Game Changer for Steel Guitar!

[Dom Franco]

All I can say is WOW! I would love to hear someone play a steel guitar through this "PLUS PEDAL" OR I would like to try before I buy.

Since I play solo gigs on my lap steel I am always looking for gimmicks that fill in my sound, and give me the option of chording behind my vocals.

I could envision placing this right beside my volume pedal for the option of holding a chord and playing notes over it!



https://www.gamechangeraudio.com/pluspedal/

[Dan Kelly]

OH, Great... just what I need, another pedal on an already difficult instrument!

Seriously, it looks like it has some potential (no pun). It would be worth a try. At $329.00 it would be great to be able to take it for a test drive.

[Jim Fogarty]

The EHX Freeze pedal will do much the same thing........for @ 1/4 of the cost. It's a very cool effect.

[Jay Coover]

Good point Jim. I do have a freeze pedal, which I use only to sustain my other EHX synth-y pedals.

On guitar only, it sounds synthetic, largely because it is a little grainy and the only option is to sustain a note equally until it's gone. You can't alter the envelop of the sustained sound much. You have a little control over the attack of the sustained sound and an overall mix of the two sounds.

I have no experience with the pedal mentioned here, but it does look like it gives you a lot more control over the note envelop and in fact might address some of the deficiencies of the Freeze.

[Brett Lanier]

I have a Plus Pedal. In the group I play in I'm asked to lay down drones and pads quite a bit for intros, etc so i get a lot of use out of it. Before getting the Plus pedal my way of doing this was to use a ton of delay, which meant I had to be really careful about not letting any pick attack through. With the Plus Pedal I can lay down a drone, layer it, morph into other chords, and then play on top of it. Pretty sweet.

I used to have an EHX SuperEgo, which is like the Freeze but lets you layer the sounds. I couldn't get used to the tone of that thing. The contrast between the sound of the steel and what that pedal produced was too dramatic. Once you spend some time with the Plus Pedal, you can learn to make it sound nearly indentical to the steel guitar.

I currently have a Meris Enzo pedal in the effects loop of the Plus so I can make the drone sound like a synth, then play steel over top of it (sans synth sound).

[Dom Franco]

Thanks Brett; I was looking for a steel player who had tried it.
To me it's just another sound to add to my arsenal. Since I play solo, I try to avoid making every instrumental break sound the same.

I use the EHX B9 organ simulator quite a bit to make it seem like the Steel Player and the Organ Player are taking turns.

Dom

[Larry Carlson]

The EHX Freeze pedal will do much the same thing........for @ 1/4 of the cost. It's a very cool effect.

I will agree with this.
I use the freeze pedal fairly often usually noodling over a chord or having a drone to play over.
I've never seen the plus pedal but it would be interesting to give it a try.
The price is a bit prohibitive for me though.
I'm good looking, not rich.

[Dom Franco]

I am also interested in Freeze pedal. After the new years craziness I would like to try one out at a local music store. I have also seen videos about replacing the clicky switch with a "Noiseless" one.

(I really enjoy taking my steel guitar around to try out amps and pedals)

I'm a big ham and I love all the attention that the salespeople and customers give me when I play my 13 string non-pedal thru- some new effect. I wish I had a nickel for every time I was asked "what is that thing?" "How is it tuned?" "Is that a slide guitar?" "Is that a slack key?"

Sometimes I buy the new gear and sometimes I don't, but it's always a blast.

**** Has anyone ever done the math to figure out the ratio between steel guitarists and regular guitarists? I bet it's less than 1 in 1000! and very few music stores sell them.

[Derrick Unger]

WoW!!! That Plus pedal sounds great but I end up using 1 pedal for every 10 I buy...anyone else got that problem? But that really does sound good..since on steel you are often just adding filler you could hit a chord and sustain it and maybe do a little melody and play your own backing..am I hearing this wrong?? Would love to hear some steel demo's.

[Donny Hinson]

I may be weird, but the effect (to me) has few applications. Droning sounds quickly become very fatiguing, and I can't get over the fact that it just sounds like feedback.

[Greg Lambert]

the true game changer for Steel is Band in a Box. IMHO

[Brett Lanier]

I end up using 1 pedal for every 10 I buy...anyone else got that problem?

Sounds about right. In my experience, even if you have the opportunity to demo something you never know if an effect pedal will earn a permanent spot on your pedalboard until you play a bunch of gigs with it.

The majority of the bands I've played with in recent years are not country bands so I'm always looking for pedals that will add something new to the rolodex of sounds.

[Jonathan Mitguard]

I have a Freeze pedal and really liked it at first, but then it got wiggy and started adding some undesirable sounds. It changes the tone quite a bit particularly in the mode where you have a drone and want to play over it. So maybe this Plus Pedal has solved some of those problems. The concept is great though.

[Dom Franco]

Jonathan, did the sound of the Freeze pedal actually change for the worse? (get wiggy) or did you just start to notice it wasn't that great to begin with?

If so maybe it's just a particular defective pedal...