How many Lead Guitarist/steel players out there?

Michael Lewis · Post by **Michael Lewis** » 14 Jan 2005 8:56 am

I'm with Mr. Prior on this one! When I occassionally do play out I run my Tele through a Fender Cybertwin and the 72 Emmons through the Nashville 1000. When I just take the steel I run it through both. I like mixing the 15 BW and 2 12's
Mike

Ben Slaughter · Post by **Ben Slaughter** » 14 Jan 2005 10:20 am

Count me in. And tonight, I'm playing bass.

When I play PSG and lead guitbox I use 1 amp, either the NV400 (now deciesed), or the Twin, and I use the POD on the front end.

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Ben
Zum D10, Carter U12
Twin, NV400, PODxt, G&L Guitars, etc, etc.

Bob Carlucci · Post by **Bob Carlucci** » 14 Jan 2005 10:29 am

Like TP I use old Fender tube amps...usually Showman and Bassman heads with a stand alone reverb unit. The steel does sound good out of the solid state Peavey amps,but they are among the worst guitar amps of all time..INCLUDING the Nashville 112!

I use a closed back 15 Peavey 115E cab with a 15 in.Fender/ Emminence speaker bought right from Fender [I think they used them in the early 90's version of the Vibrosonic]. I have tried in the past few years to find a good steel amp that would do a nice "warm" sound with guitar.. fuggetaboutit..It's not going to happen. I was one of the very first here to get a Nashville 112.. GREAT steel amp!.. Horrible !! guitar amp.. GONE after 2 weeks to a fellow forumite!..

Recently bought a MusicMan HD 130 Reverb head.. blech.. I could HEAR that SS front end.. No problem with steel but soul less and sterile for guitar. I will NEVER use anything but FENDER amps again. NOTHING comes close if you have to use 1 amp for steel and guitar. If you are young and strong enough to lug around a Session for steel and a Super Reverb for guitar ,THAT'S the way to go,but those days are gone for me. 100 watt Fender amps are a GOOD compromise IMHO. I also just like that warm glassy tube preamp sound.

The best steel/lead guitar amp sound I have EVER had was many years ago. I used a Fender Super Twin.. 180 watts RMS w/2 JBL D 12 speakers,and a 1968 or so 100 watt Twin with the same speaker set up.. WARM swweet and MASSIVE steel sound there!!. Then I got old

.. About 4 years ago I bought a Fender QUAD Reverb and there again was that MASSIVE sweet Fender steel sound.. BEAUTIFUL!.. also GREAT guitar sound.. I absolutely loved the tone but OH MY ACHIN' BACK!!! Just too huge and heavy to move around..**sniff**..Fairly soon,I plan on going back to a JBL speaker and that will get me close to that "old" sound,but for some reason,JBL's seem to blow a lot compared to other brands.. That's why I am using that Emminence..anyway,, you couldn't pay me enough to play through a SS amp.. Except for a Roland JC 120.. That's a very good compromise amp also if you need to use just 1 amp.... I'm kinda long winded here.. sorry bout that bob

Jerry Hayes · Post by **Jerry Hayes** » 14 Jan 2005 10:46 am

I use a Nashville 400 with the mod for steel and a Fender Hot Rod DeVille 2-12 for the guitar. I have a small Peavey MX 1-12 that I prefer for lead but it's so dang heavy I can't hardly pick the thing up. It's a hybrid with 4-6L6 power tubes and the rest is solid state. The last two amps I had when I was playing full time in southern Calif. were used for both steel and lead. I had a Randall Commander II which originally came out with 2-12's but I put a 15" ElectroVoice speaker in it. The face plate was like a twin reverb with the two separate channels. Gary Sunda at Randall rewired the thing for me where the reverb and tremolo would work on both channels so I'd just set up a channel for each instrument. The amp got stolen from a club in Huntington Beach I was working so I got a Barcus-Berry amp from Blackie Taylor. It had 2-12's and two channels but both had their own controls and separate inputs like the Randall. On the back was a 3-way toggle switch which would shift the reverb to either channel or to both. It came with Emminence speakers but I had them changed to JBL's........JH

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Livin' in the Past and Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 14 Jan 2005 10:52 am

Yup I do it with my guitar on hanging around my neck. Same rig with an AB box w/individual gain knobs, a profex with a remote midi switcher to toggle between my preset steel and guitar patches. Works good enough for 90% of my gigs. If I was just playing guitar though, I'd use a tube amp.

Marc Friedland · Post by **Marc Friedland** » 14 Jan 2005 10:53 am

Billy,
I play psg, 6-string & keyboards.
I switch back & forth between all of them at most gigs. If you have the time, feel free to check out my website. The Music history & PSG history links under the BIOS section, pretty much much tells my musical history story.
-- Marc www.MarcFriedland.com

Webb Kline · Post by **Webb Kline** » 14 Jan 2005 11:24 am

Like Mark, I bounce between psg, 6 string and keys.

Started piano at 6, guitar at 11, Dobro at 21, mandolin at 21, PSG and banjo at 22. And that was ummm....28 years ago.

I run my Kurzweil through a stereo rig and everything else is going through my new NV112 and a Pod and an ART tube preamp. Happy as a pig in slop with my sound.

I love old Fender tube amps, but my old back has about all it wants to handle and the NV112 with the Pod and ART is a very warm, friendly and versatile combination for all my strings.

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MCI D10 8+5, ZB 11/10 8+3 Early 30s Dobro, Harmony Lap Steel, ad infinitum

Alan Rudd · Post by **Alan Rudd** » 14 Jan 2005 11:25 am

I've been playing the guitar for 30+ years, but have only giged in Nashville the last 9. I have only taken up the PSG since Aug. of last year. I am having a blast, but I am not quite ready to show my stuff quite yet.

Bob Watson · Post by **Bob Watson** » 14 Jan 2005 12:17 pm

I started playing guitar when I was 10 years old and pedal steel when I was 18 years old. 38 years on guitar and 30 years on steel. I play a lot of different kinds of music so sometimes I'll go for quite awhile without gigging on the steel. I have spent around 3 years or so playing nothing but steel for a living. I don't play guitar with finger picks so I don't play both instruments on the same song. When I play country gigs that I play both instruments on, I usually play steel on the ballads and shuffles and guitar on the 2/4 songs and rock oriented songs. I know that playing steel has probably hurt my guitar playing and that playing guitar has hurt my steel playing, but I dearly love both instruments. I have to admit that I would rather play nothing but steel on real country and western gigs. I play a lot better when I don't have to jump up and down from guitar to steel all night. [This message was edited by Bob Watson on 18 January 2005 at 02:45 AM.]

richard burton · Post by **richard burton** » 14 Jan 2005 12:26 pm

I've used a Peavey Vegas for many years. I play clean lead guitar, I don't care for overdrive or distortion, and this amp is perfect for my style.
R B

Ed Prosser · Post by **Ed Prosser** » 14 Jan 2005 1:07 pm

I have played lead guitar for 43 yrs. and pedal steel for 32 yrs. I play my Tele's through a Fender Pro 185 with Delay, Chorus and Overdrive/Distortion Pedals. My Carter U12 through a Nashville 112, Hilton Pedal and Boss DD3 Delay. Most of the time I play both with the band I'm with. At the end of the night you feel like a yo yo but I need the exercise.

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Ed Prosser
Carter U/12, Nashville 112, Hilton Me262-B

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 14 Jan 2005 1:26 pm

I've been playing hard rock for almost thirty years, and about three years ago I've added PSG to my rock 'n' roll kit.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 14 Jan 2005 1:45 pm

In my last band, I played lead guitar, pedal steel, banjo (shudder!), and lap steel. New band in the works, probably same thing. I consider guitar my main instrument (since about 1968), banjo and pedal steel came fairly recently. But since there are very few steel players around here, I spend most of my playing time on steel these days.

If I use guitar amps, I usually prefer to use different ones for guitar and pedal steel, typically an old Deluxe/Vibrolux Reverb for guitar, and either a 69 Dual Showman Reverb into a small EV cabinet or 70s Peavey LTD 400 for steel. But for a low volume gig, I use a Pod 2.0 with an Ampeg BA-112 bass amp for everything. It cuts practically any sound that I want, imo, if I take the time to tweak the Pod carefully by 'deep editing' with the SoundDiver software. There's a wee bit of annoying distortion on steel unless I drop the gain on the Twin Reverb model very low. Otherwise, that Ampeg amp seems to warm the Pod up a bit. And this certainly simplifies my logistics. I could never use the Peavey for guitar - it's too heavily damped, which is great for steel but not for guitars, imo. I've used Dual Showmans or Twin Reverbs for guitar in the past, but at the volumes I play these days, they're just too loud and clean for anything but cool jazz, to me. We try to keep our stage volume as low as possible. If I turn up, so does everybody else.

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MSA Classic D-10 8+4, Sierra S-10 3+4, BMI S-10 3+4 plus assorted six-stringers;
Peavey LTD 400, Line6 Pod 2.0 + Ampeg BA 112, '64 Fender Deluxe Reverb, '69 Dual Showman Reverb + EVM Cabinet

Mark Lind-Hanson · Post by **Mark Lind-Hanson** » 14 Jan 2005 2:18 pm

I play both, having begun with six string in Dec. '66 and having taken up pedal steel only since March 03. While I haven't yet taken the steel out & gigged with it, it is definitely in my plans.(Being one of these people that really DOES enjoy playing out, to the contrary of my sometimes overstudious image)- I plan to continue with both onstage, but primarily with the steel, it's just heaps of fun, and probably for what I want to do, easier to focus an audience's attention with. A little trickier than guitar, but nevertheless, just a lot of fun. I haven't picked up a 6 string much this year except to work out chord changes on a tune or two, or just to make sure my chops are still as fluid & solid as ever. (they are.) It hasn't caused any entropy in that department!
Playing steel has led to new ideas about voicing fills that I wasn't always thinking of when playing strict solid melody line single string leads. I think this is a good thing, and probably a natural outgrowth of playing steel. In fact now I do a bit of scalar playing using multiple string partial chord patterns, rather than focusing strictly on the recognizable sound of a straight "lead" guitar- someone posted something (somewhere) in the forum about studying Motown-Stax horn riffs & adapting them, and that is a good analogy to it.

Ron Sodos · Post by **Ron Sodos** » 14 Jan 2005 2:25 pm

Started playing guitar at 9 years old. Became professional at 25. playing funk and jazz. Heard Buddy Emmons and that was enough. Started playing steel in 1977 went to Jeff newmans school and the rest is history. I put the guitar away for about 2-3 years and needed to, to get good on steel. Ever since I play both. Here in New Mexico country is very popular. We play some blues and rock and then I pick up the guitar. Gibson stereo 1966 red ES345. I love to switch back and forth. Actually I love to play guitar but I love steel even more.....................

[This message was edited by Ron Sodos on 14 January 2005 at 02:28 PM.]

Frank Estes · Post by **Frank Estes** » 14 Jan 2005 2:52 pm

Double duty using a Vegas 400--one at the church and one at home.

Fender Fat Stat
Peavey Wolfgang
Music Man EVH copy
Agile Les Paul Copy
Tele copy
Several Ernie Ball OLPs

Use Digitech RP50 for guitar and still use Zoom 505 for Steel.

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<A HREF="http://frankestesmba.com/" TARGET=_blank>Frank Estes
1978 Emmons D-10 8+7 #2441D
1968 Emmons D-10 8+4 #1234D</A>

seldomfed · Post by **seldomfed** » 14 Jan 2005 3:53 pm

For small gigs - I run the Mullen and my guitar both into an A/B box, then thru a BOSS graphic EQ pedal. I set the NV112 tone for the steel, no Boss EQ. When I switch to lead guitar, I use the EQ to give back some tone for the guitar. Sofar I like it. Saves space and shlepping two amps. For bigger gigs I take a separate guitar amp. My main guitar now is Reverend Commando - it's versitile and light - but I'm ordering an ASAT semi-hollow soon.

Chris www.seldomfed.com/rounder www.book-em-danno.com

Jerry Hedge · Post by **Jerry Hedge** » 14 Jan 2005 4:15 pm

I've been playing guitar for 42 years and pedal steel for 10. If I'm booked on a gig for both I use Fender amps. On a big stage I use a Twin Reverb that I modded to have reverb and trem on both channels.One channel I revoiced for steel. On a small stage or an opening act gig I use a Deluxe Reverb that I've extensively modded.It has the same mods plus a Twin output transformer,6L6s',tricked out power supply and a old EV SRO 12.

Mike Taylor · Post by **Mike Taylor** » 15 Jan 2005 10:20 am

I've been playing guitar for 30 years and playing pedal steel off and on for the past 10 years. If able, I bring separate amps - Peavey LTD 400 for steel and Mesa Boogie Mark IV for guitar.

Mike Taylor
Sho Bud Pro II Custom / Professional
Fender Tele custom / Tele B-bender / Strat

Steve Richter · Post by **Steve Richter** » 15 Jan 2005 12:27 pm

Guitar - 35 years - heavily modified Peavey Impact I
Steel - 8 years - Emmons P/P SD-10 once green laquer, now Blonde

I use the same amp now, Line 6 spider. Used to carry 2 complete rigs but it got a little cumbersome.

Rick Alexander · Post by **Rick Alexander** » 16 Jan 2005 12:52 am

I've been making my living playing guitar and singing for 40+ years. I picked up my first steels about 23 years ago, and these days I play both at shows - about 50/50 . .

It looks and sounds something like this

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Rick Alexander
57 Fender Stringmaster T8, 49 Fender Custom, 69 Strat, Rickenbacker BD6
Music Man, Fender & Peavey Amps

Terry VunCannon · Post by **Terry VunCannon** » 16 Jan 2005 9:42 am

I play lead guitar & lap steel in 3 different units. 2 are blues bands, & 1 is a "Island" theme duo with a partner that play keys, harp, & steel drum, while I play electric & acoustic guitar, & lap steel. I am going into my 2nd year of lap steel, & 3rd decade of guitar!!! I find myself wanting to play more lap steel as time goes by.

John Rosett · Post by **John Rosett** » 16 Jan 2005 11:01 am

i play lead guitar, lap steel, and mandolin in my band. i play dobro and banjo also, but there's a limit to the amount of junk that i want to haul around to gigs. i play both my tele and my steel through my 70's vibrolux reverb. that way, i'm bringing two amps, three instruments, and a big suitcase full of wires and pedals to every gig. all that and i get the same pay as the rest of the band, and the fiddle player uses my mandolin when she wants to!
john

Redd V · Post by **Redd V** » 17 Jan 2005 1:13 pm

Dyke Corson, and Danny Mohamed, Both fabulous on each!

Wade Branch · Post by **Wade Branch** » 18 Jan 2005 4:49 am

Hey its great to see Redd on here ,you talk about a telewacker !! geez !!! Hey Redd do you play any steel ?