The Steel Guitar Forum

Listen/watch THIS

This may be a violation of the SGF as this guy is not playing steel, but playing a six-string bottleneck.

I heard this and was thinking, "what a great steel tone". Then, I found the vid and it's not steel at all. This sounds better than most steel tones that I hear. Skynyrd also has some great bottleneck tones that are difficult to get on a steel. Why? Is it the neck pickup?

This is the type of playing that I tend to gravitate towards. Tone takes priority and the slow playing allows it to shine. All the fancy shredding that I see on this forum tends to lose my attention. This could have been a post on one of those "why is steel underappreciated" posts that pop up from time to time.

Solo at 2:08.

Are you kidding me, James? I mean, simple playing is fine, but that tone isn't anything special IMHO. The main characteristic is the lack of sustain. I use a glass bar and take my foot off the volume pedal when I want that kind of sound. Maybe turn down the bass knob on my amp a bit.

i wasn't crazy about it either...kinda thin and wimpy with no real creativity or style.

Hmmm. Record a clip of that tone on a pedal steel. Please.

James Mayer wrote:I heard this and was thinking, "what a great steel tone". Then, I found the vid and it's not steel at all. This sounds better than most steel tones that I hear. Skynyrd also has some great bottleneck tones that are difficult to get on a steel. Why? Is it the neck pickup?

Yes.

John Phinney wrote:

explain.

If you ever get a 10 string E9 or a D10 with the C6/E9 or a U12 pedal steel I think you'll gain a completely different understanding of the instrument.

Best to you in your musical endeavors.

John Phinney wrote:If you ever get a 10 string E9 or a D10 with the C6/E9 or a U12 pedal steel I think you'll gain a completely different understanding of the instrument.

Best to you in your musical endeavors.

I listen to steel guitar, both pedal and non-pedal, daily. I'm pretty sure that I can recognize the tone of a PSG without owning one.

When I heard this clip, I thought that maybe it was a non-pedal steel and I had to figure out what style/brand it was. I never for a moment thought it was a pedal steel. I think that you think that I'm insulting the PSG, which I am not. Just that it does have a very distinct sound that I definitely do not hear in the video. Brint seems to agree with me. After watching a couple of clips of the guitarist playing the song live with different guitars (in one, you can see the neck pickup is selected), I've reached the conclusion that it's the neck pickup that I'm hearing.

Hi James,

My old band played many shows with Mazzy Star and I also worked on Hope Sandoval's (Mazzy's singer) solo album. While I do think the tone of the slide is appropriate, and the hook is a critical component of the song, I can't say that it is a particularly "steel guitar" tone IMHO. It is a nice languid glass on electric steel string bottleneck tone that is perfectly fitting the narcotic feel of the tune...

Dave Roback - the guitarist, usually played a 60's era (I believe, though it might have even been 70's) telecaster with a Bigsby on it through mid-sized Fender amps. Not quite sure he used in the studio on this particular song though, the band had a phenomenal collection of old Fender amps.

All the best,

Julian

John, I don't think you can judge someone's likes/dislikes or infer that they are required to listen to your examples to gain any kind of understanding at all...in fact, it's on the edge of being insulting, and it IS irrelevant..

James heard a sound HE likes.

As far as the neck pickup - I'm with Brint. Traditional steelers may not be as familiar with that sound as players used to multiple pickups and tone/volume controls.

And some steelers may not like it at all. Personally, I think it sounds great, but I don't come from a "one tone fits all" background. I play with 3 pickups, volume and tone controls, several tone-manipulating effects, 5 or 6 different bars and even change fingerpick types/gages between songs. That would be a useless setup for many players - but it's not to me.

kinda thin and wimpy with no real creativity or style.

Chris, no disrespect - but I think that statement is a perfect example of the confusion between "tone" and "style", as it mixes the two. "Thin and wimpy" would be an opinion of *tone* - "no real creativity or style" even uses the term "style"

The sound and the playing are distinctly different things, and it seems the difference between the two is often blurred or completely lacking among steel players.

Julian Goldwhite wrote:Hi James,

My old band played many shows with Mazzy Star and I also worked on Hope Sandoval's (Mazzy's singer) solo album. While I do think the tone of the slide is appropriate, and the hook is a critical component of the song, I can't say that it is a particularly "steel guitar" tone IMHO. It is a nice languid glass on electric steel string bottleneck tone that is perfectly fitting the narcotic feel of the tune...

Dave Roback - the guitarist, usually played a 60's era (I believe, though it might have even been 70's) telecaster with a Bigsby on it through mid-sized Fender amps. Not quite sure he used in the studio on this particular song though, the band had a phenomenal collection of old Fender amps.

All the best,

Julian

Julian, I gotta know..........what was Hope like? I wouldn't mind meeting her.

Jim Sliff wrote:John, I don't think you can judge someone's likes/dislikes or infer that they are required to listen to your examples to gain any kind of understanding at all...in fact, it's on the edge of being insulting, and it IS irrelevant..

I wasn't trying to tell James to listen to examples of anything. I personally think that that tone is great for that tune, for that artist, for that time, for that style, but its an electric six string guitar and glass slide tone not a PSG tone. To ask someone to re-create it on the PSG seems like a waste of the PSG to me. Lap steel sure, but pedal steel is about the pedals. The pedals aren't used to just change the tuning so you can play it like a lap steel or slide guitar. The licks in that tune aren't PSG licks, so why even bother, why even call for such a challenge? I'm no PSG purist, but I do play the PSG and there is an understanding you get of the instrument after you've been playing it for awhile.

I'll admit to being dismissive and for that I will sincerely apologize to James.

BTW I saw Mazzy Star perform on tour circa 1992-3 (I forget exactly, I went to UC Santa Cruz back then). While the show dragged over the course of 45 minutes, the crowd really loved this tune and Blue Flower. In fact, I remember distinctly hearing a couple kids remarking on how they had never heard anything like the slide playing on that tune.

I didn't share their opinion, but I'm not looking to get into a flame war with anyone, so take it with a grain of salt.

James Mayer wrote:I heard this and was thinking, "what a great steel tone". Then, I found the vid and it's not steel at all. This sounds better than most steel tones that I hear...This is the type of playing that I tend to gravitate towards. Tone takes priority and the slow playing allows it to shine.

It's easy to excel when you set the bar low. Once you're actually playing a pedal steel, You should be able to replicate that in a few weeks, or maybe a few days. However, I'd guess your vistas will widen with exposure. (At least, I would hope they will.)

Bear with me while I "Rewind" - I can remember being infatuated with simple stuff 'way back in the days when I played lead guitar. I thought Duane Eddy's "Because They're Young" was just soooo cool! Then there was the lead part in "Hard Day's Night", man what a sound! There was also that crazy lead line in "Louie, Louie". Well, you see, I actually figured that if I could play these songs - just like the records - that I could do just about anything. And...eventually, I got so I could cop them so well that I could have done the records, and nobody would have been the wiser.

Of course, the problem was that these leads, mesmerizing as they were to me at the time, were so dirt simple and basic that they impressed no one but me (and a few young teens that only had their first guitars for a week or so). My vistas expanded, and I began to hear other stuff. "Wham", by Lonnie Mack, just plain blew me away. Try as I might, I couldn't get that one down pat. Lonnie's phrasing (heard on the original record, but not on the utube reduxes) was just beyond my capabilities. The more I played guitar, the more I heard, and the more I ran into guys that could do stuff I couldn't.

Now, I could have taken the attitude back then that I could just concentrate just on copping the tone and technique of the real simple stuff, and leave all the fancy stuff (hot pickin' and bunches of neat chords) to other players. But I couldn't do that.

If you can, James - if you can truly be happy playing less than anyone else and rationalizing that it's only "tone" and simplicity that drives you, and you don't need the advancement in ability that most all others crave, then more power to 'ya - and I mean that with all sincerity, from the bottom of my heart.

Would that my own dreams were so attainable, I'd be the happiest man I know.

Donny, understand that I had the ability to play this lick in my first two weeks of playing steel guitar. My first two weeks occurred three years ago. I took the path of faster and increasingly more complex with the flamenco guitar. That path excited me and still does. However, with the steel, I still find the magic in "Sleepwalk" (I could play this one pretty early on, as well, simple piece) to be more powerful than the fast and fancy licks of the top-notch steelers. After three years, I'm still trying to keep it simple. When I want to play something fast, I pick up a fretted instrument and go to town.

My favorite steelers play for Calexico and The Friends of Dean Martinez. Nothing very fancy there.

THIS kills me, and THIS doesn't. I don't know if that makes me "lucky" or not as I developed RSI from practicing the guitar for far too many consecutive hours, nightly, without taking sufficient breaks.

I have no problems with this sound at all - I like it. But there's no way I'd drag a pedal steel rig to a gig if that was the type of "steel" thing I was expected to play. Too much work. Tele, Deluxe Reverb, and a small gig bag with picks, cables, and a glass slide. Even sounds like standard guitar tuning to me. Play the rest of the gig on guitar. Bam, done, out. Notice he's not playing a pedal steel either - doesn't need it.

I sorta suspect that this is what some of the guys are getting at. I don't think there was any insult intended, I certainly mean none.

James -

I consider Hope to be the best singer I have ever worked with in regards to knowing and being able to exploit the full extent of her instrument. Which is different than saying she's a great technical singer, because that music is all about the feel, not having operatic range or anything like that. She was always diligent and hard working, pushing all the musicians and herself and being highly critical of every little nuance of each song. I will genuinely always be grateful for having the opportunity to have worked with talent of that level... When doing pre-production for the album we put in full 8+ hour days 5 days a week for quite some time. She was always kind and more than generous, sweet, but was somewhat introverted and shy, guarded, like many people in her position I suppose would need to be. Not the easiest person to feel like you are really getting close to in truth.

Best,

Julian

Having played 6 string bottleneck slide guitar myself, the difference is quite simple; neck pickup, six strings, and glass slide. That's all there is to it.

I think the simplest approach would be to buy the guitar and slide used in the song (or approximate it with gear you already have) - if that's the sound you like, use the gear that created it. No need to try to duplicate it on steel...like you said, it's not steel. They're different instruments with different sounds, and there's nothing wrong with that.

the bar adds weight by laying on the strings, the bottle neck being vertical adds an oscillation and subtle uncertainty to the feel. I do agree that this song has a "lap steel" feel to it. I fell in love with her from note one back in 89 or whatever it was. I would eat her shoe.

BTW I feel that this is a different animal all together than "steel guitar", especially "pedal steel guitar" but it is some of my favourite music of all time.

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I don't know, Michael. I had breakfast in a restaurant yesterday and heard a bit of Top 40 "Country" radio there. I was surprised by how much pedal steel there was, and how good the steel playing was. I don't like that kind of music much (maybe I'm just too old), but I wouldn't write the pedal steel off just yet.

Michael, I think I'm the type of player that you describe. I simply got a cheap artisan steel to add some flavor to a few songs. The problem is, my band started wanting more and more of it and our few fans seemed to connect with it. Now, I have seven lap steels.

I came to the early realization that playing melody lines on a single string (the hook in Sleepwalk) gets more appreciation than playing across multiple strings as a guitarist would. I think that a lot of advanced steelers go the way of jazz musicians, seeking applause after their solos. The risk is that they may only connect with other steelers. Razzle-dazzle is a thing of the past, IMO. At least, for the steel guitar.

I've mentioned Friends of Dean Martinez many times on the SGF. Bill Elm never plays chords, maybe an occasional double stop. Most of it is single note playing with an enormous variety of the most beautiful steel tones that I've found. The first two albums display far less variety in tone and get far less rotation, at my house. I think FODM demonstrates that playing simply and with taste can be as difficult to do well as anything else.