The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi Everyone! My name is Ben. I'm 34 years old and from the Amarillo, TX area. I've been playing steel for several years now, but haven't dedicated the time I need to really be at the point I'd like. I've been browsing the forum for a long time now, but just joined in the last few days. I've been around some of the Facebook steel guitar groups the last few years as well, so there may be a small handful of people on here who know me and vice versa.

I've been on a Carter Starter the past few years, which although the reputation might not be great, has served me really well as a beginner instrument, other than the fact that it's too short as I'm 6'4. I'm currently looking to upgrade to a much more legitimate guitar. I'd love to get a Williams (see below and that may make sense). But I'm still figuring out all those details!

I've been a guitarist for 20+ years and have a decent collection of pedals and amps, but my best pedal steel tone has been with some Strymon pedals and a Port City Dual Fifty, which is based on larger Fender Blackface amps I believe. I've also got an Ac30 style amp which gets a great tone for the Alt-Country type tone...

My favorite steeler is by far Greg Leisz. I love his sense of melody and suspension. And in my mind, his tone is second to none (Williams guitar). That being said, I lean more towards the steel in modern independent and singer-songwriter music. Though being in Texas, I've been growing more appreciation for country through both the steel guitar and Texas Country/Red Dirt music. I also love Eric Heywood, Rich Hinman, Jon Graboff, Russ Pahl, & probably some others I can't remember right now.

I've also picked up a resonator in the last month, so that's much newer to me and I'm trying to wrap my mind around that, but I'm picking that up and it's coming along pretty fast.

Anyways, that's probably more than I needed for an introduction, but there are some details! I'm glad to be here and I'm happy to join what I've seen to be a largely accepting community!

P.S. I'm basically an insomniac, so if you are as well or if you're in a foreign (to the US) time zone, feel free to hit me up on here! 😂

Hi Ben. Sounds like you're ready to rumble as they say.
Your gear list should surely get you where you want to go!
Adding the williams will be the icing on the cake!
Keep us posted on your journey. This forum is so full of ideas and help its like a buffet for steel playing of all kinds. Welcome. JK

Welcome.
It's worth mentioning, just so you don't get too narrowly focused -- I've heard Greg on Emmons, Sho-Bud, Williams....the differences, IMO, matter a lot more to him (and I 100% believe in the differences) than they do to the overall musical result. He chooses his tool for whatever reason, same as I will choose which of my steels to use for a project, but it's not to say that any one of them wouldn't work very well. Everybody has their own list of reasons why a particular guitar may be their choice, over all, or for a project, whether it's about tone, touch, or ergonomics.

The other names there -- lots of Show Pro on that list. But I've heard/seen Graboff on various guitars as well.

Not a big deal. Just Sunday morning riffing. (btw, Williams is my #1.....this is not an anti-Williams post)

Welcome, Ben. It's nice to have a West Texan in the house (my people are from Amarillo and Lubbock).

What Jon said -- Liesz has played several guitars and always has a very similar tone, regardless of which one. I saw a new video recorded in the last few months and he was playing an Infinity.
https://youtu.be/o1-t9t2t_3E?t=64

To complicate matters, I heard him say in an interview that he has done a lot of his recordings with a 60's Emmons push-pull. Even if he might have played something else on stage.

If you want to cop his vibe, I would concentrate on getting a warm tone using your hands: one hand might be responsible for picking a little away from the pickup and more toward the middle of the guitar -- and the other hand might be in charge of tweaking out the ice-pick highs on your amp's EQ.

Then spend a lot of time on the warmer lower strings and don't be shy about softening some attacks with the volume pedal.

He's big on playing Sus2 chords and not resolving them.

If Liesz has a sonic signature, I would say it's how beautiful his chimes are, and he uses them more often in a song than any steel player I know. It's all about arpeggio runs.

He uses the fingernail of his third finger to get those really clear, beautiful harmonics. And he will sometimes completely cut off the attack with the volume pedal and then slowly add in a fast vibrato. It's all standard-issue moves, but still, I can pick him out of a blind taste-test on the style of how he does it with the volume-ramp-up and the vibrato and the loopy "Willie Nelson" stutter-timing of the whole thing, sometimes a bit behind on some hits, and then seriously pushing the beat on others.

Something you'll hear quite a bit is him playing a batch of harmonics that includes the 7th string... this give an Add2 voicing in the no-pedals position, arpeggiating strings 5 down to 8 and letting them ring on each other.

Or a variation of that which hits tones 2 and 4 but leaves out the 3rd. The 2nd tone technically clashes with the root, because he leaves them all ringing but it works (see the run at 3:02 in the video. Nothing sounds more "Lieszy" than that move right there).

I've transcribed maybe 15 or 20 songs he's done and he keeps it very simple, only using the changes that are on every E9 guitar (even though he apparently has a bunch of other pedals and knees that he rarely uses). I don't have a 12 string, but I've only come across maybe 2 songs I couldn't perfectly replicate since I don't have those two lower strings -- and he's only on them for a brief moment.

Thanks guys for the welcome! I appareciate it!

Jon and Tucker, I agree with both of your general sentiments. I'm sure there's a lot of guitars that would work. And I know that Leisz has played several different brands. I think it's largely like 6 string guitar for me. Different guitars will have different tones, but at the end of the day, the playing is what matters the most...

Tucker, I'd say your description of Leisz's playing style is pretty accurate. And he does have some of the best harmonics I've heard. I've learned just a handful of his songs and it's just such a unique sound to me...

Ben Braidfoot wrote:I think it's largely like 6 string guitar for me. Different guitars will have different tones, but at the end of the day, the playing is what matters the most...

Right. But even more so with pedal steels because, at least modern all-pull PSGs sound more alike than do a range of 6-strings. With guitar, you have Tele's and ES-335's which are really different. But pedal steels are going to be more similar-sounding from brand to brand -- more like comparing various flavors of Tele-style guitars (Yes, the made in Mexico is different, a little, but not that much).

This makes your job easy. You can get any number of pedal steels and get a really similar result. I think a Williams is a great choice. Or a vintage Emmons push-pull, if you want something that does sound a bit different than an all-pull PSG. Either way, you'll be set to get your Liesz on. At 6'4", you'll want to put a 1" lift kit on whatever you end up with.

I posted this on another thread last week or so, but you may not have seen it. Note the differences between these 6 steels -- but in the bigger picture, note how similar they are. It seems like the tone should be drastically different between them, but it's only a subtle shift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpn55HVAoEg