The Steel Guitar Forum

I have to apologize, im pretty new at all of this, as ive only been playing for 2 or so years. But one of the many steel players I really like is sneaky pete..but ive never talked to anyone that actually knew his tuning for sure. Anyone know? thanks.

-corey

b0b has it here.

http://b0b.com/tunings/stars.html#b6pk

Russ

Corey - if you look at the copedent it's pretty similar to a "normal" C6, but dropped a half-step; plus the changesd are a mix of E9-type and C6-type changes....really an early universal.

Pete added the knee levers in the 70's - all the early Burritos stuff (up to just before the "blue" album) was sans knee levers. Any 8-string Fender can be set up for the copedent - with knee levers you need a couple barrel tuners to get the first and 4th string double changes, but it's easy to do. You can also get a lot of his playing using just the 1, 2, 7 and 8 pedals - that seems to be the best "spartan" version for 4-pedal guitars.

I've also adapted the copedent (with a LOT of help!!) to my 3 pedal, 4-knee GFI Ultra. It's really fun to play on a 10 string set up that way.

There's lots more info on the Fenders over here:

http://scaryoak.com/forum/index.php

Feel free to email if you want more details on Pete's setup - the copedent was pretty consistent, but the electronics changed often.

Jim or b0b, do you know if Sneaky was a two foot player like Ralph Mooney? With his setup it seems like it'd make a lot of sense to use both feet on the pedals. It looks like a standard U-12 has every change except pedal one and the F# to A movement on RKR. I have that pedal one change on my S-12 so the only one I'm missing is the RKR change I mentioned. Pete really had a great touch and at times sounded pretty similar to a Tele with a B-bender on some of his stuff, maybe that's where the Tele players got their licks......JH in Va.

I've watched Pete play colse-up a bunch of times in his prime and yeah he was all over the pedals with both feet. A lot of times he had 4 pedals going. He was very nimble with his pedals and levers.

As Michael said, Pete was a two foot player; I saw him play a few dozen times, and at times he didn't use a volume pedal either - just varied levels by touch alone.

The 1&2 pedals are similar to the E9 A&B pedals; add #7 and you get a minor, plus it and 8 work well for Stringbender-like licks on the second string. 5 and 6 are C6th-ish pedals. 3 is a 7th, 4 I don't use much as it's sort of a duplication of 8 - still trying to figure out where it's practical to use. And FWIW pedal #9 was not used at all - Pete used it just as a placeholder for his right foot!

I haven't figured out any 4-pedal combinations, but now that Michael mentioned it I'll have to hunt for them!

Jim, I could see using both pedals 4 & 8. 8 isn't a duplication of 4 or vice versa. The 4th pedal gives you the maj7 chord using the lower B as the root. Pedal 8 gives you an opportunity for some counterpoint licks starting with both B strings and raising one while lowering the other. As far as pedal 9, when you raise your E strings with pedal 2 it can be used to make a minor chord using the E strings as the root. In the open tuning it lowers the 5th to a sharp 5 which would give you an augmented chord. I can see his reasoning for all the changes. If I had that setup I think I'd add a lower on pedal 5 to lower both F# strings to F. that would give you the whole chord. An example of it's use would be if you were at the 3rd fret playing out of D and you wanted to go to an E7th you could just step on that pedal and you'd have it without moving the bar. There's a lot of things on there for only eight strings...........JH in Va.

I use pedal 9 as Jerry says with pedal 2 for the minor.

Russ