A pedal steel banjo? Really???

[David Shepack]

[David Shepack]

I half expected someone to YELL at me for wasting their time

[Steve Perry]

Looks like another case of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should".

[Mike Wheeler]

Innovative. I like the idea. Pedal dobro was done, why not pedal banjo?

Can you post some sound clips showing what it sounds like?

[Dick Sexton]

A pedaled console Banjo? Wonder if they make a light weight fly model.

Notice the wheeled apparatus in the back to his left. I suspect that is what it takes to move it.

[Daniel McKee]

I bet all that is heavy. I would also like to hear what it sounds like. I always have liked Buck Trents style of playing where he would try to get pedal steel sounds out of his banjo and he had to turn tuning keys and I think he had some sort of palm pedal but it looks like this one has several floor pedals so I imagine its a lot easier to get those sounds this way

[Roger Miller]

Back in the 70;s in a music store on Gallitan Rd. there was a banjo with pedals on a frame and the name on the banjo was ShoBud. This was in the experimental stage and the store tried to sell it, nobody wanted it. Pretty weird looking.

[chris ivey]

idle hands are the devil's workshop.

[Richard Sinkler]

I'd love to see the case for that thing.

[Clyde Mattocks]

I saw this thing and actually sat down to it at IBMA in Raleigh. It is made by the guy that makes the Fultz banjo tailpiece. It has six floor pedals and four knee levers plus hand levers that determine whether a raise or lower is a half or whole step. Twenty possible changes on four strings (none on the fifth string). He had a book there with photos showing every step of the building process. Lots of gears and cams, everything brass, looks like the inside of an old German clock. As was mentioned in posts above, I believe he built it just to show that he could.

[b0b]

Why Lord, why?

[Richard Sinkler]

B0B, take a valium and lay down for a while. It will be OK.

[Greg Cutshaw]

One Valium just won't be enough!

[Matthew Jackson]

ok I am pretty sure that wins the weird hands down.
I just have to wonder

[Damir Besic]

"Foggy mind breakdown"... was the first instrumental played on that thing..I would imagine ...

Db

[Alan Brookes]

My first reaction was that there must be a way to connect pedals to a banjo without such a heavy console.
I'd love to hear what it sounds like.

[David Shepack]

I bet someone had similar thoughts about the piano at first. I would love to play it. or better yet, record it. Imagine the poor banjo players trying to recreate the sound.
Then there was the guy who puts fender bass neck on a bass drum, to make an acoustic bass.
I did sound at an Indian show. A guy had a violin with a horn coming out of it.
Maybe one of us will engineer an acoustic pedal steel

[Chris Lucker]

How does Buck Trent's banjo work? He sure makes pedal steel sounds on all those old Porter Wagoner songs.

[b0b]

I played with a guy once who had an electric banjo with two pedals, connected with bicycle cables like Phil Baugh's pedal bar contraption. I've heard better sounds from a lawn mower.

[Jerry Hayes]

Hey Chris. Buck Trent's banjo had a "wooden" head instead of the usual type which had a ShoBud steel guitar pickup mounted in it. It had a bender mechanism inside of it which was put together by Shot Jackson at ShoBud. There were two round metal pads above the strings that pushed down into the body which operated separately and raised the 1st string D to E and the 2nd string B to C. This would give him a I to IV chord change for some good steel guitar licks. The pads that pushed into the body were right under the heel of his hand so you couldn't see them when he was playing. He also used the banjo de-tuners which lowered the 2nd string to A and the 3rd string G to F#. He was/is a master at this instrument and I love his playing a lot. One of my favorites of his is the intro and backup on Porter Wagoner's "Carroll Country Accident".. You can pull it up on YouTube and you'll see what I mean..........JH in Va.

[Chris Lucker]

Thank you for the explanation I appreciate it.
I urge everyone to listen to the Carroll County Accident or Cold Hard Facts of Life right now for cool banjo.

[Alan Brookes]

I bet someone had similar thoughts about the piano at first...

Well the piano was a development of the cimbalom, which was already quite a massive instrument, being an orchestral version of the hammer dulcimer, to which a keyboard was added, which did make for an instrument which was too heavy to be moved around very much.
I was thinking more in lines of the attachment which was made by Maurice Anderson, which was touched on in the following thread:-
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... able+frame
There's a YouTube demo of it somewhere. I'll have to look for it. In the meantime I would love to hear a demo of the unit which is shown in your photo.

[Alvin Blaine]

I thought it was kind of cool. Like having multiple Kieth tuners on every string. The idea of it that I liked, is that I use about four different tunings on banjo so just holding down a couple of pedals, or knee levers, I could have all kinds of tunings. Also that you can bend a string while fretting, something you can't do with Keith/Scruggs tuners.
It was fun to play with, here is a pic of me trying it out.

[Scott Shipley]

The palm pedal on my '69 raised neck "The Maverick Custom" was made by Shot for one of Buck's banjos but never got installed. Harry Jackson installed it on my Sho-Bud a few years ago.

[Peter Harris]

I guess the one good thing about it being so heavy is that it doesn't get around too much......