The Steel Guitar Forum

Billy,
I would say practice is what makes a person better.

Thanks Theresa,
Sometimes I feel,the more I practise the more frustrated I get.
Billy.
P.S. I have often wondered If You play steel Yourself.
Please let Me/us know.
Best regards
Billy

Billy,
No, I can't play steel or any instrument. I wish I could play.....


Practice is what my parents insilled in my brothers.

Once you have a good steel and amp, the rest is up to you! Oh sure, I know guys that swear by all sorts of gizmos to get "that sound", but they don't listen objectively. Once they hear someone say "I got a razafraz, and it made a tremendous difference in the way I sound", they're off to buy themselves a razafraz and join the "tone to the bone" club.

Really, you can't buy the sound, you have to make it.

Have you ever noticed - there's many thousands of guys out there with Emmons' and Sho~Bud guitars, but only about a few who sound anywhere near as good as Buddy on an Emmons, or Lloyd on a 'Bud?

That alone oughta tell you volumes about where the real sound comes from.

Billy,
I would suggest, that, after you've found a sound that was pleasing to you, go find some people, that, you can jam with. Playing music with other people will vastly improve your technique and improve your steel "chops". Practising the steel is a good thing, but, over practising can become boring, redundent and tiresome. Sometimes you can work yourself into a rut and that will breed a negative attitude to playing.
As to using effects- I wouldn't try to use a vast array right now. A nice digital echo and reverb will do for you, at this point. Overuse of effects can actually hinder your progression on the steel. Try to develop a clean, smooth and crisp attack on the steel before you start adding the sweeteners.
A good steel, a good amp and maybe an echo effect, used discreetly, should put you on the right track. But, playing with other musicians will really help you advance your skills. IMHO
John

There is no substitute for time in the seat, no question about that. Perfecting technique will help your tone probably more than any one single thing.

But.... after many years playing one of these things I don't agree that it stops there. I know first hand that electronics definitely will enhance the tone you get from your guitar. Well built and programmed effects do lots more than give you say, a little delay or chorus, verb or whatever. They add texture to your overall sound. Just a smidge of delay even will add a nice dimension to your sound.

I've proven it to myself time and time again. Come over to my house and see for yourself. I'll plug straight into a volume pedal and amp. Nothing but amp reverb. Then put the signal through a couple stomp boxes or one of the multi-fx device chains and the improvement is clearly audible.

The reason so many people don't have good luck with effects is that they don't know how to use them. You have to put in your time educating yourself about them just like any other aspect of the music equation. You have to know something about how they work and what you want them to do for you. Just tools that will let you explore more options.

I'll say this though, the worse the quaility of your signal, the more improvement that enhancement devices like match boxes, black boxes, offboard eq's, fx etc. and better cables will make.

Yeah, start with the basics and good primary gear, but you don't have to stop there.

Theresa got it right on the money...practice makes perfect.

I'll try to make it simple here.

1.) Practice
2.) A good Pedal steel guitar
3.) The best slide bar you can get
4.) Good amp
6.) A good reverb and delay unit effects
7.) A good compressor and limiter is a must to have if you want to get that sustain...tone and sound
8.) Volume pedal.

And the one of the most important thing is to have knowledge of how everything works from your pedal steel guitar down to your effects, cause if you don't know how they work...how are you gonna know which pedals or knee levers and buttons do what, learning everything you can about the gear you're using is a must if you want to achieve success.

Working the right hand. No, not that!

I find that the better the right hand, the better the player. I'm at my best when the right hand is loosened up and seeing a lot of practice.

Now Pat mentioned a 'compressor' and 'limiter'. How many players use a compressor? That is something I've never thought of using before. Is that something I should be looking at adding to my PSG?

A coupla' hawfs an' a coupla' pints.
Well, I think I sound better.

Arch.

In my case, Billy, it was just intensive practice. I guess I was perfecting my technique along the way, though not necessarily consciously, but then, truly, one day, Wham! It just kind of 'popped out': I had tone! I noticed it, my wife noticed it, my band noticed it at the next gig, everybody noticed it! The only thing is that I don't really know what I did to make that happen, other than play, play, play, until one day, it just arrived. It wasn't even gradual. Go figure...

Forget the practice, effects, different guitars, amps, etc... These things just make all the things you're doing wrong come easier to you. Hypnosis is the key.

Rick Campbell wrote:...Hypnosis is the key

Preferably applied to the audience...

i disagree with pat, also. i make sure they turn the compressor/limiter off in the studio, and never use that on stage.

a clean signal with a touch of quality delay is all i use in the studio and on stage.

zumsteel, ltd 400 peavey and digital delay on stage.

i get complimented on the tone regularly, and record direct to the board which even surprises me how nice it sounds!

have emmons single coil pickups (from my 80ish emmons) on an 82 zum.

Like i said...one has to know how to work with a compressor and limiter, using a compressor or a limiter can squash and kill your sound if not use properly but if use properly it can give you more sustain and better tone on you slow and fast attacks.

You have to learn how to work with a compressor or limiter on any instruments, you can't go and just plug it and play...it needs certain settings to make it work for a steel guitar, i don't set my steel compressor the same as my electric guitar, every instruments has different settings.

After I have good equipment then I feel like the thing that makes the biggest difference in my tone is really settling in to a guitar. I finally found one that I know I'll be keeping, and can really learn how to play it. I think I have to spend a lot time with the same guitar to really learn how it should be played, they're all a little different in terms of the kind of touch, etc. you need to use.

Gabriel

HAVE SECRET CD PLAYER BUILT IN YOUR STEEL INSERT A BUDDY EMMONS CD AND PRETEND YOU ARE PLAYING . INSTEAD OF LIP SYNCING ITS CALLED STEEL SYNCING.

Practice

Practuss

Practisse

Not necessarily in that order.



Terry Wood

It's all very well having good equipment, the secret lies in knowing how to set those knobs, man

With the infinite number of tone combinations that an amp is capable of, it is far easier to get a bad tone than a good one.

Study the front panel of the amp, cut the mids, boost the bass a bit, have the presence a bit higher than the treble, add a small touch of reverb, make sure that the post gain is higher than the pre gain, these are all the things that I do as soon as I work with a new amp.

I've just re-read the original post, so I'll add:

Volume pedal, never have it set so that all the signal is totally shut off when the pedal is physically backed right off, that's fatal for tone (in my opinion)

Picking technique: try to pick (quite gently)approximately 12 frets up from wherever your bar is on the neck (again, my opinion only)

Digital delay (AFTER the volume pedal): 300 milliseconds, 3 or 4 repeats, first repeat about 50% of the volume of the original note

Like Theresa said, practice. There are lots of things to practice with on steel guitar, as far as technique goes a few examples would be to practice your right hand techniques and also your bar techniques. When you've got your picks and bar both on the steel, practice things like pick or palm blocking, scales, chords, and work on speed. Also, a good thing to practice is memorizing your pedal setup and how to use the volume pedal. Tim McCasland, a steel and dobro teacher in Texas said on his video that there's not a lot of years of literature on how to play steel, you do what's best for you. The best ways to learn songs is to either read tablature or play along with records to see how you sound with the steel player on the record, and rhythm tracks help too and another thing is, to see if you can come up with your own style.

Thanks everyone for the well informed replies.
permit Me to clarify My situation,I have quality equipment,I have been learning/playing for some years and I have played in several small time bands,I even got to back Ronnie Prophet last year and will be backing Becky Hobbs next year.
I am with a five piece band at this time and due to the fact that We do not reside near one another our practise sesions are nil.
We can play three nights one month and then nothing for two months,I do'nt get enough bandstand playing for My liking.
I have a weekly gig with a three piece in a local pub,the musos change constantly as does the style of the music,We have recently had an out of tune sax player and regularly have the "I can play loud" lead player.
I do put in a lot of home practise time and tend to get a bit P'd off at the cacaphony on stage.
How do I rise above this and produce something which will be pleasing,Am I just going thru' the peaks and valleys of learning (again?).
It is not an option to go looking for anoyher group of players,there are only a handful of serious(part time)players in and around My location so my lot is to put up with what I can get but strive to get My "sound" to a higher level(not volume)
Thanks for listening
Best regards
Billy

richard...it's interesting how we can all think so differently, striving for the same thing.

i try to make sure my volume pedal shuts all the way off...

playing the first few frets would have you picking near the 13/14th frets..that's pretty deep into the fingerboard for me...

i always put my delay in line before the volume pedal...

The best tone seems to come from those players who hit the strings with confidence and authority. Just tickle them and the tone won't be there.