The Steel Guitar Forum

That's definitely a dieboard/mica model.

Now I see what your problem is. Real steelers drink beer!!!!!

There's your problem. You should be drinking white wine to match the guitar. The guitar will sound so much better if the volume of liquid (wine) was a lot less in the bottle.

Ken, a lot of the tone comes from the amp. If you're playing through an amp with insufficient power or tone controls, it's gonna sound fairly thin. The reason? Well, straight guitar players are used to switching to the neck pickup to get "fatness". But with a steel, all you have is a bridge pickup, so the amp has to supply enough lows to make up for that shortcoming, and a new pickup won't help much in that respect. To get really fat sound, you need to scoop out the mids, and boost the lows. What kind of amp are you using? For a ballsy sound with pedal steel, you're going to need lotsa watts and a MID control. (A puny 20-watt Eggnater just ain't gonna cut it.) Barring an amp with a mid control, you could use a graphic equalizer to boost the tonal pallette of a small amp, but then you need watts to fill in what the EQ removes.

HAHA!! That's an easy solution - I'll run right out and get some beer and white wine!!

I am using the Egnator Rebel 20 amp, with 12' cabinet. I have other amps, but this one is nice for practice, since it's newer and I don't mind leaving it on for a long time.
I see what you mean about the amp tone making a difference. Now maybe I see why I'd see so many steelers using those Peavey amps. When I was playing in bands, I hated those things because they sounded flat to me. Might be an advantage to get a smoother tone with the steel.

Actually, this begs another question:

Why do pedal steel guitars have the pickup crowding the bridge like that? Seems like tone would be better if it was moved further away. The strings barely vibrate that close to the bridge, so you need a very strong pickup, and hence more noise I would guess. Curious....

That is a really good question. I can only guess based on my experiences. The pickup next to the bridge keeps it out of the way of me drooling on it.

I think the amp is the weak link.
Do you have something Fenderesque?
Failing that, do you have a bass amp?
As steel amps, bass amps have excellent tone, but lack reverb.

As Lane suggests, Fender amps are a good benchmark. As Peaveys are out of my price bracket, I bought a used Fender 112 knowing that it had effective tone controls. In fact I run it near flat. There is a contradiction here, as the Fender amp is designed to make a Tele sound good, not so much a steel. Anyway, I don't think you can go far wrong with one. It has plenty of bite and you can definitely hear what your right hand is doing, for good or ill. (My amp is one of the last all-American ones before they started making them in Mexico, although I've no idea whether that's a good thing!)

When I sold my bass, I sold the amp too. Would have been interesting to try - never mind...

That's a sentence that doesn't make sense to an American:
As a Peavey is out of my reach ¹, I bought a Fender.


¹Peavey steel amp used, under $350. Some others, even less.

The price of a new Nashville 112 over here is around £800, say $1200, and there isn't a big second-hand market - zero when I was looking. Although Fenders are much the same new, I paid the equivalent of $200 for my used one - there are a lot more to choose from.

I'd say it's more an amp problem than guitar issue. When I first started all I had was a peavey delta blues tube amp to play through. It was a wonderful amp. I had it retuned to get more clean sounds as I play all country music. It was great for guitar. Not good at all for steel. It just didn't have the punch to handle steel. When you can afford an amp geared more for steel. Nashville 112, 400, with some higher wattage and more EQ control you will see a huge difference in tone.

Ken, though I don't claim expertise in anything, I believe the pickup position has to do with the fact that most pickers are using metal finger picks. A pickup further away from the "bridge" (changer) could get in the way of the picks.

I've always liked the idea of having 2 pickups on a steel, but, to my knowledge, Mullen is the only one that will provide it. Personally, I use Geo. L 12-5 pickups in my Universals....lots of tone variation available.

BTW...the 10 string version is called a 10-5.

Ken, I think for sure you need to get another amp. You have to have some watts and reverb to get that sound you are looking for. Also set the amp up close to you so you can adjust settings from your seat. Hook the volume pedal up and set down at the steel and attack it as if you were on stage. I think you should for sure practice with what you will be using on stage.
Practice with everything like you were on stage. I use an old Peavey LTD 400. J.R.

Mike Wheeler wrote:Ken, though I don't claim expertise in anything, I believe the pickup position has to do with the fact that most pickers are using metal finger picks. A pickup further away from the "bridge" (changer) could get in the way of the picks.

I've always liked the idea of having 2 pickups on a steel, but, to my knowledge, Mullen is the only one that will provide it.

no...!
i believe the pickup position is how steel guitar was first developed, for a loud clear tone. picks came around after the fact.
as for multiple pickups, show pro is open to custom designs as well as desert rose and many custom builders. probably most companies would consider it for the right amount of money.

Make sure your finger picks are are hitting the strings on the inside edge of the pick, (not straight on)...it cuts out pick clatter and creates a deeper tone. Maybe some Dunlops (0.25) up.

Your Egnator amp with a 12 is a substantially better amp then what most steel players use. Buying most of the steel amps discussed in this thread will be serious downgrade in my opinion.

My personal opinion is that you are noticing that MSA guitars don't sound good in the first place. Thin midrange, fuzzy highs and muddy lows. This has been common knowlege among professional players for years.

My advice is don't buy anything now. Play for a while and start putting away money for a guitar that suits you. Advice about what guitar to buy on the forum is worse than pointless. Over the next year or so check out other players steels. Go to some steel shows and jams and let your ear guide you.

You may find that the MSA suits you after all or may hear something in a different brand that sings for you.

Spend some real time playing and as your steel player ears develop your guitar player ears will fade and things will start making sense.

Also one more thing. If it turns you are just not happy playing your guitar for whatever reason (it doesn't need to make any sense) find a guitar that makes you happy if possible. Playing music is best when its fun.

Bingo!

Another thing to consider is the distance from strings to pickup. Further away will give more resonance of the strings. The distance of 3 quarters (others will suggest 2) have been suggested as the ideal and in my case I agree. Also more reverb will fatten the sound until your pick attack becomes soft. I prefer a digital spring reverb with added delay. My old Fender steel has very low impedance pickups and does not have a lot of fatness to the tone, and sounds more like a tele than any steel out there. That's an interesting amp you have with a control for using either 6V6 or EL84 tubes or the mixing of the 2. 6V6 will give more clean headroom. Something that could change depending on the style of song.

Bob Hoffnar wrote: ...MSA guitars don't sound good in the first place.

With all due respect, I beg to differ. MSA guitars don't sound like Emmonses or Sho-Buds, but they don't sound bad.

MSA's are like a big Gibson Hollow body jazz box while an Emmons or Bud is like a Tele. The Gibson is never going to sound like a Fender, no matter how you set the amp. Likewise, an MSA is never going to sound like an Emmons. The secret to getting an MSA to sound good is accentuate its natural tones, rather than to try to get them to sound like something else.

That said, the dieboard/mica MSAs of the early 70s did sound thinner than the later maple/lacquer ones. And it must be said, MSA pickups were never very good. Many MSA players, including me, swapped them for a different one.

Very well said, Mike. I agree 100%. I've had both types also.

I've never heard a bad MSA which was the instruments fault. You can EQ any guitar if you work it, after all it's just wood, and there's no magic mojo in there, take the name plate off and it's as good as any other piece of maple tree. Curly and Maurice and PF, never had a problem.

Larry Bressington wrote:...it's just wood...

Well, Dieboard, which is industrial grade plywood, really does resonate differently than a solid piece of maple.

I liked both my dieboard/mica and maple/lacquer guitars. They were both great guitars. But they sounded different from each other, even unplugged.

I have had both also, agreed Mike.