Tone tips for a 40's Supro

Adrian Wulff · From: Portland, OR, USA

I'm currently playing a 1940's Supro, G6 tuning, with an Ernie Ball pedal steel size bar through a Fender Champ. I'd like to get closer to the tone of Junior Brown,or the steel player with BR5-49. Any ideas (a compression pedal?) short of buying a whole new steel? Thanks.

Tim Rowley · From: Pinconning, MI, USA

Adrian,

I think first of all you need to raise the pitch of your tuning, A6th would be minimum, but I would definitely recommend C6th with E on top, tuned this way: 1st string E, 2nd string C, 3rd string A, 4th string G, 5th string E, 6th string C. With an 8-string guitar I would definitely use the "C6th + A7th" tuning, which is made for Junior's stuff.

The bar you need is something like the 5/8" Broz-O-Fonic, something you can easily slant with and zip around with. Ideally the heel end of the bar should be indented or "cupped" a bit so you can control it with your thumb on reverse slants.

Your Supro undoubtedly has plenty of drive and tone in the original stock pickup, I know that mine does and it's a 1947 or '48 model. However I question whether you can quite get Junior's tone out of your Champ. Don't get me wrong, the Champ is a wonderful little amp, but Junior was using Twin Reverbs the last I knew. As you are probably aware there is a lot more tonal variation available on the Twin, also the 12" speaker gives Junior's low A string a lot of guts. If I were you I would try your Supro steel through a Deluxe Reverb, you should be able to find a close approximation of Junior's tone with that combination if you are willing to experiment a bit.

Either the A6th (E on top), C6th, or E13th tuning will get you pretty close to the BR-549 sound. Try the C6th first because it works so well on the Junior Brown material.

More about lap steel tone. Pick your strings fairly hard. Run your guitar's tone control just about full open. Don't buy the compression pedal just yet because I don't think you'll need it. The trick in getting a good lap steel sound out of a tube amp is to drive the preamp hard enough to where it is just BARELY starting to clip, then the natural compression of the preamp tube(s) will affect the "shape" of your tone. Please understand that I am not talking "fuzz" or "distortion" here, just a nice big gutsy tone. This drive is easy to achieve on the newer tube amps having the master volume control. You can do it.

Tim R.

[This message was edited by Tim Rowley on 25 September 2001 at 08:45 PM.]

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Junior Brown's tuning is an 8-string C13th:

G, E, C, A, G, E, C, Bb (high to low).

I'd recommend either a Dunlop Jerry Byrd, John Pearce Thermo-Cryonic, or Red Rajah bar instead of your Pedal Steel bar. In general, they're much more manueverable for lap steel.

A larger Fender amp is a good suggestion.

Finally, see if your local library can find you an issue of Guitar Player about 3 years ago that featured Junior Brown on its cover. He talked about his technique & tone in detail and offered many examples in tab.

Adrian Wulff · From: Portland, OR, USA

Thanks for the ideas! I've got a Fender Blues DeVille that should stand in for a Twin. I've also got a smaller bar, it might be a Dobro bar-but it has the rounded edge and is a lot more mobile. I'm going to go for the C6 tuning and see how that works out.Any recommendations on a good book or tape for begining C6 players

?

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

Let's see ... C6th instructional stuff ...
there are a couple ways to go:

Scotty's book "Basic C6th Nonpedal Lap Steel Method", published by Mel Bay ($19.95) comes with a CD and will definately get you started and contains some good theory background. However, with apologies to Scotty, many of the tunes are kind of lame and simplified IMHO.

Jerry Byrd's Hawaiian Steel Method (about $100) can keep you going for years and introduces many of the classic (but not all) lap steel tunings. It's the bible for Hawaiian-style playing but won't help you much for hot country and swing-style steel.

Cindy Cashdollar has two video tapes on Western Swing steel published by Homespun Tapes for 8-string C6th (G,E,C,A,G,E,C,A high to low). Cindy's tapes move from the stone basics to some more sophisticated stuff like diminshed & augmented licks and teaches standards like Steel Guitar Rag and San Antonio Rose.

Ernie Renn's website for Buddy Emmons has some free C6th material intended for pedal steel that's adaptable for C6th lap steel if you ignore the first string.

All of these have something to offer but there's no single definitive source. Don't ignore standard guitar instructional material either. You can often adapt single note guitar stuff to steel if you're willing to do a little work.

[This message was edited by Andy Volk on 26 September 2001 at 05:50 PM.]

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