Pedal Steel in New Superman Movie

Peter Freiberger · Post by **Peter Freiberger** » 8 Apr 2013 7:02 am

Some of us did keep a tuner hooked up to insure we started and ended cues on pitch. There was a lot going on, and it got loud at times, so sometimes for me it was nice to insure I was hitting my marks, especially when we were using distortion and playing in the brass area of the enormous room (the Eastwood stage at Warner Bros.) We also played a lot of things with or without vibrato. Our individual differences in tone, vibrato and slight variations of intonation are what made us sound like a section rather than one person on one instrument doubling themselves eight or more times.

Ray Minich · Post by **Ray Minich** » 8 Apr 2013 9:23 am

At any time whilst you were all there together did you ever all play the same tune at the same time? Coulda made an awesome rendition of "Together Again".

Bud Angelotti · Post by **Bud Angelotti** » 8 Apr 2013 12:32 pm

The floor is there to resonate the orchestra and, at one point, we were all playing a C. There was a sound in the air that no one had ever heard before. It was moving and it sounded like it had a life of its own. At that point it was, so this is what we're doing. It was a profound validation of what a single note can do.

Awesome! A new creative process. Hope that sound was captured. Awesome !

Boo Bernstein · Post by **Boo Bernstein** » 8 Apr 2013 12:40 pm

I'm sorry I'm late to the party here. I have to reiterate what all of my friends have said -- this was a truly amazing experience on so many levels. We were working with Hans Zimmer, a brilliant composer and creative force, and Peter Asher, who has produced a number of my favorite albums of all times. It was an intense work situation doing something that (as far as I know) hasn't really been done before -- at least not on such a high profile project. We were constantly experimenting to find things that worked which was quite exciting. And the icing on the cake was getting to spend four days with my friends, most of whom I've know for more than 30 years. Brings a smile to my face just thinking about it.

Big thanks to Chas who brought us together! I can't wait to hear the finished score!

Boo

Marty Rifkin · Post by **Marty Rifkin** » 8 Apr 2013 2:27 pm

The last day of recording we cranked up the overdrive pedals, dug in and shook the rafters of the sound stage. The coolest part of that may be that it's the first time JayDee was recorded playing through a distortion pedal!

The whole experience was like summer camp with great friends.

Peter Freiberger · Post by **Peter Freiberger** » 8 Apr 2013 3:40 pm

"Like summer camp with great friends", and better food. They brought in great food every day, probably knowing that would keep us from wandering off. I want to go back this year for the whole summer.

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 8 Apr 2013 3:45 pm

Yes....it really was a wonderful experience I'll never forget! Hanging with the guys was great and a true honor for me to be included, although I do feel a little guilty that I made the team instead of some other notable local players. That low C Chas mentioned really was like a planetary alignment type moment! If they were somehow able to capture and reproduce that on the screen, it will truly be an out of this world sound unlike any other ever heard before.

Thanks again Chas!!!

I really don't think this event will ever take any money out of any session player's pockets. We really didn't record any idiomatic steelisms like Acid Loops or Band in a Box does.(Which IMHO are also pretty benign in the big scheme of things) We just gave them a raw sound that was unique to 8 good steel players playing single notes and intervals in unison. Personally I think it remains to be seen if it will sound like a steel guitar orchestra at all when it's all done. I guess we will just have to wait for the movie...

Did I mention the CATERING?!?!?!?

Stephan Franck · Post by **Stephan Franck** » 8 Apr 2013 6:23 pm

What an awesome gig! Congrats guys! I already couldn't wait to see the movie, now I REALLY can't wait to see how the steel is used!

John McClung · Post by **John McClung** » 8 Apr 2013 11:17 pm

I made a point of documenting the historic session as best I could, it wasn't easy both playing and shooting photos! Here are a few.

Note the picture of my music stand, with TWO tuners, and I used them both. Discovered that they were calibrated slightly differently. Anyone know if the 440 is tuneable on these BOSS tuners?

A note of hope for all you beginners: even 8 top LA pro's can barely play an octave slide in tune to their own bad selves, much less all in tune together. By the first day's first break, every one of us had a tuner in-line to get single notes and beginning and ends of slides as precise as we could. It's dang hard!

The whole crew, and Hans' first lesson.

All together now!

You can never have too much redunancy and backups.

Chas Smith's tower of power.

Fun was had by all.

We worked hard, it was a day of blood, sweat and tears. Here's the sweat, literally, on my Mullen.

Shop talk, no doubt.

Skip Edwards · Post by **Skip Edwards** » 9 Apr 2013 7:00 am

Yeah, it wasn't all work and no play...

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 9 Apr 2013 8:41 am

John McClung wrote: A note of hope for all you beginners: even 8 top LA pro's can barely play an octave slide in tune to their own bad selves, much less all in tune together. By the first day's first break, every one of us had a tuner in-line to get single notes and beginning and ends of slides as precise as we could. It's dang hard!

It was like some serious steel guitar endurance training-yoga-boot camp. An intense bar hand workout, that in my case left me feeling like my ability to target notes with precision went up a couple notches after four days of crazy repetition.

John Scanlon · Post by **John Scanlon** » 2 May 2013 11:46 am

Couple of early releases:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4zBYovDy3k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwUlsQ5ds4M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYVO2iydS2I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPoyumkRv78

Jack Hanson · Post by **Jack Hanson** » 2 May 2013 2:12 pm

Cool photos, and thanks for sharing them, all of you. Seems notable to me that the entire front row appears to be composed of machines from the Piedmont. The black one on the left is undoubtedly a push/pull, and the black one on the right appears not to be. Is that a rosewood in there too? Did it sound as good as the black ones? The second one from the right in the back row is from the Colorado flatlands, but what are the rest?

IMHO my old beat-up TU-12 from the 1980’s beats the crap out of my new TU-15 from June, 2008. Any one else agree or disagree?

Peter Freiberger · Post by **Peter Freiberger** » 2 May 2013 4:26 pm

In front JayDee and Skip were on the black and rosewood P/P's. Marty and Boo played LeGrande III's. In the back, Rick played his D12 Dekley, I played a Frank Carter modded welded frame MCI, John McClung has a D12 Mullen, and Chas appears to be playing one of his own amazing creations.

Skip Edwards · Post by **Skip Edwards** » 2 May 2013 4:44 pm

Chas also had his D11 wraparound p/p...a very serious guitar that has more mojo than you can shake a stick at.

btw... my rosewood sounded as good as those black ones...

Jack Hanson · Post by **Jack Hanson** » 2 May 2013 5:28 pm

Peter, thanks for the specifics. I did know from my buddy Steve in West L.A. that the Magic Twanger played a Mullen, but it was hard to tell from the photo what the rest of guys in the back row were playing.

Skip, no flies on those rosewood push/pulls, IMHO. Mine always sounded fine (especially when Russ Pahl or Mike Cass was playing it, back in the day). Believe that Cass played a rosewood back then too, and perhaps he still does. But probably not the same one.

Thanks for an interesting thread and will watch for the picture with great anticipation!

Mike Daly · Post by **Mike Daly** » 4 May 2013 9:36 am

What a great post. Thanks to all for sharing this.

steve takacs · Post by **steve takacs** » 10 May 2013 5:26 am

What I also enjoyed was seeing faces attached to the names I've read about so many times on The Forum. Thanks for posting them , John. Really looked like a barrel of monkeys amount of fun. steve t

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 10 Jun 2013 4:27 pm

Here's an update:
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Man-Stee ... 37975.html

Peter Freiberger · Post by **Peter Freiberger** » 13 Jun 2013 7:22 am

Just found this. After all these years I'm finally in Rolling Stone. Sort of.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/video ... s-20130613

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 13 Jun 2013 11:58 am

I've seen the movie and though I was trying to pay attention to the score, I did get completely caught up in what I was looking at. There are a lot of layers of sound, and we're in some of them, but for me, the "big moment" was at the end scene, where there's the resolution to everything that has come before and it's the steel guitar orchestra (SGO) sound, with the obligatory piano, that frames it.

In the rollingstone video, the intro sounds and the last sounds, on the logo, are SGO power chords and in the video, Marty Rifkin gets a cameo. Yee Haaa!

Dan Tyack · Post by **Dan Tyack** » 15 Jun 2013 4:51 pm

I think you guys did great, because I never heard any obvious pedal steel in the score. My only clue was in the credits. It was an effective score (if a little relentless and mono-keyed) and maybe other film composers will choose the wall of steel where a honky tonk or a car chase isn't involved.

James Wolf · Post by **James Wolf** » 16 Jun 2013 6:45 pm

Skip Edwards wrote:We all had mics on the amps, as well as DI's thru the Pods, or whatever. There was a conductor and a mic array above his station. One day we would set up in the violin section area of the room, the next day in the cello area, and so on, so there could be realistic orchestral panning and delay times...and there were a few o'head room mics around, as well.
They would have us play a note for 30 seconds, or longer... striking the note and as it died out we would back off the vp and strike it again, bringing the volume back up.
With 8 of us doing it, it was similar to a violin section playing long extended notes by bowing in one direction, and then the next. We did every note on the steel, from the lowest on the back neck to the highest on the front neck. Then we moved on to notes of shorter duration.
We also did slides, in similar fashion from low notes to high notes. Slides in half notes, quarter notes,, eight notes, as well as intervals...2nds, 3rds, min 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6th, octaves...all sorts of things. Four long days of that...
We heard a little of what they were intending to do with it all. They played some of the samples back for us, using a midi keyboard playing the samples from a computer. Held notes, along with slides...the room absolutely shook from the sound, and you really couldn't tell what it was, since it wasn't anything that you could pigeonhole into sounding like a steel.
All in all, it was a blast...a great hang for 8 old pals.
Here's a pic with Hans sitting at Marty's steel. Sorry to say I forgot their names, but the guy 2nd from the left was one of the engineers, 2nd from the right was the conductor, and the guy on the right worked with Hans, I believe.

Ok I just saw this movie tonight. 3d IMAX was awesome. I couldn't help but keep an ear out for the steel guitar. I opened this post back up as soon as I got home and saw what you put here. There were more than a few times where i thought a steel guitar could have made these samples..... But I could never quite put my finger on it. Really neat what you guys did there. I would be curious as a cat to hear before and afters! Great job on this movie

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 16 Jun 2013 7:58 pm

But I could never quite put my finger on it.

Anytime you don't know what the sound is, there's a good probability that it's us and this is exactly what Hans was looking for. All the top composers have the same terabyte of samples in their samplers. For any one of them to "stand out" or sound unique, he has to get creative and put together something like the Steel Guitar Orchestra.

Gerald Menke · Post by **Gerald Menke** » 19 Jun 2013 6:13 am

Hey all,

I have to say I think this is one of the coolest threads I have read in more than 13 years on this Forum. I have done a few soundtracks and would have given my right arm to be on this, just be to on a session with JD? Are you kidding me? I am probably going to go see the movie just to check out the score.

Congratulations to you all for what I am sure was a job very well done. Must have been a TRIP to play on that giant stage... maybe someday.

Gerald

The Steel Guitar Forum

Pedal Steel in New Superman Movie

Nice to see names with the faces.