The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi everybody!
I'm a percussion player but for some reason I'm considering to get a lap steel (since pedal steel seems too hard and I have enough practising my own instrument...)
Let's see... I fell in love with Paul Franklin's playing (I guess that's what a beginner listens to!). It was mostly because of his "Box", that sounds really good. But I thought that for someone like me who only wants to have some fun, it would be smarter to get one of those fancy looking electric ones with that straight shape (no acoustic relics, I'm not worth it). I thought about a Fender (that's the shape I'm looking for!), but the reviews in this page are not so good .
On the other hand I read some good reviews about the Industrial laps, so I though about one of those Industrial Indy Rail.
My question is: Would it be possible and smart to build in a piezo to also get an acoustic sound if desired?
Is it possible to get "the Box"? or is it something customized?
Any other tips about brands, models or anything!!! I'm completely new so, everything will be welcome.
I know what buying a cheap instrument is: bad quality and impossible to sell, so I'm looking for some mid-range thing. I might not be a steel player, but I'm a Masters degree percussion student, so I still have musician's ears.
Thanks!

Hi Miki,
The only caveat I have is that steel is so totally addictive it will drive other musical instruments away. I was taking fiddle lessons a few years back and then picked up lap steel and the world went away.
One thing to check out is (as in the other thread)
http://www.chandlerguitars.com/rh2.html

You can also get any kind of totally cheapo guitar and put a "nut riser" on it and some heavy strings and have at it. Good place to start, since the warpage of the neck doesn't matter for steel, so you can get a guitar that is otherwise useless (free?). The shorter scale of beginner guitars (22 - 23") is an advantage.

And guitars that are unplayably cheap as fretted instruments might have some merit as lap steels. Unless you are willing to invest $1K or more and a few years of hard work, the pedal steel sound is hard to get. I'm on that road, but not there yet.

Best of luck. -paul

I think buying a cheap artisian steel is a great way to go, they sound and play great (Gene Jones blew me away with a Hawaiian song he did with one in B6 here on the forum). Plus, you can take to the park or beach to study and not sweat it. They used to be $79.00, but if you can find a good Magnatone or Dickerson you'll have it made.

Hey Miki,
One of the coolest vintage lap steels is the Supro Supreme, and you can still find them and their several clones (Oahu, McKinney, Bronson etc) on eBay occasionally for 2 or 3 hundred bucks.



Those old string-through pickups were one of the first commercially produced (early 30s) and are still unsurpassed imo.

For a few hundred bucks more you could find a Rickenbacher bakelite, they are tone monsters.

Hi!!!
Thanks for the feedback! Please carry on, I'll consider every single possibility.
Answering a post above: The problem with recycling junk is that you never get the sound you are supposed to get and finally you struggle more with the instrument than with learning cool stuff. See what I want... If you asked me the equivalent in a drumset, I would say a Yamaha Stage Custom; quite cheap but you can use it to learn and in professional gigs; perfect if you're not a real pro. This Supro Supreme looks more close to it.
Should I consider 6 or 8??
Please, I'd also like to get some feedback about the piezo thing.
Thanks for the warm welcome!

I really love Supro & National lap steels with the string through pickup. They sound great, don't cost an arm & a leg, and you won't necessarily have to "upgrade" since they sound and play just as good as any other available lap steels IMO. Once the addiction kicks in, you'll have plenty of time to explore the many other great sounding lap steels that are available .

PS - Personally, I'm not a fan of piezo pickups on electric instruments. They can sound "OK" but they really are a compromise IMO. I definitely would not modify a cool vintage Supro with a piezo. Just my .02¢. I would just buy a dobro or a weissenborn at some point and install a pickup in that.

Miki Campins wrote: Should I consider 6 or 8?

Since you're not a guitar player, you should start on 8-string. This will give you more possibilities and it's not too complex.

Dan Sawyer wrote: Since you're not a guitar player, you should start on 8-string. This will give you more possibilities and it's not too complex.

I've played guitar for 16 years, but stopped practising long ago.
I thought it wouldn't really matter since I wouldn't be used to open tunnings anyway.
Does anybody use standard guitar tunning in Lap???

Some people use standard guitar tuning but it is fairly limiting chordally. Personally, I would probably start out with open G or open E (or open D for that matter). My favorite tunings are A6 or G6 with the 5th on top. I happen to prefer 6 string lap steels but I can see why 8 strings are liked by many.

Michael Papenburg wrote:I happen to prefer 6 string lap steels but I can see why 8 strings are liked by many.

Can I ask why and why not?
(thanks for the input!)

I play with singer/songwriters a lot and do a fair amount of session work. I tend to play rock, Americana, folk rock, or textural music. When playing with a full band, I find that I use smaller chord voicings and imply a lot with 2 or 3 notes. I also find that I play higher voiced chords more often than lower voiced chords. I never need to play big chords where every interval is represented.

If I played Jazz or played in a small instrumental trio, I could see how having 8 strings would be very useful to fill out your sound. That's not me, though. Also, I admit that after 30 years of playing guitar 6 strings just looks right to me . There are times where I think that an 8 string would be helpful. I did a survey on this forum once asking how many strings people tend to play. Most people used 6 string lap steels on a regular basis but liked the "idea" of having 8 or more strings. Also, the people who owned 8 strings tended to mainly use the upper strings. There were definitely people who did not fit these descriptions but there were enough for me to take notice. YMMV.

Many people who play "regular" guitar think of neck positions as being a "key" ie 5th fret 2nd marker is the A position and open is E, SO naturally E tunings are good for habitual folk, 6 string seems more regular but the E13 8 string is very cool... I play these and variants of them. Sumetines I play D tunings too but my brain has to transpose when using theory for improvisation.(yeah lame I know) A lot of times I use D tunings to lower a vocal or just like the layout of a song in a "down a whole step". Additionally playing blues and rock a lot you will notice if you play in D tuning it often keeps you in a different register than the guitarist, releiving crowding each others chops creating mush.

CF

Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny. - Frank Zappa

-

Why doesn't almost anybody use open minor tuning?
I thought about tuning in Em7. Is is stupid? That would be low to high: EBEGBD. That provides both major and minor chords. And since the styles I would play demand mostly minor scales, maybe it would be nice!
I repeat... I don't know anything at all about all this so, if it's stupid, I'll appreciate someone to tell me.
(by the way, I think I'll get an Industrial Indy Rail. Good choice?)

In general, tunings are a very personal thing. It's amazing to me how many are available to try. Essentially, there is no "right" tuning. There are a handful of tunings that are very popular, including C6, A6, G, E, and D. A6 and it's variants work well for me because they have major & minor chords with no slanting (I actually use G6). In the vein of your suggested tuning, I have used the following with good results:

E
B
G
D
B
E

I believe there are a few people who use minor tunings here. I'm sure that they will post eventually.

Regarding the Industrial Rail, it seems fine to me but I've never tried one. From what I hear, they sound "different" due to their hollow aluminum construction. I started a thread recently asking about them but frankly didn't get much feedback. One thing that concerned me is that practically everyone who did respond to my post wanted to sell me theirs. It made me hesitate. You might do a search to learn a bit more.

I read that thread some days ago. On the other hand, there were no bad comments! That's why I decided to visit Fouke's page.
What made you change the order in the suggested tuning? What do you get having the 7th in a lower string? It seems to have more pentatonic possibilities, but does it work harmonically?
Thanks!
Maybe I should just try all that...

The tuning that I suggested is very close to the open strings on a guitar. The top 3 strings have a minor chord. The next 3 strings have a major chord with the option of another 3rd on the bottom. You've also got a minor 7th if you play the bottom 4 strings. It was just another option to try. The moral of this story is that there are so many options that you just have to experiment and see what works for you.

In general, I view playing lap steel as a long term learning experience that is very fun (and challenging). Although I understand your hesitation when it comes to pedal steel, I certainly would not describe lap steel as an "easy" instrument (not that you have either). I've been messing around with it for around 25 years now but only feel like I've made serious progress in the last 5 years because I finally sat down and gave it the attention it deserves. I would say that pitch and vibrato are two of the biggest challenges. With time, though, and a lot of experimentation it can be incredibly rewarding. Have you checked out Brad's page of steel yet? It has a wealth of information including tunings and links to string gauge charts. It has helped me a lot.

http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/steel.html

I did visit it. It looks like something I'll have to visit regularly!

Michael Papenburg wrote:Regarding the Industrial Rail, it seems fine to me but I've never tried one. From what I hear, they sound "different" due to their hollow aluminum construction. I started a thread recently asking about them but frankly didn't get much feedback. One thing that concerned me is that practically everyone who did respond to my post wanted to sell me theirs. It made me hesitate. You might do a search to learn a bit more.

I was thinking about an Indy Rail with a piezo or a rail mini reso with a pickup!
I want both electric sound and "dobro-like" in the same little instrument.
Any tips?

Any 6th tuning is also a minor tuning. That is one reason they are so popular for lap steel. It seems to me that A6 and C6 have long been the most popular lap steel tunings for Hawaiian and country lap steel. So the idea that few lap steelers use minor tunings is wrong - in fact the vast majority do. The tunings are named for the major 6th chord, but they could just as well be named for the relative minor chord.

Before the modern pedal steel came along in the late '50s, 6th tunings were the mainstay of country music. The only reason pedal steel moved away from 6th tunings to the E9 tuning is because a pedal gave the relative minor. Later other pedals and knee levers gave other minors. Even still, most top pro pedal steelers play a double neck, with one of the necks being C6/Am7, which is the mainstay of western swing and jazz pedal steel. I don't mean to hijack this to pedal steel tunings, I just mean to point out that the 6th/rel. minor type tuning was so prevalent in lap steel that it carried right over into pedal steel.

The only steel/slide genres that stuck with purely major tunings are blues and rock slide. But even there, some players (Skip James, Jack Owens) used minor tunings. Bukka White used a minor tuning, but he held one finger on the first fret of the minor third string to make it major most of the time. He played that way so habitually that most people don't realize he had a minor tuning.

edit

George Piburn wrote:Why not support one of the several Makers of New Steels?

Who???? How???

It seems to me that if he bought an Industrial lap steel he would be supporting a current manufacturer of steels. I personally wouldn't write off vintage steels as an option, though.

Michael Papenburg wrote:It seems to me that if he bought an Industrial lap steel he would be supporting a current manufacturer of steels.

LOL Yes, probably...
I'm actually mailing with Mr.Fouke and trying to decide the extras of my future lap steel. Extremely nice guy! (And patient!)

Yes, Get a Fouke!

Terry wrote:Yes, Get a Fouke!

Hey!
You have an Indy Rail! How is it?