The Steel Guitar Forum

What;s a good use of a 6th knee lever on your E9th neck? I'll got the standard 5 but also an inside LKL. I'm not really interested in the Franklin pedal lowers of 10, 6 and 5, I've had that on a pedal before and didn't use it much. Plus I wouldn't be able to use it with the E lower because that's on LKR.

Just curious y'all would do.

Thanks.

Just for reference what do you consider to be the standard 5? I assume it's all but LKV on the chart below. If so I keep switching my 6th knee lever and can never find any other use for the 6th lever that's really cool enough to keep!

Thanks for the response, Greg. Yep, I think of the standard 5 as pretty close to what you've got except for your LKV.

Right now I've got:
LKL raises the E's, LKR lower the E's, LKV lowers both B's to Bflat.

RKL raises string 1 to G# and string 2 to E and lowers string 6 from G# to F#. RKR lowers string 2 to D/C# and string 9 to C#.

I looked around and John Hughey had a knee that raised string 4 from F# to G and lowered string 2 from D# to D. One thing I like about that is having a solid stop to lower string 2 instead of relying on the half stop feel on RKR.

Thanks again Greg.

One change a lot of people seem to have and I'd probably use is raising the 1st string to G. I currently do this with a behind the bar bend but it would be great to have it as a change.

I have found for what I play that raising the 7th string to G# is a lot more useful than lowering string 6 to F#. I've some uses for it tabbed out here:

http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Tab/E9%201st ... 20Tab.html

Thanks, Jeff. I might give that a try. I can see some good uses for it, I think Lloyd has that change.

Greg, thanks so much for the link, wow, really great stuff!

I've got the PF instructional CD about the lever that raises the top 2 strings and he strongly stresses that you shouldn't lower the 6th on the same lever, that you should raise the 7th. After hearing your examples I think I'm going to make that change.

Thanks again for the link.

JG Miller wrote:I looked around and John Hughey had a knee that raised string 4 from F# to G and lowered string 2 from D# to D. One thing I like about that is having a solid stop to lower string 2 instead of relying on the half stop feel on RKR.

I would split the 2nd string into 2 levers:

1) lower 2 D# to D and raise 7 F# to G
2) lower 2 D# to C# and lower 9 to C#

Raising string 4 to G sounds like a dicey proposition.

I also like 1st string raise to G, independent of the G# lever. Especially if is not lowering the 6th string at the same time. Good for Mooney backward 'rake' dom 7ths with AB down.

Another useful 'luxury' lever (as in 'if you have a lever hanging around and don't know what to do with it') is 4th string E>F#. Gives you the I to vi minor with AB down. You can think of it as a way to go from AB to BC seamlessly.

Just another option.

Bob,
Thanks for pointing that out. I meant raising string 7 from F# to G. Not string 4, that would be a bad situation!
I think I was counting 4 from the wrong end of the guitar.

Jon,
Cool, both of your suggestions would be great for Mooney lick. Thanks!

Jon Light wrote: Another useful 'luxury' lever (as in 'if you have a lever hanging around and don't know what to do with it') is 4th string E>F#. Gives you the I to vi minor with AB down. You can think of it as a way to go from AB to BC seamlessly.
Just another option.

I like that idea too (assuming you have a guitar that does a triple raise).

Yes--you need 3 up.

And just to fine tune the point, I can't recommend the E>F# lever for Mooney type of bouncing. The C pedal is far more conducive to this. You just can't get the same snappy action out of a knee lever. I'd actually be afraid of breaking something if I tried too vigorously to get that quick action with my 2nd LKL.

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Jon, I see your point about the about the application of the E to F# raise, not being ideal for the Mooney stuff. And the I to vi minor move sounds like it'd have a lot of application.

For what it's worth, I've raised E to F# on my vertical in addition to the C pedal. The lever is great for ballads and shuffles, but you really need the change on a pedal for bouncy stuff.