pedal steel construction

danw

danw

cheap bastard
Just a curiosity on my part, as to the nature of the pedals on a pedal steel. I get that the pedals change the tension on some of the strings. Do these pedals have stops, that is, are they calibrated things that bend a note up by a specific amount, or do you have to judge how far to bend with foot pressure? Does each pedal do one string, or do they do combinations of strings so as to change the entire tuning of the instrument?
 
Some pedal pull several strings; some pull only one. There are two banks of screws on the end of a pedal steel that act as limits to set the pitch and the amount of pull. In some cases, you press a pedal 1/2 way down to create a minor.
 
Ok, that's pretty close to what I thought. And thanks for the info. So you might be able to set one pedal to pull two strings by different amounts by adjusting those screws?
 
Yes, that's pretty much a standard for one of the pedals; one pedal pulls one string up a 1/2 step, while it pulls the other string up a full step.
 
Yup, you can set up must pro models to do pretty much anything, but be warned, the mavericks and carter starters will NOT! Check out the steel guitar forum!
 
Thanks all for the info. And crazydoc -- wow, very nice. I'm a big fan of home-built instruments. The setup looks doable, but I bet that took some time.
 
Good quality steel guitars (excluding student models like the Carter Starter and Sho-Bud Maverick) have basically "programmable" pedals and knee levers. Each one can be assigned to more than one string at a time, and can either raise or lower each string. And yes, they have "stops" so the full travel of the pedal/lever hits a tuned spot. The combination of tuning and pedal configuration is called a "copedant". There are some conventions, like Nashville E9 tuning, but copedants can be very personal, and guitars bound to their players via copedants.

Tuning pedal steels is a big pain in the butt! Not only do you have to tune all ten (or more) strings, you have to separately tune all the stops as well. The undercarriage of a pedal steel is just a mess of complicated machinery.

And did I mention they're also hard to learn to play? Pedal steel is the most difficult instrument I've ever taken on. But what a beautiful sound!
 
That's the intimidating part for me -- #1, they're expensive, #2, they look crazy hard to play. Even discounting the tuning issues, it'd be like learning to play one of those organs with the foot pedals. I just don't have that kind of independent movement between my hands and feet yet. Something to work toward, I guess.
 
danw said:
That's the intimidating part for me -- #1, they're expensive, #2, they look crazy hard to play. Even discounting the tuning issues, it'd be like learning to play one of those organs with the foot pedals. I just don't have that kind of independent movement between my hands and feet yet. Something to work toward, I guess.
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Oh, it's worse. Sometimes, the pedal movement is in time with the music, sometimes, it ISN'T. It's like having an extra fretting hand to deal with. And not only do you have up-and-down pedal movement, you have side-to-side knee lever movement! It's even more difficult than playing drums. Plus you have the volume pedal to deal with...
 
when i was a child i thought steel guitars were made out of steel and pedal steel guitars required a special kind of steel.

i know better now.
 
Ah, jeez. Like playing one of those one-man-band setups while also running a sewing machine. Yeah, I'll keep putting that one off. Or maybe I should start learning now, if I ever want to get decent at it before I die.

And as I recall, I had the same confusion -- it was only a few years ago I figured out that the steel was the slide, not the guitar. I remember thinking a steel guitar would be heavy as hell and sound terrible.
 
danw said:
Ah, jeez. Like playing one of those one-man-band setups while also running a sewing machine. Yeah, I'll keep putting that one off. Or maybe I should start learning now, if I ever want to get decent at it before I die.

And as I recall, I had the same confusion -- it was only a few years ago I figured out that the steel was the slide, not the guitar. I remember thinking a steel guitar would be heavy as hell and sound terrible.
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Don't be intimidated. Learning and playing pedal steel is like anything else - after a little practice you get the basics, and can play simple licks and not sound too bad. After that it's practice, practice, practice, and the more work you put into it, the better you get.

Of course, I sound like shit myself, and it's due to laziness, nothing else. :)
 
crazydoc said:
Don't be intimidated. Learning and playing pedal steel is like anything else - after a little practice you get the basics, and can play simple licks and not sound too bad. After that it's practice, practice, practice, and the more work you put into it, the better you get.

Of course, I sound like shit myself, and it's due to laziness, nothing else. :)
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Yeah, I suppose that's like everything else. If I stumble on one cheap [unlikely], I'll pick it up. Honestly, though, I already have several instruments around the house that I still suck at (violin), so I should probably concentrate on that some before I get too much into new acquisitions.
 
danw said:
Yeah, I suppose that's like everything else. If I stumble on one cheap [unlikely], I'll pick it up. Honestly, though, I already have several instruments around the house that I still suck at (violin), so I should probably concentrate on that some before I get too much into new acquisitions.
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You're right - it's best to concentrate and excel on one or two instruments, instead of playing a bunch of them poorly like I do.

However, for cheap you could pick up a lap steel to see if this type of instrument turns you on.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rogue-EA3-Lap-Steel-Guitar-with-Stand-and-Gig-Bag?sku=513453

You can even sit at it and use a volume pedal as you would a pedal steel.

Of course, you'll need a steel to play it with,
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Golden-Gate-Stevens-Steel-Bar-for-Resonator?sku=421090
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Ernie-Ball-Steel-Bar?sku=367274

or just cut off a 3/4" diameter bolt to about 3" long.
 
See, _that_ looks like something I could put together. All I'd have to buy is some tuners and a pickup; I bet I could make an intonable (sp?) bridge pretty easily if I didn't have to also make the action adjustable. One more on the project list, I guess (after the two guitars-in-progress and the bass I want to build next). Man, there's just not enough time in this life to be the musician I want to be.
 
danw said:
See, _that_ looks like something I could put together. All I'd have to buy is some tuners and a pickup; I bet I could make an intonable (sp?) bridge pretty easily if I didn't have to also make the action adjustable. One more on the project list, I guess (after the two guitars-in-progress and the bass I want to build next). Man, there's just not enough time in this life to be the musician I want to be.
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For a lap steel, there's no need for bridge intonation or action adjustment.

Here's some ideas:
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/
http://www.bluestemstrings.com/index.html
http://www.industrialguitar.com/guitars.html
http://www.well.com/~wellvis/diy.html
http://home.insight.rr.com/steelgtr/build.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUrZExMV1R0
 
Crazydoc - I'm more than impressed; I'm amazed. Do you think more simple palm levers could be added to a lap steel for limited pitch raising/lowering? Something like an electric guitar's tremelo unit, but only on one or two strings, and with adjustable stops to govern how much it raises/lowers the note?
 
Yup, its called a B-Bender...... I have one on a Les Paul Studio. IMHO installing a B Bender or palm bar on a six string is a great way to wet yr feet if youre thinking about taking the PSG plunge.

BTW, learning steel isnt that difficult, but mastering it is. There are tons of great licks you can do just by mashing on the AB pedals and one knee lever. Heres an example of some nice AB mashing w/ some more complicated runs thrown in.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2HlbJrTOeCw&feature=related
 
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