The Steel Guitar Forum

what Lane is saying: Translated;

If you place the E's on opposite legs you are wasting a knee lever position that can be used for another raise or drop. You would never use the E raise or E lower at the same time but you very well may use other raises or lowers with one of the other.

Again, it's not wrong to split them but it may be limiting.

Translating Lane,Tony Prior wrote:"You would never use the E raise or E lower at the same time.."

If you want to transition smoothly between the two, then you do.

Ian Rae wrote:

Translating Lane,Tony Prior wrote:"You would never use the E raise or E lower at the same time.."

If you want to transition smoothly between the two, then you do.

Yes I understand and at one time did the same thing, but it's not about a smooth transition should we them split ,at least not to me. It's still about occupying space for another change.

Sure it can be stated as a smooth transition , no doubt, but we still don't use the F note and the Eb (D#) note on the same strings at the same time and I believe most of us are saying that.

If the smooth transition of the F lever to the E lever is the primary goal than thats all that matters. What I think and what I do is irrelevant but in the discussion it should be at least mentioned as to what the overall configuration drawback may be.

Tony Prior wrote:we still don't use the F note and the Eb (D#) note on the same strings at the same time

Point taken. I have the following in total:-

LKL - string 6 whole-tone lower
LKR - E raises
RKL - D lever - string 2 & 9 stuff
RKR - E lowers (my starting point as it's a uni)

I don't find I ever want to use both the lefts or both the rights at the same time. I play Day, so LKR goes well with the A pedal and LKL splits with the B pedal to give a G natural. If you can spot something I should be able to do but can't, please say!

Regardless of what KL setup you like to use, I'm surprised that nobody picked up John Sluszny on what he said about the Day setup, because it was simply incorrect. He said:

Pedals ABC or BCA (Emmons or Day set up) ?

That's plain wrong. Emmons is (from left) ABC, Day is (from left) CBA - not BCA. I have my E's on different knees, and am happier with that than having them on the same knee. I have my reasons, and am aware that most don't do it this way.

I'm certain it was a typo.


I believe a majority of us are playing with 4 or 5 knee levers, and many with 5 are probably just carrying it around.

I'm down to 4 on each of my Steels , E's on left leg , drop 2 and 9 on RKR , raise 1 and drop 6 on RKL. I use each of these pulls all the time , I attempt to incorporate them into even the simplest phrase , lately many of the phrases involve dropping 6 and moving to dropping 4 and 8 in transition as well as dropping 2 at any unknown time !

I no longer have a Steel that drops 5 and 10.

this works for me...

I think the ability to drop 6 a whole tone and drop 4 and 8 at the same time will become more useful.
The Bb lower is something that may come and go with fashion, occasionally useable on a vertical lever.

So in fact, Tony, we have the same four basic knees but in different places. Because mine's a uni I started by assigning the E lowers to RKR (most comfortable for me as my leg naturally relaxes outwards) and worked from there.

I initially lowered 5 & 10 on LKV because a lot of people seem to; but now I just lower 5 as it's a necessary* change on B6.

Lowering 4, 6 & 8 together isn't particularly new-fangled, is it?

*at least it's taken for granted in all the instructional stuff I've seen so far

Ian Rae wrote:Lowering 4, 6 & 8 together isn't particularly new-fangled, is it?

You may be right. I think the plus is to be able to lower them separately as well.

I find the B-Bb lower absolutely vital - but that's just me.

Reading this thread, though, is making me question lowering string 10. I very rarely play the 10th string when lowering the Bs and now I'm pondering having the same KL raising 10 to a C# (as well as dropping the 5th) - it would make for a nice m7b5 inversion.

I was finding for B6 playing that I wanted the maj7 much more often than the octave.

As I play Day, my pedals go C, B, A, 5 etc. so I use B, A, V for a minor on the E9, and A, 5, V for the 3-up 6th chord on B6 - equivalent to the 3rd-string ½-step raise on C6.