Wooden bar to simulate piano?

Allan Haley · Post by **Allan Haley** » 8 Apr 2018 10:44 am

I saw a video on FB of Don Pawlak playing a solo in which he somehow simulated a piano sound. Some viewers speculated it was a midi device, But on the forum I found a thread talking about him using a wooden bar.
Does anyone know how he does this?
Al

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 8 Apr 2018 12:15 pm

To my ears, more of a banjo sound, experimented with one once.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 9 Apr 2018 8:13 am

EHX makes a pedal called the Key9 that emulates the piano sounds.

Kevin Skrla · Post by **Kevin Skrla** » 10 Apr 2018 1:03 am

I just saw Don Don play and have asked him about it before. It's just a drumstick cut down to the length of a normal bar. It's a very convincing honky tonk piano sound. They played a Chuck Berry tune and it sounded just like a piano!

Allan Haley · Post by **Allan Haley** » 10 Apr 2018 6:51 am

Thanks for that, Kevin. Iâ€™m going ro grab a drumstick and start experiementing. Last
night I tried wooden spoons, ladles, pill bottles, turkey baster. Cool sounds but not quite right.

Kevin Skrla · Post by **Kevin Skrla** » 10 Apr 2018 8:40 am

I will also add that he said it only works up really high on the fretboard

Charley Bond · Post by **Charley Bond** » 11 Apr 2018 1:30 pm

Allan Haley wrote:I saw a video on FB of Don Pawlak playing a solo in which he somehow simulated a piano sound. Some viewers speculated it was a midi device, But on the forum I found a thread talking about him using a wooden bar.
Does anyone know how he does this?
Al

Can find this at all...

Allan Haley · Post by **Allan Haley** » 11 Apr 2018 2:02 pm

It's a vid from a pedal steel FB group called "Pedal Steel Guitar Advice Tips & Tricks". it's not my vid to share. You can track it down there.

Jim Fogarty · Post by **Jim Fogarty** » 11 Apr 2018 8:16 pm

Here's a link to the video. You can watch it, even if you're not on Facebook. Steel solo is right around the 1 minute mark.

https://www.facebook.com/anthony.sims.5 ... 518718653/

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 11 Apr 2018 8:32 pm

Greg Gefell · Post by **Greg Gefell** » 12 Apr 2018 4:11 am

Thatâ€™s outstanding! I definitely want to try that. I started a thread a while back looking for a way to get LESS sustain and this fits the bill nicely. Sometimes I want to be able to play freely without any blocking required but not have the resulting jumble of notes ringing into each other. I guess you could say that a wooden bar gives you, â€œbar blocking.â€

Bill Ford · Post by **Bill Ford** » 12 Apr 2018 4:23 am

Outstanding, gonna try that.

Charley Bond · Post by **Charley Bond** » 12 Apr 2018 6:27 am

I'm gonna get one made from Texas Ironwood. I'll let ya know how I like it. I'll post some pics...

David Gertschen · Post by **David Gertschen** » 12 Apr 2018 11:24 am

Wow, that did sound quite convincing! You can see Don change bars in the video.

Bryan Daste · Post by **Bryan Daste** » 12 Apr 2018 2:14 pm

There's no MIDI involved? Sure sounds like a sampled piano!

Larry Dering · Post by **Larry Dering** » 12 Apr 2018 4:12 pm

Very cool and convincing sound.

John McClung · Post by **John McClung** » 14 Apr 2018 1:54 pm

I was telling a student last week about how to emulate a banjo on PSG. I used a yellow PaperMate mechanical pencil, and it sounded amazingly banjoish! Kind of small, but any hollow plastic tube that's lightweight and floats on strings, rather than sits heavily and deadens strings, is one ticket to banjo hell.

Jerry Overstreet · Post by **Jerry Overstreet** » 15 Apr 2018 1:20 pm

There's another example on YT with him doing the intro and outro on Jonesin' for Jones video using that drumstick. It's after Dale explaining the tune and starts somewhere around 1:30 or so best I remember.

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Wooden bar to simulate piano?

Wooden bar to simulate piano?

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