We maybe done for Boys!

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 6 Jul 2019 12:11 pm

Paul Stauskas wrote:
Fish wrote:Last year I was asked to sit for a recording session for two days to sample my steel up and down neck in every key. I'm glad I turned the gig down. It wasn't for this company but I imagined a creepy result like this software and fled.

The website offers the software package for $149. Yikes!
Nashville producer in 2019: Get me Steve Fishell!

Nashville producer in 2030: Get me a human!

Honestly I think it sounds great. We are going to have to work harder boys.

It did sound OK. We need to remember, it's probably not going to make a difference to 99.8% of the people listening to the end result of someone using this in their project. Remember, not all listeners will be steel players.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 6 Jul 2019 1:39 pm

It looks a lot harder than playing a real pedal steel. Lots of different settings to adjust - basically a whole complicated thing to learn - plus you have to know how to play a keyboard with your right hand while switching harmony modes (which you need to pre-program) with your left.

I didn't hear any long slides that change chords. Maybe it can do that. That's another different technique to learn. Playing pedal steel is easier than using this software program, in my opinion. Just plug it into an amp and play!

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 6 Jul 2019 1:55 pm

It is more believable when doing the C6th "I Love You Because" because its more of a steel emulating an orchestra which is what a lot of C6th players were shooting for. Instead of taking a defensive position, we'd better recognize they're not there yet, but they are getting there. The point about the general public not telling the difference between a drum machine and the real thing applies here.

Bill Miller · Post by **Bill Miller** » 6 Jul 2019 4:49 pm

It sounds like sh** and I hate it with a seething, scalding passion. LOL! But really, it may be more sophisticated than some of the earlier midi pedal steel sounds but in the end it still sounds like midi and it drives me up the wall. I wouldn't waste a minute with it. Pedal steel is pedal steel and nothing else can replace it. If you find that sound like pedal steel you need to book an appointment with your audiologist.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 6 Jul 2019 5:20 pm

Well, I do feel sorry for all you aspiring pros who have been sitting staring at your phone, willing it to ring with a call from the Bigshot Producer who absolutely needs your style and only yours will do - you may have to try staring a little bit harder. But it's difficult for me's truly to see how this is going to have any impact on my own life, except for these precious few seconds I'm using to COMpose this POST - gone forever, never get'm back - flit, flit, flit, Good-BYE, seconds! snif, I hardly knew ye.

To kinda state the obvious (twice), playing music with people is playing music with people; yet, those with a fully modernized self-lubricating polystyrene brain probably DO need fully modern polystyrene music to best maximise their own staring-at-phone momos. Autotune for yer soul, babycakes. For people who are genuinely worried that they are just a computer program running in somebody else's matrix, this kind of thing can be mighty unsettling. Like, have you ever gone to a vegetarian restaurant and noticed what an amazingly high proportion of the dishes are labeled as being various kinds of imitation MEAT? (yarg? YARG!)

Speaking of noticed - as above - I just noticed that "composing a post" could be shortcutted rather efficiently to "composting"; whew, I gotta save those precious seconds wherever I can, for to have them to spend upon my various (needy) momos! There is another kind of "composting" out there, which is pretty much shortcutted to "pooping in the back yard," but clearly there couldn't be any connection whatsoever. Like time and thyme again or lieutenant and loo-tenant, one being those giant big buzzy midwestern flies that live by, for, and IN the outhouse in the summer = the tenants of the loo; and the other being your boss in the army = no connection whatsoever.

Harry Dove · Post by **Harry Dove** » 6 Jul 2019 5:44 pm

This one sounds more realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePHQYeJFfw

Curt Trisko · Post by **Curt Trisko** » 6 Jul 2019 5:59 pm

For most music listeners, a lap steel already is an easy substitute for pedal steel, so if a band can't or won't use pedal steel, they already have that. I can't foresee this taking away more than a small number of steel guitar jobs.

I second those who mention the imagination of the pedal steel player. I view my role as a pedal steel player to be the one who comes up with interesting phrasing and manipulates the open space in a song. That's a skill set that you develop as part of playing pedal steel, but it is distinct from the physical act of playing.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 6 Jul 2019 6:53 pm

Harry Dove wrote:This one sounds more realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePHQYeJFfw

Again, running the software is more complicated than playing an actual pedal steel. I don't see the attraction. You design a steel lick on a computer, but you never get to actually play it. All you can do with it is listen.

Jack Aldrich · Post by **Jack Aldrich** » 6 Jul 2019 7:33 pm

Yuch! The suits who run the music biz would love to get rid of all the musicians and replace them with synths! As I have said before, there are only 2 kinds of music: safe and dangerous, not good and bad. IMHO the steel guitar is one of the most dangerous instruments, ever!

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 7 Jul 2019 3:13 am

Harry Dove wrote:This one sounds more realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePHQYeJFfw

Yeah, thats pretty scary.
REAL close.. If I didn't get on this thread and hear those "steel" licks, I would have no idea they weren't made on an actual pedal steel. I do agree with our benevolent host however. It will take a TON of skill to get to that level by any keyboard player.

You need the "context" to be correct .

Playing pedal steel parts with typical piano technique will never cut it.
Might get away with fills and backup pads and be half convincing, but it would take a VERY fine keyboard player with excellent tech savvy, and a good knowledge of the "feel" of what pedal steel is what it does and where it goes..

I can't see bands/artists running out and buying these things and then woodshedding their keyboard players so they can dump the pedal steel forever...

For now in my opinion, if you want the pedal steel sound in your music, you will need a steel player.

Clyde mentioned drum machines. They are actually quite decent, IF you are great at programming and setting them up, and understand the feel and context. Most musicians simply don't have the time or the wherewithal.

Therefore, when you see live music anywhere, you still
see an actual human drummer on stage, with very few exceptions.. The drum machines are in home studios, where musicians/singers put music together for various purposes. Modern rap uses them a lot but thats not usually what I would consider music, its more like highly syncopated talking against a digital percussion track.

This certainly might be a great addition to some studios. both home and pro, with TALENTED musicians/engineers that will take the time to learn to use it right, - but for the time, money and effort involved, not to mention the amount of use it will get in the long run, its probably just better to hire the local pedal steel playing hotshot... like us..... bob

Fish · Post by **Fish** » 7 Jul 2019 6:04 am

Ricky D: "good on you" for dodging' a bullet!

We shouldn't dismiss these annoying products; for a work-a-day producer wanting generic steel guitar sounds who can't hear the difference, this will serve their needs just fine. But there is zero personality here; a keyboardist can't emulate the touch and soul of a Mooney or Emmons or Green.

These products have existed for a while, going all the way back to string synthesizers, and they rob work from a lot of people, but I don't think an acoustic guitar giant like Bryan Sutton is losing sleep over something like this:
https://prominy.com/products/hummingbird/?view=video

I would love to be a fly on the wall if a keyboard player in Nashville tried to run this "keyboard steel" idea past any of the producers or engineers in town that I know. Honestly, they'd be laughed right out of the room.

Erv Niehaus · Post by **Erv Niehaus** » 7 Jul 2019 6:10 am

Paul Franklin produced the tracks used on BIAB.
Erv

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 7 Jul 2019 6:12 am

b0b wrote:
Harry Dove wrote:This one sounds more realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePHQYeJFfw
Again, running the software is more complicated than playing an actual pedal steel. I don't see the attraction. You design a steel lick on a computer, but you never get to actually play it. All you can do with it is listen.

If you are an accomplished keyboard player with impeccable MIDI skills, this would be a decent tool. The attraction is not having to invest in a pedal steel and the time it takes to learn how to play it. But, this does look like a lot of work. The player will need to understand the way a PSG works to get the sounds we make.

Mathew Peluso · Post by **Mathew Peluso** » 7 Jul 2019 7:34 am

Harry Dove wrote:This one sounds more realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePHQYeJFfw

I used to work a lot in the MIDI-based film scoring world. I bought the Wavelore steel library a few years before I started playing. I'll admit, it does sound really convincing in demos. Speaking from personal experience, I don't think anyone will truly be able to program the nuance of this wacky instrument without knowing how to play or having access to someone that does. Which then begs the question, why not just play? Or hire a steel player? I see this as a tool for composers for commercial work (film, trailers, tv, etc.) but I can't imagine a band or artist making serious music that would settle for this. It certainly wouldn't save production time.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 7 Jul 2019 7:51 am

If you are an accomplished keyboard player with impeccable MIDI skills, this would be a decent tool.

If you are an accomplished keyboard player with impeccable MIDI skills, would you even be interested in simulating a psg?

Bobby Nelson · Post by **Bobby Nelson** » 7 Jul 2019 8:03 am

Well, I'm an old throw-back I guess, who believes that real musical instruments (the less crap attached to them for my taste - a good musician can make an acoustic, or plainly amplified instrument sound astoundingly good) creates superior music - more organic and real if you will. In decades of barroom playing, I only ran into one or two guys at most, who could make a synthesizer actually sound like a B-3 and a Leslie - which is why we went to the trouble of hauling around real Hammonds and Leslies. I've always been drawn to the sound of the pedal steel, and it never would've occurred to me to by something that "sounded like" one.

Fred Treece · Post by **Fred Treece** » 7 Jul 2019 8:47 am

I remember keyboard midi for steel guitars. It was hilarious! Iâ€™m sure great steel players could make it actually sound good, but it didnâ€™t catch on because apparently piano envy just wasnâ€™t in their blood. I can totally understand keyboard players wanting to sound like steel guitars though....ðŸ¤

Clyde Mattocks · Post by **Clyde Mattocks** » 7 Jul 2019 9:57 am

Again, it will be good enough for people who can't tell the difference between good steel players and "yoink, yoink" players. Banjo simulaters are terrible, yet you hear them ("Cotton Eyed Joe disco for example). Heck, even the dobro simulater pedals a lot of our guys use are abominable to real dobro players.

Lee Baucum · Post by **Lee Baucum** » 7 Jul 2019 10:33 am

Is this something that could be used in a live setting, or strictly in a studio?

It appears to be extremely complicated.

I agree with b0b's comments.

Brooks Montgomery · Post by **Brooks Montgomery** » 7 Jul 2019 11:05 am

I have a crazy friend who has an act called â€œDrum Machineâ€.
Heâ€™s a drummer. He drums on his kit and tells jokes. The rest of the band are mannequins, with recorded BIAB music, with mic stands.

Jim Cooley · Post by **Jim Cooley** » 7 Jul 2019 11:15 am

Harry Dove wrote:This one sounds more realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ePHQYeJFfw

That one does sound better than the first one, but it still doesn't sound like a steel to me. There's no sustain. The notes do not "ring" like a steel. Some of them sound like they are deadened, kinda like they go "thunk." There is almost no tonal difference across frequencies/lows to highs. Still, some producers and sound technicians will probably find it useful.

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 7 Jul 2019 1:01 pm

Barry Blackwood wrote:
If you are an accomplished keyboard player with impeccable MIDI skills, this would be a decent tool.
If you are an accomplished keyboard player with impeccable MIDI skills, would you even be interested in simulating a psg?

Yes. If I needed a PSG on a project and no budget to hire a player, or buy one and learn myself.

Is this really that much different than us trying emulate an organ, dobro, strings?? This does a whole lot better job at emulating a PSG than anyone I have ever heard trying to sound like an organ, dobro, strings, etc...

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 7 Jul 2019 1:10 pm

Lee Baucum wrote:Is this something that could be used in a live setting, or strictly in a studio?

It appears to be extremely complicated.

I agree with b0b's comments.

Live? Maybe. If your show is "controlled" by a computer (lights, space for talking between songs, etc...), this could possibly work. They would just program the parts for each song and the computer would send the MIDI command to start the song. Enough rehearsal, and a band could pull it off. Any ad-libbing would be gone.

I can not verify this, but someone told me once, that they saw Sara Evans in concert, but she had no steel player. The steel guitar parts were still there though. He said they used the master tracks from the recording session for the steel parts. Again, I can not personally verify this.

Greg Lambert · Post by **Greg Lambert** » 7 Jul 2019 1:19 pm

Whenever something great is identified there will always be those who try to emulate the product with a generic version of the original.

They come close but No Cigar. Not to say that the product mentioned has no use but it will never replace the pedal steel. IMO

Tom Cooper · Post by **Tom Cooper** » 7 Jul 2019 7:52 pm

I am a 51 yr old gen x steeler. I really donâ€™t care what the new crap they come up with does, and I also donâ€™t get hung up on old ways either. Do my own thing. Blend of old and new. This doesnâ€™t faze me at all. I will still get calls to play. More than I even want. What is going on currently is of little interest to me. Some killer stuff going on of course, but lots of crappage also. This is just more of it. Amp, no amp, this box , that box. I just want to play steel. And I do. Let them play with their little toys. I got a real one that will melt real steel live and in person.

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We maybe done for Boys!

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