The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey guys, New here. Just bought an old 400 and am really interested in using it for mainly Western swing. Anybody have a go to tuning and copedent they want to share? I've been playing guitar and whatever other instruments for years but I'm new to this world. So far I'm hooked. I love the old country whine of E9 but I'm thinking C6 or A6 will be more my speed and better suited My 400. It currently has ABC pedals and is a '66 or'67

Cheers guys,
thanks a lot

One approach you might consider for an 8 string is to use string 2-9 of a standard C6 pedal steel copedent.

E
C
A
G
E
C
A
F

Having the F on the bottom opens up a ton of voicing possibilities.
Assuming you have a 4 pedal, single raise/lower situation, you could probably use a pretty standard pedal 5/6/7 set up, but that F would drop to D on pedal 5 because you wouldn't have the low C raising to D.
The 4th pedal could get you the A7#9 pedal 8 sound, with the b7 ( G ) on the bottom.
Keep in mind that the 7#9 voicing is also present on the diminished pedals
(standard 5 & 6, or 1 & 2 on this diagram ) and the F to D drop will give you something like the boo-wah effect as you move into that chord.

[tab]
1. 2. 3. 4.
E F
C D
A B
G F#
E Eb
C C#
A
F D G

[/tab]

Just food for thought. You probably want to study some copedent systems which will make sense to you if you're already a guitar player.
Hopefully some cable guitar whisperers will chime in here with more nuanced suggestions. Good luck with it!

You can also look at instructional material for standard C6th non pedal tunings for 8 strings, especially those with the high G (A-C-E-G; A-C-E-G), and learn some non pedal standards and overall approach. That's where it all started. The 8 string traditional tuning does not rule anything else out, and its a complete set up for 8 strings (as opposed to leaving out the 1st and the 10th strings of a 10 string tuning). There's no harm in playing Western Swing without the pedals for a while or switching later between different 8 string tunings. I find more old songs in the no pedals instructional books than I do in the C6th with pedals instruction. A majority of current players using the modern 10 string tuning leave out the high G string which has advantages and disadvantages. But in non pedal C6th 8 string instructional material the high G string is pretty much a given. Just a thought... you can't lose either way.

You say the guitar currently has ABC pedals; what E9th tuning does it have? The top 8 strings? The bottom 8 strings? Does one of the pedals lower the E strings? You could get the A6th tuning by engaging the A&B pedals; and B6th (up one fret=C6th) by lowering the E Strings - if the guitar is set up for E9th.

Here is a recent post comparing the E9th tuning to the traditional C6th tuning on a Fender 400. The author is Mike DiAlesandro from May 2020 in the For Sale Section.

Further to Richard's suggestions, the 400s were commonly issued with A6 tunings, and with a google search you can prob find the original copedent set ups online. I think they commonly had the F# on the bottom.

These are variations of A6 from the Fender manual, if you can read it:

Thanks a lot here guys. Great suggestions. I've got the manual. I tuned it to the suggested A6 today. I like it a lot but it seems a little flabby or something to me. Especially after E9. I'm really interested in the idea of E9 with AB pedals making A6. The E9 I used was standard E9 just leaving out the top two low strings. So your saying the Top eight as in omitting the two high strings? Things get very confusing with top and bottom talk for me lol. I really appreciate it guys. A6 is a lot of fun. I played along with some swing backing tracks and it's instant swing. Easy neck to comprehend initially for sure. As with anything it can get as complex as you want. Thanks guys.

Dear Troy - The tuning laid out by Mike DiAlesandro, low to high is B - D - E - F# - G# - B - E - G#; That is the E9th tuning that will produce A6th by pressing the A&B pedals. As Mike points out, it can be easily re-tuned to C6th without putting on any strings of significantly different gauges. That sequence, low to high (B-D-E-F#-G#-B-E-G#) is the "lower" 8 strings of the modern 10 string E9th tuning. In the section on Strings for sale (or Copedants) you can consult what the typical gauges are for those "lower" 8 strings, but its gonna be like a wound .38 for the low B, and an .11 for the high G#; You need to buy some strings ! The easiest way is buy a typical E9th set of 10 strings and just use the "lower" 8 strings.

Currently, what is your lowest string? What is your highest? and are there 4 pedals or 3? You mention A-B-C pedals, which of course is 3 pedals; Is there a 4th pedal?
As always, good luck!

@Richard, there are three pedals in this. Capable of four but it's missing the pedal, rod and cable. I'I'm sure a can fabricate something for a fourth pedal and a knee lever or two down the road. I've got a ton of strings around here so I was able to piece together a set for A6. I think maybe .46,.34 .32,.26, .24, .22, .17, .12 or something like that anyway. Broke some .17s messing with E9. I have order E9 10 sets around here. I'm a string eater upper on acoustic so I usually have tons of unwound kicking around. Electric too for that matter. Used to go through at least a set it two a show. Banjo strings though.......8 years hahaha.

Ok so I've got it tuned to 8 lowest strings on E9 tuning. B-G#. A-raises the Bs-C#s, B Raises the G#s-As, C drops the Es to D#s. Feels really good on this guitar. Nothing is too tight, pedals are all working as they should I think and everything is staying in tune really well. Thanks a lot for your help guys. Now it's time to hit the books lol. With this tuning I can easily time up to C6 if I want to do a C6 lesson.

I had a Fender 1000 for a while and tuned it like this. Worked great!
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I had a Fender 1000 for a while and tuned it like this. Worked great!
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