The Steel Guitar Forum

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to build a dual-purpose rig which will allow me to play roots and jam-oriented rock on pedal steel guitar and six-string electric guitar--through one amp.

I'm a big fan of Barry Sless (David Nelson Band, Phil Lesh & Friends, Moonalice), and this is what he does.

If anyone knows specifically how he makes it work, please chime in.

If not, help me identify one of his amps.

Normally he uses the Two Rock Custom Reverb, but he also seems to be playing the following tweed amp on a lot of youtube videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYHPT87RF74

Anybody know for sure whether this is a Bassman or not? It's not a Blues Deville, is it?

Does anyone play PSG through a 4X10 Bassman or something similar?

Does anyone make one of these affordable amps work for double duty using an A/B switch?

Thanks in advance!

Buell

Looks like a Bassman 4x10 Reissue.

You do realize this is all mimed, right? Like, what you're seeing is not what you're hearing...

Yeah, that looks like a Bassman reissue of some sort, but I'm not sure. I agree that this appears to be lip-synched.

I frequently play pedal steel and guitar through a '57 two-input, dual-rectifier, 4x10" tweed Fender Bassman, using a little outboard reverb and delay. Best amp I've ever owned for either guitar or steel, if it can keep up with the drummer. That's no problem for most things I'm doing these days - mostly Americana and rootsy stuff - but there are bands for which this does not have enough clean headroom for steel. A real loud modern country band would probably bury it for steel.

It is a bit different sound from the typical pedal steel amp - either the usual solid-state megaliths or something like a silverface Twin/Dual-Showman Reverb or their emulators.

I've had a few reissue Bassmans of various types over the last 25 years - they're not bad, but didn't really sound that much (to me) like a real one. I have a friend who beat the crap out of one of the early Fender reissues 5-6 nights a week for 20 years, and it finally started to break in and sound right. But out of the box, they're a bit stiff for my tastes. Fine for pedal steel, but a bit loud and stiff for guitar. YMMV.

Thanks, Dave. Yes, I know this clip is synced somehow. And it doesn't even sound good. However, this is the actual set-up used by the band, and it's easier to see Sless's amp here than in all the two-hour clips of the David Nelson Band in which one can see the same (or similar) amp--with good tone, even.

I wanted to figure out how Sless did it using a more affordable amp than his current Two Rock Custom Reverb. His PSG sounds are good, and his six-string sounds are phenomenal.

Guesses? Could he be running into the same input and using an A/B pedal to switch between instruments?

I'm trying to find something in between a Deluxe Reverb and a Twin in size/wattage . . . and Sless sounds awesome in some clips using this tweed amp.

I can't speak for what he uses now, but a Twin with reverb on both channels could do it with excellence.
Thirty years ago in Maryland, Barry ran his 11 string Bud thru a Session 500 and his Tele thru some kind of Fender (thirty years ago guitar gear held zero interest; and once Barry put on his Tele, I nursed my crush on his Fiddle player).
I used to drive a hundred miles to see Cowboy Jazz if I wasn't gigging that night.

Thanks, Lane! Cool story. I would love to see him live.

I would just use the Twin, but it's too big/clean for six-string in the small to medium rooms I play.

And Barry's six-string sound through either the Bassman or Two Rock kills what I could get from the Twin (my Twin, anyway).

My Deluxe Reverb is too small for PSG except for gigs where we're in the corner of smaller bar areas. It doesn't work for bigger rooms.

For PSG, I'm not as particular about tone. I'm still fairly new to the instrument, so headroom, EQ, and a delay pedal get me where I want to be. My playing is more important to me by far.

What Barry does changing instruments mid-song looks appealing to me, as I want to play more guitar.

When considering something I could use for pedal steel,as well as my Archtop, and assorted six string electrics, I've found a lot to value in the Fender Mustang III I purchased a few months ago. So called modelling amps have made a huge leap in sound quality the last couple years. Pretty simple to navigate, too.

When considering something I could use for pedal steel,as well as my Archtop, and assorted six string electrics, I've found a lot to value in the Fender Mustang III I purchased a few months ago. So called modelling amps have made a huge leap in sound quality the last couple years. Pretty simple to navigate, too.

Naaw. The cooler story is the times I saw them at other people's gigs. I ran into all of Cowboy Jazz at several Dead or Jerry shows.
And it was great hanging with CJ and half of Asleep at the Wheel at Count Basie's gig at the Wax Museum. With Joe on vox.

Lane Gray wrote:Naaw. The cooler story is the times I saw them at other people's gigs. I ran into all of Cowboy Jazz at several Dead or Jerry shows.
And it was great hanging with CJ and half of Asleep at the Wheel at Count Basie's gig at the Wax Museum. With Joe on vox.

I'm officially jealous.

Daniel Policarpo wrote:When considering something I could use for pedal steel,as well as my Archtop, and assorted six string electrics, I've found a lot to value in the Fender Mustang III I purchased a few months ago. So called modelling amps have made a huge leap in sound quality the last couple years. Pretty simple to navigate, too.

Thanks, Daniel. That's something to consider. Would you just set different preamp configurations/amp models for each instrument?

Anybody get good results from putting a solid state rectifier and a bigger output transformer in a Deluxe Reverb? I suppose that's a thought as well.

Probably bringing two amps would be simpler.

I don't know what you are and are not familiar with so please don't get intelligence-insulted---totally not my intention.
There are boost/overdrives that are more about giving your guitar an edge thru a clean rig rather than about dirt/scream. This might be what you want, after guitar, before amp, to set a different sound from your steel.

And---I'm not trying to shill for anything-----
Milkman Sideman has a steel channel and a guitar channel for this very purpose. And there are other 'boutique' amps that either have two channels or can switch to half-power to essentially create a second, lower power, dirtier channel.
Just throwing stuff out there....

I had a, SFDR that I put a Weber Copper Cap in as well as 6L6 (no xformer upgrade) and yes, I got a bit more headroom but it was not a game changer.

Jon Light wrote:I had a, SFDR that I put a Weber Copper Cap in as well as 6L6 (no xformer upgrade) and yes, I got a bit more headroom but it was not a game changer.

A good number of pros (Robben Ford, Jim Weider among them, I think) also put in a Bandmaster transformer. Still probably not enough volume for PSG? I don't need squeaky clean, btw.

I know the goal of getting power tube saturation (for guitar) and enough volume (for PSG) in the same amp is difficult to achieve. But I did find a guy who does it (using what appears to be a backline Bassman reissue).

Jon Light wrote:I don't know what you are and are not familiar with so please don't get intelligence-insulted---totally not my intention.
There are boost/overdrives that are more about giving your guitar an edge thru a clean rig rather than about dirt/scream. This might be what you want, after guitar, before amp, to set a different sound from your steel.

And---I'm not trying to shill for anything-----
Milkman Sideman has a steel channel and a guitar channel for this very purpose. And there are other 'boutique' amps that either have two channels or can switch to half-power to essentially create a second, lower power, dirtier channel.
Just throwing stuff out there....

Intelligence is not insulted. I know about the Milkman, but after I finish paying for a pro steel, it might be a half-decade before I could afford a Milkman.

I think Dave has already answered the main question I had about using a 4X10 Bassman for PSG. Now, the question is rigging up the connections . . . A/B box? Anybody use the same input for six-string and PSG?

Obviously, this is not a problem with my Deluxe--I've used the different channels for different instruments in the past.

For bigger rooms, I could possibly make the Twin work; I'm just nervous about killing people with volume while playing six-string, and I was curious to try a tweed amp.

Daniel Policarpo wrote:When considering something I could use for pedal steel,as well as my Archtop, and assorted six string electrics, I've found a lot to value in the Fender Mustang III I purchased a few months ago. So called modelling amps have made a huge leap in sound quality the last couple years. Pretty simple to navigate, too.

This^^^^ I play steel in a Rockabilly/HonkyTonk-ish band that has a Rock edge to it and use a MustangIII. We have a pretty hard hitting drummer and the Mustang is able to keep up. I use the Twin Reverb preset for the steel and the 57 Tweed Twin for my Jazzmaster.

For what it's worth. I play PSG and Tele in two bands.

I looked for several options to allow me to swap from guitar to PSG as easily as possible. I settled on a Roland Cube 80XL. Now there is no comparison between a SS modeling amp and a tube amp and never will be. But for my level of playing the models in the Cube are adequate.

I have a pedal board I hang off my steel seat with an AB/Y switch and a Roland foot switch (FS-6). It's at my right hand and I can hit the AB/Y to switch from PSG to Tele while sitting at the PSG. Then I use the FS-6 to control one of 4 different presets on the Cube.

I use the JC-120 clean for PSG and the onboard effects for delay and reverb for PSG. I use the Lead Channel set on "Blackface" emulating a Twin for clean guitar. I use the Solo channel on Lead where I set the modeling to "Tweed" when I need to get dirty.

I researched a lot of AB/Y switches and found the Radial Big Shot AB/Y which is true bypass and doesn't suck tone to be the best.

While sitting at the PSG I can switch from PSG to clean guitar or dirty guitar with two clicks of my right hand.

Now if I could just find a way to play Tele sitting behind the PSG I probably wouldn't get out of my seat all night.

I got a Quad Reverb chassis. Johnson cabs. My tech added reverb to the Normal Channel, for steel. He changed some stuff in the "Vibrate-Oh!" Channel so it was more Brown-faced sounding. I'm bugging him to figure out a way to add tubes for that '62 Harmonic "Vibrate-Oh!" Works nicely now for steel on Normal, and for Tele and Strat Baritone on the "Vibrate-Oh!" channel.

John, not to hijack the thread, but the 'harmonic vibrato' needs a lot of circuitry to support it and it just might not fit in your quad chassis, even after removing the roach trem .

You could have your tech build you a 'revibe' - or the trem half of it. That is a pretty amazing bit of gear. The brown trem sounds fantastic, but it does fill up a lot of space. I built the Hoffman version but I think there is a Weber kit.

Or you could just buy a Strymon Flint. That does a fine job with brown trem, and is smalk and light.

Hijack over, sorry

Steven

Thanks for the input, y'all.

For those of you that hit the same input with PSG and six-string, do you find that the volume pedal takes care of the difference in output between the two instruments?

Since I play PSG exclusively in my current band, I haven't tried to make "double duty" work in a "real" situation yet.

I can play six-string while sitting at the steel.I use either a NV112 or a Session 500 with the volume pedal in the volume pedal patch and effects in the effects loop.I have the six-string going into an MXR Dyna-Comp,then to the "A" side of a passive A/B box.The steel goes directly into the "B" side,and the single A/B box output goes to the front of the amp.I can't have both instruments on at the same time,but I do have both on the volume pedal and the effects loop.The A/B switch is close to my right heel and I can switch without looking.I'm happy with the sound on both instruments,especially with the Session 500.Here's a pic

Thanks, Dave. Do you use the Dynacomp to boost the level of the six-string closer to the PSG, or just keep the PSG in the same volume ballpark using the volume pedal?

I could easily answer that by taking my six-string to rehearsal, right?

I learned to play steel on the bandstand. I would play all I could then the balance on Tele. I built a rig 30+ years ago that works great. I have a stand attached to the leg of the steel on the right (changer) side. On it are a Boss 7 channel graphic equalizer followed by a homemade switch using a Les Paul pickup switch with 2 input jacks and 1 output.

I set my amp tone for steel and use the graphic eq to tailor the sound for guitar. From the switch I go to a matchbro, volume pedal, Roland GT 10 and Nashville 112. I used a Session 500 until age caught up to me. I have my rig set up at the club so I can't take a picture.

I play guitar sitting most of the time, and have few problems with it. I like a clean country sound so added distortion would just irritate me, but I could add any effects to the guitar path before the eq.

This is really pretty easy nowadays. I use an SWR SM-500 250watt X 2 channels amp for everything, and just squish the tones about a bit for bass, guitar or steel. And use a bass cab if I need real bass volume. Within the last decade the equipment and mostly the knowledge you need to work it has flourished.

It seems that most people set up the amp primarily for steel guitar and then play clean six-string guitar, with the six-string sound being the compromise.

I'm the other way around. I play rock music, so I really need midrange and some power tube breakup. That's the problem with the Twin, which is too loud to get into a sweet spot with six-string. At low volumes, the cleans are just too sterile for the music I play on six-string.

Similarly, running solid state amps will not cover the six-string side of my rig.

So far, I'm intrigued by the Mustang.

However, I was primarily wondering whether anyone knew the specifics of Barry Sless's setup, as I want a great guitar amp but don't want to spend money until I know it's useful for steel also. I'm trying to find one amp that will satisfy both my six-string and steel G.A.S. Since Barry appears to play through a Two Rock (app. $6500) and tweed Bassmans, he's got that covered.