The Steel Guitar Forum

Played with eBow and fingers on a lap steel. Sounds remarkably like an Armenian duduk and quite lovely to my ears. I love it!

http://youtu.be/cDje0NpKKuA

That is awesome, Bill. This guy is good and the instrument sounds great.

That was absolutely cinematic. Beautiful legato sounds. Wonder if it does staccato? I appreciate how cool that is without any desire to play it myself.

"Back to normal mode"

Dig it, the guy is a lefty, what's not to like?

You can do staccato with an eBow by bouncing it up and down on the string.

Very cool use of the eBow! I love this tool and its a crowd pleaser!

Wow. I like that!

I love it! In many ways I feel we're entering into another "golden age" of the lap steel. With so many people discovering the instrument and developing new and interesting ways to play it. It's an exciting time.

I often wonder what will be the standard techniques for steel players in the future. I wouldn't be surprised if using the Ebow is one of them.

Here's a great video of Buddy Emmons using one in another interesting way:

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/vXdPDr ... %26start=0

Very cool. I would not have guessed that finger-on-string like that could work. I assume that eraser under the string is to mute sympathetic ringing?
I dig this guy's outside the box mind.

Someone should send this to Robert Fripp, maybe he'll incorporate it into the reanimated King Crimson which has a year to go before returning to the stage.

Very innovative and still very musical.

Hi,

Very cool!

I just tried this (without the looper) and cannot make it work. When I touch the string with my finger it ceases to vibrate and the sound stops.

Has anyone else tried it?

I've been talking with Gareth about how he does this-
First, it really only works on a big fat solid string tuned down real low-
It's a 0.017 tuned down to a 196Hz G string (Standard guitar 6th string, third fret)..yup- really low
It's like playing a rubber band...Gareth is real smooth at it- he's been doing it a long time and makes it sound superb.

It helps to push down on the string a little bit, and of course make sure your battery in the eBow is fresh and strong.

It looked to me like he was actually pressing the string down far enough to touch the fretboard; perhaps had lowered the nut?

And the drone? Looks like he got that string ringing first with the ebow, then set it on a looper so he could use the ebow on the "melody" string?

Hi,

Jim: I understand the looper drone bit.

Jay: Thanks, I'll try that floppy 0.017 string, and put a fresh battery in my eBow.

Best,

Bob

Jim- he doesn't push it down that much at all- I would say 1/8" max..and even that de-tunes the note quite a bit.

J

The coolest thing approaching an "air" lap steel. I think it particularly suits Eastern music scales and music derived therefrom, and Gareth was thinking East for his performance.

Buddy Emmons did also experiment with the e-bow on pedal steel in his Christmas album released sometime in the eighties.

I found I could approximate the e-bow sound with a Line 6 delay box (with the reverse echo setting) and get quite a wide variety of delay, attack, and sustain characteristics.

Very innovative "out of the box" thinking from Gareth, though.

Kay

Very interesting stuff, and clearly a new direction employing a lap steel.

I would be concerned, however, about using the e-bow in that manner (holding it right over the pickup) as it excites the strings using an AC magnetic field. That field, over time, may degrade the pickup magnets if the e-bow is used in close proximity to the pickups. As long as the unit is an inch or so away from them, it probably wouldn't hurt, so this is just a cautionary note.

Cool. Already bought on eBay. Will experiment))

Love it!

Combined with pedals he could expand his sound even further.

I've often wondered about building a lap steel with a curved bridge and playing it with a bow.

that's interesting. It sounds good

wow, that was a lot of fun to watch him play!

play music!

Opening up so many new things to experiment with. Thanks for sharing I really enjoyed this new approach to what I used to think was a very limited instrument.

That is really great. But special mention to the customisation of the old Guyatone. It would be really interesting to hear it with an electric mistress or the like or some of the latest pedals from Electro harmonix, Pigtronix, maybe the Eventide space or strymon timeline ice patch.