The Steel Guitar Forum

20 years ago I made a 'little' program with Quickbasic which scanned the entered copedent for combinations of pedals and levers to make any given chord. It also produced all the chords for a certain pedal status. Furthermore, it had a table where the user could define which pedals/levers were compatible/incompatible with one another, in order to exclude 'impossible' combinations.
I put 'little' above in quotation marks because programming it was so complicated it took me months to complete it. In the meantime, other similar programs have been created, but I've always found that none of them had all these features. I showed it once to Tom Bradshaw, and he can attest to its uniqueness. Unfortunately, it won't run on today's computers, not even within DosBox, and its operation with keyboard shortcuts/no mouse is... well, stone age from today's perspective. So, finally, some weeks ago, I decided to duplicate its features with Excel/VBA. I am happy now to be able to present the result at http://www.banjo-tabs.com/psg_scanner.php
The sheet is free to download; compensation is on a donation basis. I'd be happy to hear from users if they find it to be something of value for researching their setup, or if somebody finds a bug, or wants to submit a proposal.

Here's a screenshot:
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Thanks for looking!

Updated PSG_scanner.xlsm 4 Jan., 7:40 p.m. CET

I also just added Doug Jernigan's and Gary Adams' Avenger copedent, but their RR2 lever is not so clear concerning the half stop. The lever raises the G# 5 halftones to C#...? So, what note is it at the half stop? Could be an A# or a B....

Can't find a download link. When I click on the links for different tunings, I only get a text file. Is Excel required? Do you have to import the data in the text files into Excel?

You need to right-click the links and on the menu that opens, select 'Save target as...'

Thanks. I was posting an edit to my post at the same time as your reply. Sounds like a cool tool.

Yes you need Excel to open the sheet. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. You open PSG_scanner.xlsm like any other Excel sheet and then import a copedent by clicking the 'Load copedent' button on the Scanner sheet, NOT like you opened the sheet.

The default copedent that is displayed when you open the sheet is a 'modern' E9th that has the full tone raise on the first string.

I just sent to Randy Brown this explanation of the compatibility table:

The comp. table is a little hard on the eyes.... I guess I should use variations in the color to better guide the eyes.

Ok, how to use it..... You set the compatibility pair-wise, with one pedal on the left-most column and the other pedal or lever on the top-most row. Now, where the row of the first pedal intersects the column of the second pedal is a button you set to green if the two pedals are compatible, and to red if they are not. Unfortunately, in half of the cases, the intersection falls on the blank part that has no buttons, so you need to swap the pedals and find the new intersection which now has a button. Since this can get a little tiring, I will fill the blank with buttons, too, and will find a way to make it easier.

I've detected a bug. Until it is fixed the download page is offline.

The sheet is fixed; I had to rewrite the whole pedal/lever scan module - phew!! Again, it's downloadable from http://www.banjo-tabs.com/psg_scanner.php

Cool. I'll check it out.

I made a few updates. The two scan buttons should now be self-explanatory. Reset button added to the chord scan.

The latest version is always at http://www.banjo-tabs.com/psg_scanner.php

I'd appreciate to hear back from forumites who have checked out this tool. Thanks!

Hans,
Thanks for all your work on this! Do you know if it will work in OpenOffice or Google Sheets? I don't have Excel and am pretty limited in my understanding of it - I opened the .xlsm file in OpenOffice, and it looks pretty, but none of the buttons seem to do anything. In Google Sheets if I click on a button, it tries to edit the button! I'm probably missing something obvious, like a "run mode" or something, but maybe it's a compatibility problem?

Hi Bryan, I just tried the options you mentioned myself. It appears that neither OpenOffice nor Google Sheets can run my file. Google obviously can't handle macros. I don't know why in OpenOffice the macros don't work, even after allowing macros in the security settings. So, now we know that my sheet only works in Excel. Too bad.... I'm not sure if it would be possible to make an Excel sheet with these features without macros. If it was it would be a huge amount of work, and the result inconvenient to operate.

Hans Holzherr wrote:Hi Bryan, I just tried the options you mentioned myself. It appears that neither OpenOffice nor Google Sheets can run my file. Google obviously can't handle macros. I don't know why in OpenOffice the macros don't work, even after allowing macros in the security settings. So, now we know that my sheet only works in Excel. Too bad.... I'm not sure if it would be possible to make an Excel sheet with these features without macros. If it was it would be a huge amount of work, and the result inconvenient to operate.

My understanding is that macros in Open Office are in a different format to macros in Microsoft Excel. I believe some simple macros can convert over OK but you have to rewrite the macros if they are more complicated.

Open Office uses Star Basic as MS Basic is copyrighted and is essentially a different language.

At least that was the positon 3-4 years ago. In any case, it doesn't work as you've discovered

Just going to download it now, many thanks for all your work

Hey Geoff, thanks for the additional info! Hmm, maybe there's a converter for MS/Visual Basic to Star Basic....

This looks like a very handy program. Thanks, but I've got a tech question. Is "save target" the same as "save link as" in google chrome?

'Save link as' appears to save just the link, while 'Save target as' saves the file. Or so it should

Unfortunately, doesn't work in Open Office Calc. Still, looks like a good deal for the Mickeysoft users.

No joy with excel for mac…
can I ask, what is the minimum version of excel for windows we need…?

Excel 2007.

I have downloaded this program Hans, but have no clue as to how to enter my copedant. Not very intuitive for dummies like me. Can you provide to me some guidance? I was hoping I could simply type in my copedant and then everything would fall into place?

John, basically, you can do that, but it's not by entering notes, but by selecting notes from the drop-down menu of each cell for the open tuning, and selecting the changes in halftone steps in the dropdown-menus of any cell of the pedal setup/copedent chart to the right of the open tuning. For the drop-down menus to open you just click the respective cell, and the arrow that appears next to it. Hope that helps!

Maybe I should make a screen video of how to use the program.

I should mention that the default copedent when you open the sheet for the first time is standard Emmons 3 floor ped./5 knee levers. Of course, when entering your own copedent by altering the default, you need to pay attention to set the changes that don't apply to zero. After you're done, save the copedent by clicking the 'Save current cop....'.