Western Steel Guitar without having one?

six

six

New member
Hi there

I'd love to add some western steel guitar (or is it called something like lap slide guitar?) to one of my songs but of course I don't have one. All I have is a Strat, a Tele and a Les Paul, a bunch of amps (modeled) and a brass slide, which I might add a glass slide to.

So which guitar/amp/slide combination would get me closest to a steel guitar tone?

thanks

six
 
get a ....

hipshot b bender it'll give you steel type licks along with a slide should get you close....FYI it mounts with the strap pin and you don't really do alot of modification to the guitar.it bends only the b string hence th name and the one i got has a drop d toggle also, i dig mine i have 2 LPs an amer strat and i use my mexi tele b bender almost exclusively now ...put it on the tele it'll work on several guitars but most people use it with teles
 
The best way to get lap steel tone is with a lap steel. There are lot of inexpensive (under $500) models on the market:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/d=tp?q=lap+steel

You could also add a nut to your telecaster, raise the height of the strings, and play lap style. Use clean amp settings unless you are trying to mimic a pedal steel, where a heavy reverb tends to come closer to the sound.

You should also look into some fingerpicking and damping techniques since a great deal of the lap steel tone results from multiple strings being played at the same time.
 
thanks guys

i don't want to spend any big bucks so I actually wanted to get along with what I got. I mean hey: it's only for a couple of songs. The main problem is that what I get sounds a bit to hard in a way. I want to add this creamy sound. Most probably it's because of the brass bottle neck, although I read that lap guitars are mostly treated with steely things.
 
Morning six,
FWIW
2 things that you may want to play with...
...A volume pedal. Strike the string with low or off volume and then increase the volume.
...pinch harmonics. Hold the pick with thumb and middle finger. Strike the string and simultaneously dampen the string with your forefinger. Works best if you can dampen halfway between the fretted note and the saddle.
Just a couple of things to mess with,
Have fun,
BillA
 
I've gotten passable faux-steel sounds out of my strat by compressing the living crap out of it and playing w/ a slide. It works best for short accent slides, not long runs. B-bender will get you closer, but the best solution is real steel, no question.

A
 
Ditto on the volume pedal. Also you might try a different tuning, for example D6 which would be (low to high) D-A-D-F#-B-D, or C6: C-G-C-G-C-F# for a real Western Swing sound. If you get into the style, it'd be worth setting up one instrument with a higher nut that is cut square across the top so your strings don't follow the curve of the fingerboard. Also, a genuine bulletnose steel will give you a better tone.
 
I tweaked a bit today and got acceptable results by compressing a lot and roll off the high end a bit. I used the tele with neck PU.

lpdeluxe: yep. that fingerboard curve is not too helpful! :D
 
lpdeluxe' suffestion of a *6 tuning is really good, too.

It's automatic Western Swing.

A quick half-step slide into those chords and it will really give you the sound.
 
Pedal steel strings are the same as regular electric strings, except that the gauges are suited to the tuning.
 
Listen to some Roy Buchannan records,then take a look around the net and
see if you can find some tabs of his work.
One of the techniques that he used to get pedal steel effects was to com-
bine unison bends with volume swells,though he didnt use a volume pedal
but,rather his pinky on the guitars volume knob.
 
Hi,

I made a little fun record, please forgive me ..
The lyrics are just fantasy, don't listen to it, please.
There I played some licks on my guitar, and used a special ... effect.
What do you think of it ? There's a Solo in the middle. Its played too fast, but the sound is quite nice, or ?

I love pedal Steel sound very much :-)

www.stephan-musik.de/CountrySong1a(SteveSledge).mp3

Best regards,
Steve
 
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