The Steel Guitar Forum

I play C6th about half the time when I with the band. But any other time I play the C6th for my own enjoyment. If it was not for the C6 I would most likely quit.

Jerry

some gigs are mostly E9, but with sticky vikki we play alot of rockabilly/swingy thingies which i play C6 on....i'm not a good jazzy player (tho i wish i were)..but i love the C6 neck...i switch back and forth in the middle of many songs from one neck to the other.

I like to play B Bowmans Hop if there is awkward silence on stage for tuning etc. It makes the audience laugh

I can't play either but I love to fake it on both.

A better question is how often do I play the E9th neck. I do about 90% of my work on C6th. (I love my life.....)

Probably about half and half ..but I would love to play C6th a lot more. E9th is where the money is if you play anything commercial -- but I have always had a bit of a leaning towards Jazz styles so I just love C6th. I can play the Jazzy stuff on E9th too but it sounds way better on C6th. Most of my session calls are for mostly E9th stuff.

I know I'm not supposed to be in this tread. I play E9/B6 uni. I have tried to lose the distinction. More and more I am succeeding.

What David said.

I play a 12 string pedal steel. I know your survey is about D10.

MY vote would be that UNI players would be welcomed on this thread. I seperate the two in mymind at least and thats where it's important. Universal was my first love and I still have one.

Scott - your opinion would be of special interest then. As firstly a uni player, and now a D10 'convert' (its usually the other way around, eh?) how often do you play the C6th neck?

I play the E9 much more than I play the C6 but I use both every gig I play which is every Friday and Saturday night plus other special gigs. I like the C6 on faster songs and E9 on slow, Shorty

67%/33% E9/C6. A lot of what I play on C6 is single note stuff so in some scenarios where a song could be played on either, I'll use the C6. Rarely will I play C6 pieces at steel shows though.

I mainly play E9th steel a lot, but sometimes, I'll play C6th stuff if the song features lapsteel. I play a lot of E9th at steel shows.

Brett

I play mostly E9th butI use the C6th every chance I get. I don't play it well, but then again, I don't play the E9th well either. But I'll keep on trying as I love the sound.

When I work a duo with a friend of mine it is about 50/50. But when I work with bigger bands it's more 70/30 C6/E9. I do a lot of western swing/old jazz/old country gigs with bigger bands. When I was a full time uni player I tried to seperate the two tunings as much as possible and I did this by looking at it this way. My E9 copedent was 4&5 (pedals/knees) My C6 setup was 8 & 3. Playing the uni first taught me to play the 6th tuning more off the top as opposed to using pedals so much which made the transition to C6 fairly easy. I still have a lot of "toys" on my C6 (5 & 5) but I always think first of playing off the top then enhance chord structures and movements with the pedals. I think the biggest thing the uni taught me was to play the tuning what ever it is which has helped me go very easily from tuning to tuning.

When I work a duo with a friend of mine it is about 50/50. But when I work with bigger bands it's more 70/30 C6/E9. I do a lot of western swing/old jazz/old country gigs with bigger bands. When I was a full time uni player I tried to seperate the two tunings as much as possible and I did this by looking at it this way. My E9 copedent was 4&5 (pedals/knees) My C6 setup was 8 & 3. Playing the uni first taught me to play the 6th tuning more off the top as opposed to using pedals so much which made the transition to C6 fairly easy. I still have a lot of "toys" on my C6 (5 & 5) but I always think first of playing off the top then enhance chord structures and movements with the pedals. I think the biggest thing the uni taught me was to play the tuning what ever it is which has helped me go very easily from tuning to tuning.

It depends on who I am playing with. With our swing/old country band it's about 60/40 C6/E9. On the last two Cds with Billy Mata it worked out 50/50. Those can be sampled on the Billy Mata website. It's not uncommon for me to switch necks in the middle of a song. Playing a gig without both tunings would be a boring night for me. It seems the biggest part of Texas players are very good on C6.

Unless your HALL OF FAME or one of the ELITE I would never show up at a gig with a little S-10 pedal steel even though I haven’t even tuned the C6 neck up in the last 5 yrs.
In my limited field of indeaver(Bars, Road Houses, Honkey Tonks, Clubs and Sh_t Tours) you show up with a double neck pedal steel guitar. If you just bring a single neck guitar the club owner thought you could not do the job. It’s like they thought that all S-10’s were like student model Pedal steels and you were a student.
If I had enough time to learn to play GOOD C6 I’d be better off using that time to learn the keyboard. I use the E9 neck 50% of the time and my Telecaster neck 25% of the time and I’m on break 25% of the time.
Any way the only difference in the C6 neck and the E9 neck is a couple of 50 gauge wound strings and 5 too many pedals.

Thanks to all of you that voted. You confirmed what I had suspected. Thanks for your time to answer,

Dan (BMI)

C6 70-80% of any gig.
But depends on the songs too.

Our group plays a lot swing so I play the C6th neck about 60% of the time. I love to play swing, a lot of the old big band music. If I could play E9th like Randy Beavers, I would get by nicely with just one neck and my back wouldn't complain as much. alan

Dan Burnham wrote:Thanks to all of you that voted. You confirmed what I had suspected. Thanks for your time to answer,

Dan (BMI)

Now ask how many S10 players tune to C6....