The Steel Guitar Forum

I ran across this video of Tift Merritt with Eric Heywood performing "Eastern Light". I really like what he's doing with the pedal steel here. I see there appears to be an Ebow sitting on his steel, and he's getting an almost ebow-ish sound at times, but the way it's sitting makes me think that can't be it (right?). Anyone know what this effect might be? Rotary? Sustain pedal? Other ideas?

https://youtu.be/0hQ02loKo4U

He gets some pretty amazing tones. FYI - here's a pic of his pedal board at a show a few years ago.

Heywood is a master of the volume pedal. I don't hear anything unusual for him in that clip. He uses more harmonics than usual in that clip. He also at one point is sliding picks along wound strings to get a scratchy effect.
He does make use of amp tremolo a fair bit - what I'd always thought was the term on the Princeton Reverb but could be that Strymon Lex pictured. I've never used one so don't know how different it may sound to the amp's tremolo.
The ebow is sitting on the steel but you'll see him moving it out of his way at several points like it was annoying him.
Here's a clip of him using the ebow on Hurricane Lamp - the second song on this clip with Jeffery Focault. The solo in the first song is a favorite of mine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fIdi92-JfY

Thanks for the replies. Michael - thanks for the pic!

Maybe the Rotary is what I'm hearing. That combined with his mastery of volume pedal and bar vibrato technique makes for an amazing ethereal sound, with unbelievable sustain!

I tried finding info online about his current rig but couldn’t dig up much. Judging by the pic of his pedalboard above, I’d speculate that he’s using the “61 Harm” tremolo setting on the Strymon Flint. It simulates the unique tremolo of some early 60s Fender amps and has an almost pitch-shifting quality. Beyond that I’d suggest possibly the MXR Phase 45, which is a much subtler and less cliched phase effect that I’ve put to good use frequently. There are surely other effects he is using but I think those I mentioned are the main components, along with that nice low key distortion he throws in.

It sounds like mostly reverb with maybe a touch of chorus. That amount of sustain is easily attainable without compressors or other sustain devices. It's just having enough volume available on the amp and learning to use the volume pedal properly. Getting good sustain is more just technique and using what you have than using "gizmos".

Turn the amp up! Playing with the amp volume on 2 or 3 and complaining about poor sustain is like putting a brick under the accelerator pedal of your car and then complaining it won't go over 30 mph.