The Steel Guitar Forum

Great photo and a very cool Fender you have there, certainly a rare sight in Austria.

I bet you could find some great schnapps in that bar.

In 2013-14 I spent some time in Salzburg recording and touring with Hubert Von Goisern. After only a couple hours with Hubert and his band I found out I - and most Americans - know nothing about good schnapps. Austrian schnapps is an artform, nothing at all like the horrible version sold here.

Very nice Fender!

Wow! Very impressive!

My fave is haselnuss - hazelnut. The nectar of the gods.

Fish wrote:Wow! Very impressive!

My fave is haselnuss - hazelnut. The nectar of the gods.

lol...you know your schnapps my friend...I'll tell you a secret, go to a good liquor store, and ask for slivovitz , looks like this





its around $50 but worth it its a plumb schnapps

Stronger (and fortunately thinner) than schnapps.
Schnapps is syrupy sweet and usually in the 25%/50 proof range, Slivovitz is a plum brandy, tasty and as strong as whisky. Haven't had any in quite a while.

Thanks for the tip! Maybe I'll buy some slivovitch, then put it one of my empty haselnuss bottles and pretend I'm back in Salzburg.

Hubert took me to a schnapps maker outside of Salzburg called "Primushäusl Edelbrände." They are master distillers and make the hazelnut version I love so much. Unfortunately (or not :0) they can't be imported into the US, at least not to my knowledge.

Sorry....back to pedal steel or we'll get in trouble.

So, have you ever played steel guitar with a long schnapps bottle? :0)

Fish wrote:So, have you ever played steel guitar with a long schnapps bottle? :0)

lol...not really

b0b wrote:I play all of my gigs on a Desert Rose S-8, 5+5, tuned to D6th. It's like the middle 8 strings of a C6th, raised a step, with E9th pedals added.
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I play mostly folk-rock, western swing and classic country. winecountryswing.com/blue-jade/

That is like mine in having the root note on string 4 going 2 half tones up on the knee lever instead of the 3rd pedal.
I started that years ago in 1978 with my first D-10 Sho-Bud crossover.
It had 7&1 when I got it, but soon I realized there was not a lot to do with 7 pedals and only one knee lever on an E9th.

I converted the underneath so it had 2&4 on the E9th (Using those racks left over for the extra 3 knee levers) and 5&1 standard tuning on the C6th and lost the crossover.
Moved that 4th string raise to RKR where I've had it on every steel since, all those being S-10's and SD-10's as well as one SD-12, but I found the SD-12 Mullen too many strings for me.

The best part of that is the cascading effect with that added change on a knee allows this very nice descending flow; A-G# F#-E C#-B A-G# F# E and can even toss in the Eb if you like. That also works nice going up, but I like the falling better. Used to skydive when I was younger.

Some folks like that you can wang on the 3rd pedal faster than a knee lever, True, but at our age we wang slower for sure anyway!

I have a new SD-10 Mullen G2 on order due here next month.
On top of that I just bought Promat #11 from Damir (The one that is Maple decks and Mahogany front with Gold tuners, Stunning guitar) and it should arrive around next Friday.
Can't wait as I have not had a D-10 since that Bud and never a PP guitar ever and now will have one of the best there is.
I will leave that as standard Emmons set up and never risk taking it out to gigs where it could get damaged. Just play it at home for my own fun.

Lew Houston played a short scale Fender 400 tuned D9 without chromatics, and later had a Lamar S-8 tuned D9.

Fish, is your 400 a short scale (23") or long (24.5")?

Damir, here's John Ely with Asleep At The Wheel playing his Fender 400 through a Fender Twin Reverb...a glorious sound!. I believe it's the bottom 8 (no chromatics) of standard 10 string E9,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2U3IinMyO4

I'm not an experienced player, but I'll chime in here because I play an E9 S-8.

My copedent is:
I come to PSG from playing C6 non-pedal. I do a lot of slants, and the eight string tuning allows me to max out the string spread at the nut for easier slanting. My steel is very portable and quick to set up. It's an early Sho-Bud Maverick (maple neck type). I could tell you more about the 8-sting conversion if you want.

The C pedal is a long story.

There's a great artisanal bitters bar down the street from me that you schnapps fans should check out if you're in NYC.

Dave Zirbel wrote:Damir, here's John Ely with Asleep At The Wheel playing his Fender 400 through a Fender Twin Reverb...a glorious sound!. I believe it's the bottom 8 (no chromatics) of standard 10 string E9,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2U3IinMyO4

That's what I'm talking about. You can hear the "curvy" pull on his A+B pedal licks. So cool!

I almost hate to say that I'm the cause of Damir's seller regret. I snatched that thing up as fast as I could. Sorry buddy. It's been a great gigging guitar.

Currently I have tuned to E9 but I removed the top two strings so I only have the first 8 strings (from low to high) as a ten string. I could never figure out how to use them so I've been quite happy with the result. I've mucked about with the copedent a bit.

I'm not 100% sold on it yet, but there are some nice colors. It's a standard E9 with four differences. My C pedal pulls the Bs to C natural, the D pedal drops the top G# and E to F# and D#, the RL has the usual C pedal raises, and RR lowers the G#s to G. I'd love to hear what others think.

Anyways, good luck on the search.