Pedal steel tuning for guitar?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JodyRae
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JodyRae

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Can someone suggest a tuning for a country styled tune....for some backing slide. I play a lot of open G and E, but they don't really seem to work for this tune. Maybe there's a tuning for guitar that emulates the standard pedal steel tuning? The tune I'm working on is in G, if that helps. A link would be fine also. Thanks in advance.- J
 
"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."

originally posted by lpdeluxe in another thread.

try the search function, it may yeild some more info for you...
 
Here's a bunch of lap steel/dobro tunings. Some of them require string changes to have the proper gauges.
http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/tuning.html

The major distinctive sound of the pedal steel is the ability to pitch shift individual strings while others sustain, which is hard to do with fixed pitch tuning (though can be done to an extent by angling the bar.)

The suggestion to use a volume pedal to increase the sustain is a good one.
 
If you want to get the ability to bend one string individually you can get a String Bender installed. Jimmy Page used these quite a bit (I think starting with the Presence album and quite a bit on In Through the Out Door).

You may be able to find more info on the web but here's the site for the Parsons String Bender: http://www.stringbender.com/bender/default.htm
 
You can also buy a pedal steel...MF has Carter single necks for $700. I've got an old MSA that gets pulled out when I need to dazzle myself. I would have to hang myself if I had to play it live, but I can usually get a pretty good recording out of it.
 
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