Hey thanks everybody. I'm truly undeserving of all these compliments. I certainly don't aim to sound ungrateful but in the interest of furthering good non-pedal steel, I feel it's important to take into account some of the unfavorable aspects of the recording as well.
First of all my intonation in many places will probably have someone with perfect pitch scrambling for some dramamine. The ending chime especially is pretty yucky. Maybe I can pass it off as sounding more bell-like that way (real bells always seem to sound off pitch). But perhaps that's a stretch.
Second, because I mostly played melody, I think it would have been a good idea to phrase in terms of the syllables of the lyrics. Problem is (gasp) I didn't know all the words to the song so I just winged it. What resulted was "babble" that was supposed to represent some words being sung. I think to someone who knows the words to the song, it might be a bit off putting that the phrasing doesn't match up.
Thirdly the swing is not tight. I'm wondering if this is a result of multitracking, my poor tempo skills (not enough time spent with the metronone), or both. One thing I don't like about my steel playing is that it tends to "float" around the downbeat, never directly on it. Kind of like a drunk guy trying to get "expressive" with his vocal... never quite locking in with the rhythm section. David Keli'i, Jules Ah See, and Jerry Byrd on the other hand were right on it... I think that's what gave their playing such a precision sound.
Fourth, my pinky violining doesn't quite cut it... you can still hear some pick attack.
Oh, fifth, I had the metronome track up so darn loud you can hear it bleeding out of my headphones in some of the spaces. Hence the rapid fade out in the end! The music stops but the tick tock keeps going! Yikes, sloppy joe.
Mike, I used a frypan with the tone control open...through 50's Magnatone student model amp (108 I think?) with the tone control closed almost all the way. I like to leave the tone open just enough to hear the pop of the attack but not so much that I can hear a lot of string and pick noise. I miked everything with a condenser no closer than about 5 or 6 feet, which I hoped would eliminate some of the high end and also give more that old timey sound.
Again, thanks everyone and happy holidays!
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Jeff Au Hoy on 09 December 2006 at 04:51 AM.]</p></FONT>
