The Steel Guitar Forum

This song came to me today like a blast from the past as I was sitting down and playing my Electar Model M in D tuning, trying to get reacquainted with the tune and the tuning. I made a little demo video and later on recorded this track. This particular steel is challenging for me to play, but it was the first lap steel I ever owned, though it has been modified a lot out of necessity. They were not engineering marvels, to put it kindly. You can hear me struggling with the guitar a little and I played without picks too, something I've been doing a lot and it's killing my nails.

Anyway, I just played whatever was laying around the studio: uke, bass, acoustic and electric guitars. The drums are from my loop library. The steel was played through a JC40 and mic'd up with an SM57 and AKG 414. I was thinking of Danny Gatton on what would have been his 78th birthday.

https://mikeneer.bandcamp.com/track/sea-of-love

Nicely done. I was actually introduced to the tune relatively recently, by Raiatea Helm's version, which is quite pretty transmogrified into a modern Hawaiian sound.

The solo around 1:40ish, that was with a bit more gain or overdrive right?

Nic Neufeld wrote:Nicely done. I was actually introduced to the tune relatively recently, by Raiatea Helm's version, which is quite pretty transmogrified into a modern Hawaiian sound.

The solo around 1:40ish, that was with a bit more gain or overdrive right?

Yup, I stepped on a Tube Screamer patch in my RP-1000 for the solo.

When I was playing tons of gigs on guitar years ago, I used to do a pretty good job emulating steel guitar, both Hawaiian and pedal steel sounds, with my Strat. The reason I love lap steel so much is because I can do all those things, including a lot of what I might play on guitar. Best of all worlds, IMO.

Nice job on that, always one of my favorites by Phil Phillips. It translates well with the steel,same song totally different feeling/mood.

I overdubbed a new solo sans the Tube Screamer--it was too abrupt a change for me. This track will be in my Sandbox, which is an album of home recordings/demos etc.

When I make these recordings, it's usually very late in the evening (into the morning) when all are asleep. I work very quickly and don't give myself very much time for regret. I try to get complete takes at the expense of getting it perfect. In this case, the sound of the solo didn't seem like it was part of the same performance. As a guitarist, earlier in my career I would step on a pedal for more gain, etc., but later on I just liked to use the volume knob to add to keep it sounding more consistent.

Thanks for listening, as always. Follow your muse and don't be afraid to just go with it.