The Steel Guitar Forum

b0b wrote:
Frankly, I hate it when steel players "crank up the fuzz". Sounds cheezy.

Not to mention that it will also make it difficult to distinguish the notes.



Rick

A lot of pedal steel players overdo the 'distortion' aspect when trying to play blues. It really doesn't take very much overdrive to get a good blues tone.

Amen, b0b. I never want the clean envelope of the notes to be covered up - there should just be a little mild tube saturation/compression. Straight into something like a Deluxe, Vibrolux, Super, or Pro Reverb is great, depending on the venue and stage volume required. A Super or Pro is generally too loud for me unless it's a pretty loud club.

This weekend, I think I'm using my THD Flexi 50 with 2 old-style 50s 6L6 power tubes into a single Celestion Vintage 30 in a small speaker cab I got from Doug Jones a few weeks ago. The THD has a pentode/triode switch - if it's too loud on 50 watts, I'll move to 20 watts, and maybe will wind up using 20 watts for guitar and 50 for steel. But the classic approach is to simply push an old Fender a bit, it doesn't take much - the guys will undoubtedly roll their eyes if I don't bring my Deluxe, and I gotta admit, they're hard to beat for a club gig playing blues, either guitar or steel. To my tastes, anyway.

John U said;
"(But one example) don't fall into the trap of thinking you need a different tuning/setup for every style of music."

Don't be so stodgy John! 8^) It's actually been fun, and exciting, to fool with a new setup that works so well for Blues. The thing that bugs me about S-10 E9th is the lack of a low root. That's why I switched to a Uni-12 20 years ago. In a small band, I really missed that when the guitar player took a solo. I may ditch the D string on my 74 Bud, and add the low E, and pull the B up to D on a knee. I'm used to that on my Kline.

To me, listening to Jamey Johnson's music with Cowboy Eddie Long on steel is a fine example of blues steel guitar , at least what I would call blues or maybe soul. Whatever name you use, it is mighty fine! Eddie uses some sort of a universal tuning and plays the livin' fire out of it. It doesn't sound like any sort of mystery tuning, just more of the approach to the music. Most of it seems to be available on the standard E9th from what I can figure out. Check out the combinations using the 7th and 9th strings in combination with lowering your E's and the AB pedals, you may be surprised. As it turns out, they are not my enemies!

I've been playing a 12-string E9/B6 universal in a blues band for several years. Any tuning will work for lead work, but it really helps to have the low strings for rhythm. I've also played slide guitar and lap steel. The thing that is so great with pedal steel is that you can play in any key. Most guitar blues bands will stick to the blues keys of E, A, G, and sometimes D. But if you play with singers and horns, you end up in all the other keys, and a pedal steel works so much better for that than a lap steel or slide guitar.

E9 is great for Chicago blues, but having access to a 6th neck really opens up California blues (T-Bone Walker). Also, if you venture off into blues-based jazz, the low strings and the B6 mode really get used.

I agree you only need a little touch of tube breakup, not full blown overdrive or distortion. I get it with a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube or Blue Tube box. And I don't use it all the time. On slow blues I'm more likely to play clean, with some extra reverb. For some grit on shuffles and fast blues and blues-rock, I put the box before the volume pedal. That makes it pick sensitive. And the VP is used as usual to control volume and sustain with no effect on tone.

Elmore James is my biggest influence for electric slide blues.

There's some great Robert Nighthawk slide stuff on the Chess label. Sweet Black Angel, Anna Lee, a couple of others as I recall. His tone is fat and liquid sounding, unlike anybody else I've heard. If you haven't heard those recordings, give them a listen. I love the Elmore James stuff, and the Muddy Waters stuff too, by Nighthawk's sound kills me.
My advice about using distortion is the quick and dirty method, not one you would use if you were interested in really learning blues style steel guitar. But might be useful on the bandstand.
Anyways, Robert Nighthawk on Chess, maybe the best slide guitar tone ever!...Jerry

this video helped me out playing the blues on the steel.

i'm not gonna be able rock it as good as this guy..but i have an idea now. I can't wait to go jam with my buddies and play some 12 bar and get nasty with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVxZn0wdfJg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC-bx9cI ... re=related

Does anyone know how Chuck Berry's tunes his Fender 400?

Wolf, Muddy, and Cooder fan here.

Hi John B,
I sure didn't mean to make my comment in a way so as to offend anyone, nor did I mean to imply that there is anything wrong with experimenting with different tunings/setups. The ideas you expressed are all good ones. I played a U-12 5-6 nights a week for many years, have gone back to a standard E9 and prefer it. I like to have the the 9th string D note w/o having to go to a KL. I just wanted to throw a different viewpoint into the mix.
ELMORE JAMES is another great one to soak up his style.

No offense taken John!

Here's a blues that I played on my 12-string C6th copedent:

Down Home Kitchen Blues

b0b wrote:A lot of pedal steel players overdo the 'distortion' aspect when trying to play blues. It really doesn't take very much overdrive to get a good blues tone.

Frankly, I hate it when steel players "crank up the fuzz". Sounds cheezy. Read about tube amps and distortion units in the Electronics section of the forum. Some of our members are real knowledgeable about this.

Fuzz overdrive and distortion are three different effects. Tho it is common to refer to them as the same thing, I think understanding the difference at least in how they sound and are commonly used is helpful if your trying to get a certain sound or shape tone.

Blues guitar players tend to favor overdrive, most often from a cranked tube amp not an effects pedal.
Bluesy Steelers cant really crank their typical steel amps without excessive volume so they often use a device like the duncan twin tube to overdrive their amps or get a low wattage tube amp

Steelers in the early days of effect pedals tended to use fuzz, because thats all there was at the time. The Bosstone was popular...Sneaky Pete, BUddy Emmons. Today, Fuzz does sound kind of cheesy and retro to me. its an effect i associate with psychedelic music, certain kinds of metal and lo-fi music. Its fairly over the top and not very subtle.

Distortion is a rock and metal thing. RR doing voodoo chile would be my steel example or Red Ryders "Lunatic Fringe" (loved that solo as a kid and always wonder what that thing was the guy was playing).

Overdrive-tubescreamer, DOD250, Klon
Distortion-Rat, Dist+, DS1
Fuzz-Bosstone, tonebender, superfuzz

so whats the seymour duncan twin tube we all like so much?

Tough to categorize. To me its a tube preamp designed for the purpose of providing mild overdrive to thick distortion.

From the posts I see that everyone has a different way of getting to the same place. The band I joined was shocked you can play blues on a psg. They do like it however. The bright side is that I get to sit down once in a while. Lol

Robert Nighthawk has a unique tone - he and Earl Hooker are my primary reference points for electric blues slide guitar tone. Hop Wilson had a similar approach, but used a console steel instead of a standard guitar with slide.

There are a bunch of youtube clips and some records - all worth taking in if you're going for blues steel sound.

Robert Nighthawk:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oypAbJj-fEs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w_AnPxsGxA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5F3GLm4Zjk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X78SoS231Ak

Earl Hooker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7a3N2aH0ds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2WIUhibkVg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL1Hwd_RYdw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbrgNXiwuJA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4twnA7C9IE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQLjEydDy_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHHzJZZ7x1I

Hop Wilson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdycuZOnLak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q42gVmoEOuE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6aAvRjAQiw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsJTrO-6CGE

I realize these aren't pedal steel players, but if you want to talk about blues steel guitar, this ain't a bad place to start.

On the Duncan Twin Tube Classic - it actually does a pretty durned good job getting an overdriven tube amp sound even out of a clean, high-power, solid-state pedal steel amp. But I use it most often into a fairly high-headroom tube amp, with the pedal just cracked open enough to push the preamp a bit without blowing the doors off the room. Works pretty well, as far as I'm concerned.

A 12 string UNi will do it all even without that middle unison E. Or the E7th sacred steel tuning. A friend of mine has come up with a sacred steel tuning that can do both very well. Get e9th chords as well as e7th /b6th. MHO

Thanks

I like Fuzz,Distortion,and Overdrive because I have multiple personalities.

I just got a call to play in the style of Duane Allman for some gigs coming up. Its pretty fun and quite a workout trying to learn his style. The tuning of my steel doesn't seem to matter much because most any tuning has a major triad in it and a couple 4ths or 5ths. I isolate the few strings with the right intervals to match as much of Duane's tuning as I can and stick to them. Then its bowling for notes with the slide time ! I find playing really loud helps to get the vibe right.

Bob,I saw Duane play at Carnegie Hall,he played a Twin on 11 awesome!

Regarding some Forumites saying the Boss Tone is a 'cheezy' fuzz effect; it doesn't have to be cheezy or buzzzzzy. It all depends on how carefully you set it's sensitivity and how much you're willing to practice with it to get a smoother sound. To just flip it on and go will pretty much guarantee you'll get a 'bee-in-yer-bonnet' sound.

In my iTunes library, I have an example of how I avoid the cliched pyschedelia-buzz in my playing. If someone can tell me how to post from my iTunes library (I'm an Apple computer user) I'll post my example of blues (E9th tuning) with the Boss Tone effect.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Glenn Suchan wrote:Regarding some Forumites saying the Boss Tone is a 'cheezy' fuzz effect; it doesn't have to be cheezy or buzzzzzy. It all depends on how carefully you set it's sensitivity and how much you're willing to practice with it to get a smoother sound. To just flip it on and go will pretty much guarantee you'll get a 'bee-in-yer-bonnet' sound.

In my iTunes library, I have an example of how I avoid the cliched pyschedelia-buzz in my playing. If someone can tell me how to post from my iTunes library (I'm an Apple computer user) I'll post my example of blues (E9th tuning) with the Boss Tone effect.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Glenn you are correct. There are exceptions to the gross generalizations i made. I made them only for ease of distinguishing between the three effects. A fuzz with the fuzz backed off a bit is indeed an beautiful and not at all cheesy sound. I LOVE fuzz, i think its maybe my favorite effect. I think really with all three effects the most common mistake is overdoing the gain. Overdrives especially, turn down that gain and just use the effect to push your tubes a bit, so much nicer .

Lots of different kinds of "blues" out there. Generally I like my blues more from the rough side of the tracks - Howlin' Wolf, Muddy, Hound Dog Taylor along with the earlier deep South acoustic blues of Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, but I do enjoy some uptown blues from time to time as well. Hop Wilson is good to listen to for steel, he played console steel unlike most of the blues players who played bottleneck. Chuck Berry's "Deep Feeling" is worth a listen as well in this vein...

Seems you can get a lot out of E9 as well as C6 for playing blues. I was just listening to the Lloyd Green album Big Steel Guitar, and he does some nice bluesy stuff on Columbus Stockade Blues - definitely <i>not</i> Delta or Memphis or Chicago blues, but Southern Country Blues.

Cheers,

Julian

I've played a lot of blues, mostly on the standard E9th, although for the last 4 years or so I've used a Sacred Steel/E9th Hybrid.

I'm also not a fan of fuzz or distortion boxes for blues (it can be useful for other styles). I mostly go for torturing small tube amplifiers.

Here's a couple of cuts from my first CD (Blackened Toast-available on the forum). It's mostly blues and New Orleans old school R&B:

hoochie coochie man

Blame Somebody

The main issue I have had with playing blues on the E9th is that the single, super powerful pickup in the bridge position can be a bit 'in your face' when played through a tube amp on 8. That sound is great for Rock and Roll, but I like to have a little more available in my tonal palette. My 'go to guitar' for blues these days is a Desert Rose with two pickups, with the front pickup in the 'SG Sweet Spot'.

Here are a few videos of me playing bluesy solos with this guitar:

Today I Started Loving You Again

Crying Time

Jam band version of 'Just a Closer Walk With Thee'

Dan , Aubry Gent would be proud to hear this. Keep on using that "SLAB" for the LORD and be BLESSED.

Dwight

Thanks, Dwight.

I've played blues for many years, but have only really learned how to really do it well after playing with the Sacred Steel players (especially Chuck Campbell, who has never been afraid to give me constructive criticism ).


One way to look at at Gospel versus Blues is to say that only the lyrics change. That is only partially right. For me the central aspect of Sacred Steel playing is to move people to a higher spiritual plane. Which could also be said about jam band music, amoung other types of secular and sacred practice. IMHO, what is important is to accept the muse whereever it comes from.

As Chuck told me: "You have the Holy Ghost. You might have another name for it, but I know you have it"