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Topic: right hand position and tone |
Tommy Boswell
From:
Virginia, USA
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Posted 26 Oct 2013 3:57 pm |
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As a self-taught intermediate player (hoping I've moved beyond beginner), I sometimes forget how much difference the right hand position makes in tone. I tend to pick half-way between the bar and the changer, for full-mellow tone. I forget to move my hand closer to the changer-end for thin-bright tone.
So I guess my question for you pro players is where does your picking hand stay most of the time, and why? |
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Fred Glave
From:
McHenry, Illinois, USA
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Posted 26 Oct 2013 4:50 pm
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I'm no pro but I play out a little bit, and I tend to move my right hand up and down to get the tone I want. I think that for me anyway my baseline position has my right hand resting between the bridge and the pickup and the picks hit the strings about 3 inches down from the pickup. I move my hand down closer to the bar to get a little warmer tone and up past the bridge a bit to brighten it up a lot and all points in between.
_________________
Zum Encore, Zum Stage One, Fender 2000, Harlan Bros., Multi-Kord, |
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Brett Day
From:
Pickens, SC
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Posted 26 Oct 2013 6:38 pm
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| Not really a pro, but I always keep my right hand past the fretboard where the pickup is, beside the pickup, I think, but sometimes I like to move my right hand to the middle of the steel past the eighth fret to chime or sometimes, for a more classic steel sound, I pick strings four and six in that area with the bar two or three frets down. When I play a song or songs with the ending being a low steel part, my right hand stays almost to the edge of the twenty-fourth fret on the right side near the pickup with the bar on the first or second fret with the A & B pedals down. For chiming, my right hand stays past the 24th fret, unless I move it to the middle of the steel |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 28 Oct 2013 4:35 am
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I usually stay about halfway between pickup and bar, but move back by the pickup when I desire a Bakersfield bark.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Georg Sørtun
From:
Mandal, Agder, Norway
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Posted 28 Oct 2013 5:39 am
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Yes, tone is in the hands in the sense that where and how you pick the strings on a given PSG (different PSGs react differently) shape the sound it produces.
Picking-position is the basic (in fact the only) "tone control" I have in my set-ups (no equalizers in my sound-chains), so I always make use of the entire span between bridge and bar to shape tone and attack sound.
As with all things one has practiced over a number of years: picking hand and bar hand automatically move "in sync" to create the intended sound without me thinking about it. Same with how I shape my picking-hand/fingers to hit a string right with the right force and angle, which of course have just as much effect on tone as where to pick.
I use totally straight picks, which in my experience allow for more variations in hand/finger shape and attack sound than regular curved picks ... but that's probably just me 
Generally: "bright" with no punch, is usually very close to, and sometimes almost under, the bar. "Mellow" - with or without punch, is somewhere in the middle between bridge and bar - for me usually a bit closer to bridge than the bar. "Sharp" and/or "really punchy" is close to the bridge - somewhere between fret 24 and bridge. |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 28 Oct 2013 7:38 am
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| Funny, I know of no pro steeler who regularly practices the "pick half-way between the pickup and bar" technique. Can you maybe provide some (youtube) examples? |
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Lane Gray
From:
Topeka, KS
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Posted 28 Oct 2013 8:18 am
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And Donny, after you posted that I looked at my youtubes (my guitar isn't set up at the moment), and found I don't stay halfway between the pickup and bar, but about two or three inches down from the pickup, moving over it when I want that bite.
A couple inches off the pickup seems to give me the tone I like, or at least that I expect.
_________________
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects |
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Jim Hollingsworth
From:
Way out West
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Posted 28 Oct 2013 10:26 am
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I set up between the 18th & 24th frets (usually 24) unless I want bright - then over the pickup.
Jim |
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John Billings
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 29 Oct 2013 2:39 pm
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Lane! We agree on something! 8^) (Just kidding)
On my Kline, that's where my sound is. I seldom move my right hand. |
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Jim Hollingsworth
From:
Way out West
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Posted 29 Oct 2013 9:56 pm
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Additional thought: If I am on the lower string I move closer to the pickup to compensate for the thicker sound. And inversely - as I get to the 3rd & 4th string (on E9) I move farther away from the pickup. This is a trick I learned from Steve Morse pf the Dixie Dregs fame.
Jim |
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Jim Hollingsworth
From:
Way out West
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Posted 29 Oct 2013 9:57 pm
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| P.S. - I almost always agree with Lane!!! |
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