The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm a guitar player fairly new to the 6 string multi kord that my mother had stashed away in the attic. ever sense i found it i have crossed over and have been studying slide playing for about a year now. i know the 6 string is dead in the eyes of many steel players but its all i have for the moment and i can relate to it easily coming from a guitar back ground plus i like the idea of working threw a semi dis functional instrument.

Anyway my question is what would be some good copendents for a six string with four pedals.

There's plenty of music on that little six stringer!

What styles of music would you play or would like to play on that guitar?

If you're playing rock and blues try open G or D. If it's swing or country try C6.

I would tune it to an E chord (Bass to treble, E B E G# B E ) and have pedal 1 raise the top 2 E strings to F and lower the bass string to C#, pedal 2 should raise the B strings to C#, pedal 3 should raise the G# string to A and pedal 4 should lower the E strings to D#.

Pedals 2 and 3 will be the ones you use most, Pedal 2 by itself gives you a C# minor chord, pedals 2 and 3 give you and A chord, pedals 1 and 2 will turn the C# minor into a major chord, pedal 4 by itself will give you a G# minor cord, and and pedals 3 and 4 will give you a B7.

When you get a modern steel with 10 or 12 strings, the changes on the E strings will go on knee levers.

i'm playing more rock blues and southern rock type tunes, i just not sure how to set up the pedals typically i've had it in open E or G but hardly use the pedals because i don't know the best thing to tune them to

You could go with an open E7 type tuning.... But I would do as Mike P. suggests. With that setup you can get a lot of mileage out of those 6 strings and have an introduction to a 2X2 E9 setup, which will be really valuable if you decide to go the whole hog.

Mike P's ideas are very good, but I would tune it a whole step lower to D tuning, DADF#AD. Low to High. Just my preference.

But since you are doing Rock and Blues, how about this, Low Bass G Tuning, DGDGBD low to high?

Pedal 1-pulls G strings to G#. Giving you an E7th chord.(no root)pull the low D up to E also? Getcher root!
Pedal 2- pulls D strings to E. Giving you an Em chord.
Pedals 1 &2 together, give you an E major chord.
Pedal 3- pulls the Bs to C.
Pedals 2 &3 together, give you the 4 chord, C major.

This tuning would give you the three most used "Bottleneck" style tunings; Low Bass G tuning, E tuning, and E minor tuning(which is really good for Blues!)

Not sure about Pedal 4,,,,Should work in conjunction with Pedal 3 though,,, maybe pull the Gs up to A?

These tunings are all good for playing "Dead Thumb,"( or is it Drop Thumb?) style, where you keep a steady rhythm with your thumb on the low root. I play Gatton's "Funky Mama" on both bottleneck and lap this way.

Interesting! Gotta think about this some more,,,,,.....

I don't know if that mechanism can do it, but for rock/blues stuff, I'd use E7 like this:

.......P1....P2....P3....P4

E............................-D#
B.............+C#.............
G#..-G............+A........
E.............................+F#
D............................+D#
B..............+C#.............

Basically a very condensed E9 setup with some "sacred steel" stuff in it.

awesome i'm trying these suggestions out tonight this is my first post on SGF and i am amazed at the generosity of all the members thanks for the info its tough to get direction on pedal steel up here in the northeast

if i was going to try more of a country sound like the C6 tuning that Dave suggested how would i set the pedals?

An E tuning can get you honkytonk sounds if you pull your G#s to A and Bs to C#.


A C6 tuning would be Low to hi - C E G A C E

Maybe these standard changes would give you nice sounds.


I'm not a genius with tunings and setups but I like the B6 or C6 for western swing and Blues. E9 for honkytonk(Merle, Buck, Gram), open G or D for rock and blues. To me thye chart above is the meat of the standard 10 string C6 tuning.

http://pedalcaster.com/

I also like the idea of C major, which could use a regular electric guitar string set:
[tab] LKL LKR P1 P2 P3 RKL RKR
E ++F# +F
C +C# ++D -B --Bb
G ++A ++A
E --D +F
C +C# -B
G ++A [/tab]
or something like that.

Adapted for the Multikord, maybe like this:

[tab] P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6
E +F ++F#
C +C# ++D -B
G ++A ++A
E +F --D
C +C# -B
G ++A [/tab]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copedent

I've got an old Multikord and it's been a few years back, but if I remember correct the tuning should be a little lower like an A(6th). The scale is pretty short, and when I attempted to tune to E the strings were pretty tight. C was better but still tight.

Here is what Harlin Bros. started all their students out with on the Multi-Kord which Jay Harlin invented and patented. ( it was sold as a Hawaiian pedal steel guitar.)

A tuning open strings (low bass ) High to low

E, C#, A, E, A, E

The copedants for the 4 pedal 6 string were, starting with farthest pedal away from player and coming back to shortest pedal. High to low

C#mi.7th ---- E, C#, G#, E, B, E
E------------- E, B, G#, E, B, E
D7 added 9th-- E, C, A, F#, A, D
A6TH---------- E, C#, A, F#, A, E

I have read the above posts, and the Multi-Kord changer is capable of raising or lowering any or all strings with any pedal 1 1/2 tones. (3 frets) without problems. Keep the roller bridge & nut lightly oiled & turning free. More than three raises per pedal will get a little stiff though.