Should you buy a pedal steel guitar

R

rob aylestone

Moderator
I thought I'd start by explaining a bit about pedal steel guitars, and why they fry your brain.

Seriously - we often talk about chords, chord progressions and then get confused when some people talk about chord numbers, rather than letter names. If you want to play pedal steel, you really need to get your head around the names and the numbers. I've also tried to explain how the pedal steel is one instrument nobody can ever borrow, and why you probably cannot play somebody else's!

This video just deals with the mechanics of what the various pedals and levers do.
 
That's a great video. I play lap steel, which is a whole other animal, and I would love to play pedal steel as well but I just can't justify the time investment considering how much use I would actually get out of it. Your video is good reinforcement for that!
 
markmann said:
That's a great video. I play lap steel, which is a whole other animal, and I would love to play pedal steel as well but I just can't justify the time investment considering how much use I would actually get out of it. Your video is good reinforcement for that!
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Same boat, I've played C6 lap steel a decade or so, and have at times wanted to make the jump to pedal steel, but the prohibitive cost combined with the time investment just seemed like too much. Although I do wonder being relatively experienced on the steel guitar, I would think the learning curve would be cut down significantly.

I remember reading somewhere that Jerry Garcia gave up pedal steel because the time investment to get good enough was more than he could do. Which I found surprising because I thought some of his steel work on the earlier Dead and New Riders stuff was more than passable.
 
It was for me, a huge shock - and worse, with most instruments, you can watch a youtube video and see how your favourites actually played things - and then if you are good with tab, that can show you where fingers go. The copedant thing with pedal steels means you often have no clue at all what the pedals and levers did.

I started with one setup that went I-IV on the first pedal - so in a C chord, the E goes to F and the G to A. Then I saw another where these two string moves were two pedals - giving you a suspension, or a 6th, which also works as (in C tuning) an Am chord. Head spinning stuff - and totally invisible in a video.

It's a totally crazy instrument to even understand, let alone play. I figured this is like the dangerous LED light and horrible sounding but great price mic - very handy to know!
 
I wonder if using a bottle-neck on a 6 string helps any.
I've never touched a pedal steel, but I did rehearse for a particular gig with a band who had a very good pedal steel player.
I was asked to play bass guitar, and the gig was a wake party for a deceased freind of the band.
Rehearsals went ok, then the pedal steel player was due to have an operation on his hand before the gig, so would be unavailable for the gig.
I recorded his playing plus the drummer, so he could be vitually a performer on the day, while we all played in synch with the recording.
On the day, at the last minute, the drummer insisted the recording must be played back through his mixer amp.
I don't know why, but his amp seemed to totally kill the recorded signal, the girl singers got fed up waiting, and started anyway.
The performance was largely a disaster.
 
rob aylestone said:
It was for me, a huge shock - and worse, with most instruments, you can watch a youtube video and see how your favourites actually played things - and then if you are good with tab, that can show you where fingers go. The copedant thing with pedal steels means you often have no clue at all what the pedals and levers did.

I started with one setup that went I-IV on the first pedal - so in a C chord, the E goes to F and the G to A. Then I saw another where these two string moves were two pedals - giving you a suspension, or a 6th, which also works as (in C tuning) an Am chord. Head spinning stuff - and totally invisible in a video.

It's a totally crazy instrument to even understand, let alone play. I figured this is like the dangerous LED light and horrible sounding but great price mic - very handy to know!
Click to expand...
All those combos must drive a guy crazy at first. I'd love to have one of those for a couple weeks!
 
One has to remember also that whenever a knee or foot lever is used the tuning of the instrument changes, that doesn't happen on other instruments.
If it weren't for my previous picking ability on guitar and an understanding of basic music theory I would be right back where I started on guitar as a 12 year old.
I missed the old days of exploration where everything was new and a challenge, the PSG gives it back to me. I changed the Franklin pedal on mine so it drops both
G strings a half step enabling me to change a major chord with no levers to a minor cord without moving the bar by pressing the Franklin pedal. It also enables me to play the IV7 by holding down the Franklin and the A pedal. This is not an instrument, it is a contraption. The most difficult part for me so far is getting used to the finger pics and hitting the strings I want to hit all the while trying to pick up speed. It has been a wonderful journey so far. When I first started I put the finger pics on backwards lol.
Deckley.jpg
 
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Great videos, Rob. I've never even tried to play a pedal steel. After watching this, I'm probably lucky I never went down that road!

markmann said:
That's a great video. I play lap steel, which is a whole other animal, and I would love to play pedal steel as well but I just can't justify the time investment considering how much use I would actually get out of it. Your video is good reinforcement for that!
Click to expand...


Hey Markman, how do you tune your Lap Steel? I've got an old 40s Gibson lap steel that my dad bought about 50 years ago. I got a set of C6 strings, but haven't dug it out to restringing it. It's been one of those "I need to do this someday" projects.
 
TalismanRich said:
Great videos, Rob. I've never even tried to play a pedal steel. After watching this, I'm probably lucky I never went down that road!




Hey Markman, how do you tune your Lap Steel? I've got an old 40s Gibson lap steel that my dad bought about 50 years ago. I got a set of C6 strings, but haven't dug it out to restringing it. It's been one of those "I need to do this someday" projects.
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Send it to me and I will do it for you. I just can't guarantee you will get it back.
 
rob aylestone said:
I'm pleased I'm not alone Doogooder! Contraption - I like it!

Here's a bit more with some of the mechanism.
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This is my third, I had a Marlin D10 and Zum D10. Both too much for me, I haven't enough time left to deal with more than one neck and ten strings lol. So I sold those and
bought the Deckley. Four foot pedals and five knees. I now have a line on an old Williams D10 from the sixties. it only has one knee lever which is odd. 8 floor pedals. The guy wants a grand. I was thinking of just buying it and selling it but I have no idea what it is worth. I know the Williams are highly regarded. I was a machinist for over fifty years so the linkage doesn't scare me. I have made pedals, pickup covers, bell cranks, etc. in the shop. That was fun.
 
There's a Fender 800 - the same as my 400, but a twin version - for different tunings - BUT - one is hard enough I think. I could fit extra pedals to mine - I think 8 is the maximum, but as it is it is so hard to play. The ebay prices for any make are eye watering, unless they have poor tuning, and that can be fixed.
 
TalismanRich said:
Aw, Dogooder, what would you want with this old thing? Heck, the case is almost made of cardboard! How cheap can you get?

View attachment 128412
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Looks great to me, that thing ought to sing. It's not the instrument, its the man behind it, get on it . At least you have a volume and tone control, I don't.
Then again I rely on the volume control pedal I have.
 
TalismanRich said:
Hey Markman, how do you tune your Lap Steel? I've got an old 40s Gibson lap steel that my dad bought about 50 years ago. I got a set of C6 strings, but haven't dug it out to restringing it. It's been one of those "I need to do this someday" projects.
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It really depends on what you plan to play. C6 is a very popular tuning and can be used for most genres but is most popular for Hawaiian and Western Swing. I play similar to David Lindley, David Gilmour, Kelly Joe Phelps and others who use the open E tuning: E-B-E-G#-B-E. Sometimes I will tune my acoustic lap steel to open D chord for a lower and more relaxed feel. The open tunings that I use work well for blues and rock because they have the 1 & 5 on the low and high strings.

My first lap steel was a '59 Gibson BR9 which was a cool guitar but I sold it and got something that suited me a bit more. It did sound great though with that old P90.
 
Let me just say this contraption is the most fun I have had on an instrument since I was a teenager. There is just so much going on just by laying
the bar across it. With no pedals or knees, just by laying the bar across at the eight fret you have at least a C, C7,C9, C13, CM7, CM9, G and more depending on which strings you pluck. Using pedals or knees without moving the bar you have at least 8 more chords. It is mind boggling at times. The different places the gentleman in the video is showing you the same chords is equivalent to the different inversions you would find on the guitar. All I can say is, if you're thinking about it, go for it. It can be down right frustrating at times but never boring.
 
markmann said:
Nice. So you have a BR4 which I believe was a one year model and I think it also has a P90 pickup similar to the one in my BR9.
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I'm not sure if it's a BR3 or BR4. Some places that I've seen say the BR4 had binding, others don't. It's also not the same P90 as you get in a guitar. It's a big ol' thing, It looks like this:
br3-14.jpg

I don't even know if the the tone cap works. I plugged it in once about 8 or 9 years ago, just to see if it got sound.
 
I developed my fondness for pedal steel when I discovered B J Cole. He plays classical music on pdeal steel, and one of my often played albums is Transparent Music.

Here is a video of him demonstrating pedal steel and paying Claire de la Lune.

 
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