The Steel Guitar Forum

Over Easter I'm going to be replacing the changer in my psg, and I thought it may be a good chance to change my tuning and copedant. I dabble in pedal steel but it hasn't had much play time the last few years compared to my other guitars, and I'm interested in the idea of a sacred steel tuning.

My constraints are:
> 10s 3+4
> No enharmonic/whatever strings up top
> Still want the I to IV change on pedals A and B


I've trawled this forum, but most options I see require more pedals, and are from threads that are quite old. I found a thread with the Carter sacred steel setup, and it reaches down to a B with an E on top. There's also one from BoB that has G# on top and E on bottom. Has anyone tried any of these yet and in subsequent years has anything approaching a standard been developed?

Btw, I tried Dan Tyack's tuning a while ago, and while it was fun, it was still essentially a standard E9.


Anyway, happy for any suggestions.

Pardon the ignorant question...but what exactly is a "sacred steel tuning"? Or what is your definition of it

Mike

Here's an old thread that discussed it: http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/005767.html
I think I'd drop strings 2, 12 and 13, use pedals 2, 3 and 4, and decide for yourself which knee to lose.

Michael,
Here is an overview:
http://b0b.com/tunings/sacredsteel.html
Lane, thanks for the suggestion

Hey Matt,

I think it's pretty tough to put everything you'll need on a 3+4. I think at least a 4+4 is needed to comfortably go where you want without missing something invaluable. The absolute core of the tuning is below. I can provide a copy of my personal tuning as it differs a bit from the more "conventional" SS E7 tuning if you want.


----------P1---P2---P3---LL---LR---RL---RR---((P4))
G#-------------A---------------------------------G
E-------------------------------------F#---F
D--------------------D----Eb
B--------C#-------------------Bb
G#-------------A---------------------------------G
E-------------------------------------F#---F
E--------------------D----Eb
B--------C#-------------------Bb
G#-------------A---------------------------------G
E-------------------------------------------F