if you were using effects or was it simply eq that gave that big string that crisp tone?

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 5 Feb 2011 2:47 pm

Jetty, I use an Electro harmonix Big Muff Pi connected on a loop to an MXR 5 band Equalizer. The Equalizer smooths out the sound of the big muff.

I both kept the pedals down (the song is in A) and played a lot of slide guitar licks, and used the pedals (Mostly the A and C pedals) to play some whole step raise licks that could not be done with just the bar.

My low B string on the U-12 is lowered to A rather than raised to C# on the A pedal. I don't know much about the B6 side of the tuning, but I love having all that extra bass.

I played with this band in part, to show how the steel can be a very effective rock and blues instrument. When I played these rock gigs with this band, I felt that I was an ambassador for the steel to a rock and roll audience, and I could have played slide, but my goal was to introduce the steel to these people.

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