The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey y’all. New to pedal steel and loving it so far. I have a GFI SM-10 with 4 knee levers. My RKL raises the first string from an F# to a G. However, a lot of music I’ve listened to do a really neat unison bend by raising the F# to a G#. Is it possible to set the RKL to raise the first to a G#? I assume it’s not as simple as cranking the nylon tuner?

You're right that it's not quite that simple.
There are two things that will increase the raise in pitch.
1. Increase the travel in the lever by adjusting the stops (you might not want to increase it much)
2. Move the pull rod connection at the bell crank to hole further from the axle
Luckily, the GFI is easy to tinker with so you should find a good combination of the two

Something I've found on both of my steels is that with the pull set up for G, I'm not able to tune it to get to G#, but if I set it up for G#, I am able to get it tuned to only raise as far as G.

I generally prefer the unison change but do occasionally want the F# > G change and can just retune the pull temporarily for a song or two...

Not to say I'm confident this would work on any guitar, just that it does on my two steels and the only trade off is the lever action is not quite ideal in the G raise but I don't mind since I don't use it like that very often and it's kind of a bonus that it works at all

Stew is right. Once you've achieved a G#, it's easy to detune it to G

Awesome. Thanks for the help guys. Much appreciated.

If you raise it to G#, with a little practice, you can feel enough to get the raise to G without retuning. It's also possible to use your fingers behind the bar to pull the first string to G (works and looks cool ). Someone mentioned to me that they pull the first string behind the bar to G#. I tried it, and after a few times watching my bloody fingertips flying across the room, I decided to use a knee lever to get the G#. I also have my vertical lever reaising both F# strings to G. I used them both often.

Granted, both those techniques may not yield a perfectly in tune G for chord use, but for using in licks, it is fine. You usually are done with the note before you notice it is not a perfect G note.