I'm a G tuning dobro player and I also have an aluminum 8 string non-pedal Clinesmith that I've been playing in G6 (low to high EGBDEGBD). I'm really enjoying this tuning and want to adapt to a similar tuning on my ~1970 6140 Sho-Bud. It's a 10 string, rack/barrel, six foot pedals, no knee levers, wood wrap around Bud that should accommodate different pulls.
My intent is to lessen the learning curve and use my dobro and 8 string knowledge to approach this pedal steel. It's currently set up in a Jimmy Day C6 copedent and I'm looking for a suitable G6 copedent.
I'm heading to Nashville in a couple of weeks and may take to steel along to have it set up by an expert but I need to solve the tuning / copedent dilemma first.
Or am I just nuts to think this is a good approach?
Looking for G6 10 string copedent suggestions
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Dennis Waltman
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Paul Strojan
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Tuning to a form of D9 is an idea with merit. Possibly without the dom7 on string 9. Low to hi- F#A DEF#ADF#DbE. A+B pedals would give you GBDEGBDGDbE. Easy to relate that to dobro. I’d strongly urge you to get at least two knee levers installed.
Kevin Maul: Airline, Beard, Clinesmith, Decophonic, Evans, Excel, Fender, Fluger, Gibson, Hilton, Ibanez, Justice, K+K, Live Strings, MOYO, National, Oahu, Peterson, Quilter, Rickenbacher, Sho~Bud, Supro, TC, Ultimate, VHT, Webb, X-otic, Yamaha, ZKing.
I'm going to caution against the "lessen the learning curve" mentality with regards to coming up with your own tuning/copedent based on a familiar open tuning. For the record, I'm not playing covers or country music, just my own thing. A few years back when I was playing dobro, I tried to come up with a variation on G with a fender 400 with 4 pedals and pretty quickly gave up on it in favor of a traditional 3x4 E9th.
Mostly what I realized on the fender was that the standard E9th is standard for a reason, it works really well. But it doesn't really work without knee levers and so I had to move on from my experiments with the fender. It turned out not to be a short cut to anything.
The C6th thats on it is likely the best you'll be able to do for proven effectiveness, versatility, amount of instruction available with only 6 floor pedals. The fundamental intervals of C6th are the same as G6th (root, 3rd, 5th, 6th). If you've got a hi G string the top 8 strings will be the same intervals as your lap steel, and if you don't have any pulls on the 1st string it is as simple as changing a string. Wrapping your head around a change of the base tuning enough to apply what you know on lap and dobro to pedal is in my opinion more important to truly learning pedal steel than anything else.
That being said, if you have non traditional pedal steel goals for your music and truly looking to go out on your own and invent your own tuning, go for it. I'd recommend getting really familiar with the underside of your guitar because you're gonna be down there constantly tweaking and revising whats going on as you learn what you want and there isn't going to be ready made solution thats going to just "work" for you and will be set and forget.
Mostly what I realized on the fender was that the standard E9th is standard for a reason, it works really well. But it doesn't really work without knee levers and so I had to move on from my experiments with the fender. It turned out not to be a short cut to anything.
The C6th thats on it is likely the best you'll be able to do for proven effectiveness, versatility, amount of instruction available with only 6 floor pedals. The fundamental intervals of C6th are the same as G6th (root, 3rd, 5th, 6th). If you've got a hi G string the top 8 strings will be the same intervals as your lap steel, and if you don't have any pulls on the 1st string it is as simple as changing a string. Wrapping your head around a change of the base tuning enough to apply what you know on lap and dobro to pedal is in my opinion more important to truly learning pedal steel than anything else.
That being said, if you have non traditional pedal steel goals for your music and truly looking to go out on your own and invent your own tuning, go for it. I'd recommend getting really familiar with the underside of your guitar because you're gonna be down there constantly tweaking and revising whats going on as you learn what you want and there isn't going to be ready made solution thats going to just "work" for you and will be set and forget.