Bass lap steel?

Rick Abbott · Post by **Rick Abbott** » 7 Feb 2016 6:26 pm

I just stumbled into THIS!!

I really love this band, and had no Idea that the bass on this tune was a 6-string slide bass. Looks like a Melobar design...this is rock, enjoy/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TqnFVfDJTM

K Maul · Post by **K Maul** » 8 Feb 2016 6:07 am

That's John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin by the way.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 8 Feb 2016 10:31 am

Rick Abbott wrote:...Looks like a Melobar design...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TqnFVfDJTM

It looks like a standard Melobar Skreemr to me. I wish he would stand still long enough to be able to examine it.

But he's not playing on the bass strings. $:\$

Rick Abbott · Post by **Rick Abbott** » 9 Feb 2016 5:30 pm

Yeah, I am a big fan of Led Zep. JPJ basically put together the band you see in the video, Them Crooked Vultures. The first time I heard them I felt the way I did when I first heard Cream...like my eyes were opened.

Also, Alan, listen harder, he is playing the bass part, and even harmonizing with the other guy who is playing a part of the bass section. Headphones, brother!

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 10 Feb 2016 7:23 am

Alan Brookes wrote:
Rick Abbott wrote:...Looks like a Melobar design...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TqnFVfDJTM
It looks like a standard Melobar Skreemr to me. I wish he would stand still long enough to be able to examine it.
But he's not playing on the bass strings. $:\$

It's a custom bass lap steel made by Manson Guitars. Search this forum for previous discussions.

Paul Seager · Post by **Paul Seager** » 10 Feb 2016 12:44 pm

I tried the concept of a bass steel to replace the bassist we cannot find. I have an 8 string that I don't much care for that has a 25" scale. With some heavy gauge strings, I managed to get it as low as an A (as on a bass guitar) and came up with more or less a diatonic tuning. That tuning provided open strings tuned to the 3 chords of most of the songs. There were a few exceptions but it was a start.

I tried a technique of hitting a bass string, grabbing a chord on my main steel before hitting the next bass tone. Sounded sloppy but a start. Then I started coming up with some more interesting bass lines but after a while I realised that I was just 'playing bass' and ignoring the steel.

Interesting exercise but for my goals, pointless. I also tried using an Octaver on a normal C6. If you want to test your Ocataver pedal's tracking, try it on a steel! The slightest movement of the left hand causes the octave to dance about all over the place. Another interesting but pointless exercise!

\ paul

Mike Brenner · Post by **Mike Brenner** » 11 Feb 2016 11:39 am

I've been using this a lot in sessions

. custom-made by a student of mine, a talented amateur luthier. I did use a bass gtr for this purpose, but the intonation was always a bit off. this steel is perfect. you can get cello-like tone and dark wells of noise. I tune it to whatever the song needs.

James Kerr · Post by **James Kerr** » 11 Feb 2016 12:29 pm

How about a Bass Lap Steel made from the Crankcase of a Collector Matchless Motorcycle?
James.

Joe Elk · Post by **Joe Elk** » 11 Feb 2016 12:55 pm

James This is Nice! You have be hiding this one.

Never had a Matchless I rode BSA's Had a 54 Golden Flash and a 58 Super Rocket
I pulled up a Steib with the 58, Could take it off or on in 5 minutes by myself.
Nice guitar.
Joe Elk

W. Bill Schmidt · Post by **W. Bill Schmidt** » 15 Feb 2016 4:45 am

Lest we forget the imitable Mr. Dave, quoted in 2003 saying: "...this baritone slide. I play bass parts and all of that on that instrument. So, it has a huge sound. And then I have my seven-string, which has kind of a low bass string on it, and then a regular six-string guitar tuning. So you can play bass and guitar at the same time."

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 15 Feb 2016 2:02 pm

The 1st bass steel guitar that I built, back around 1990, was the 3rd neck on the 1st Guitarzilla. It has 5 strings and pups on both ends of the wood neck, and that is mounted on an aluminum channel.

The 2nd bass steel guitar I built, around 2000, was Junior Blue, 6 strings on a billet of 7075 T-8 aerospace aluminum. With pups on both ends of the neck.

The 3rd bass steel guitar I built, around 2004, was the 8 string neck on Guitarzilla2. This time the frame of the guitar is titanium tubing with aluminum details and again, pups on both ends of the neck. Also, The Replicant, a rod and plate instrument is attached.

The most recent bass steel guitar is a 7 string, machined from 6061 T-6 aluminum billet, that bolts on and off of the back of my Cadillac guitar. It's tuned to 3 octaves of A, starting at A0 on the bottom. If you saw the movie, Man of Steel, this is the bass sound on the bottom of the sound track.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 15 Feb 2016 3:25 pm

Chas, I've seen those photographs before. Would you please elaborate on the purpose of the vertical bars.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 15 Feb 2016 3:27 pm

On the subject of bass lap steel, no-one has yet come up with a reason for not just using an electric bass guitar with a tone bar. If it rattles, use a nut riser. If the scale is too long, shove a tone bar under the strings at the scale length that you want.

W. Bill Schmidt · Post by **W. Bill Schmidt** » 15 Feb 2016 3:34 pm

Alan, couldn't the same be said for lap steels/electric guitars in general? BTW, really enjoy your posts over the years.

Bill

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 15 Feb 2016 5:42 pm

Thanks, Bill.

You're absolutely right. For years I used a regular solid electric guitar as a lap steel. The only problem is that, if you tune it to C6, or the equivalent, it makes it difficult to play without a tone bar. But, in those days, I tuned to open E.

You can also use a 12-string guitar as a mandolin, if you put a capo high up. Of course, it's not tuned in fifths like a mandolin is, but, since it has more strings, that's really no problem. I often wonder if the tuning of the mandolin, like a fiddle, doesn't come from the fact that the original mandolins were played by classical musicians who were used to violins.

Steffen Gunter · Post by **Steffen Gunter** » 16 Feb 2016 10:18 am

Alan Brookes wrote:no-one has yet come up with a reason for not just using an electric bass guitar with a tone bar.

Morphine's Mark Sandman (RIP) had a great sound using a 2-string slide bass. Here's a video about his bass guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OL4P5zHiPY

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 16 Feb 2016 11:33 am

Mark Sandman (after feeding pizza to his dog) has just used a regular bass guitar with a tone bar. I don't understand why he removed two of the strings. All that does is limit the range of the instrument. It does nothing to the sound. $:\$

What a shame about his heart attack at such an early age. It reminds us all of our own fragile mortality.

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 17 Feb 2016 7:19 pm

Alan, the vertical rods can be bowed with violin bows or struck with hammered dulcimer hammers. On the 1st Guitarzilla, the rods are welded onto thin plates with top and bottom "lips" front and back, that act like bridges, and they're woven in the strings. When the rods are struck, they make a bell like sound and that vibration gets transferred to the stings.

On the 2nd Guitarzilla, The Replicant does the same thing only the rods are welded on a thin plate of tool steel and that's mounted over 3 EMG pickups.

These are not for traditional melodic kinds of music. The rods are purposefully not in tune with an A-440 piano and they're overly long to get more complicated sounds.

W. Bill Schmidt · Post by **W. Bill Schmidt** » 18 Feb 2016 5:42 am

Alan, it is my understanding the the mandolin and violin families are direct analogues, with the mandolin family fretted and plucked rather than bowed. Consider the following:

Mandolin - Violin
Mandola - Viola
Mandocello - Violincello
Mandobass - Double Bass

all of which share the same scale and tuning (normally).

Chas, awesome stuff! Loved the piece in Fretboard Journal.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 18 Feb 2016 10:43 am

Chas, that sounds very intriguing. Do you have a video of the instrument in use?

Bill: many instruments come in complete consorts, ranging from small to bass. The bowl-backed mandolin is a member of the lute family. The flat-backed mandolins are technically small citterns, and were derived from the bowl-backed (Neopolitan) variety because all bowl-backed instruments slide around in the lap and are difficult to hold still. The comparisons that you list could be made with many other instruments, even wind instruments, that have various different sizes, but the violin developed completely independently of the mandolin, and any similarities are purely from parallel development. Indeed, early mandolins had a variety of tunings, many derived from the tuning of the lute, which itself had several different tunings.
This is the point that I was making, that the current tuning of the mandolin probably arises from classical composers who were used to writing for the violin.
Yes, the mandola is tuned the same as the viola, but the mandocello and mandobass are recent, 20th century instruments.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 23 Feb 2016 12:05 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9maWV6nAOJQ
Seasick Steve.
Check this guy out.

Rose Sinclair · Post by **Rose Sinclair** » 28 Feb 2016 9:06 am

Chas Smith -
My mind is blown looking at those guitars you built -- they are true works of art. I hope some day you could bring a Guitarzilla to a steel convention somewhere so we can hear it!
Thanks for posting those photos!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 28 Feb 2016 10:56 am

chas smith wrote:...with pups on both ends of the neck....

Chas, I notice that you've used two pickups on the same strings, one near the nut and one near the bridge. Buddy Emmons mentioned experimenting with that at one time, and it has always tweaked my interest. As the player touches the strings with a tone bar, without any form of dampening, he divides the string into two sounding lengths, and, at the nodes, they would harmonise, whilst between them there would be a continual series of dischords, while one note slides up and the other down. Do have any recordings of this effect?

HowardR · Post by **HowardR** » 28 Feb 2016 2:27 pm

Interesting 7 string "Weiss" with a bass string.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61OAsUF9UP8

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 28 Feb 2016 3:07 pm

what?? a mandolin has the same scale length as a double bass?

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Bass lap steel?

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