Pedal Steel Music

It’s one of those weeks where we are going back to achieves and revisit one of Bobbe’s old newsletters from a couple of years ago. Here it is.

I’m still getting many technical questions from many players that need or want answers, some of which sound like the sooner they answers, the better. This is one from Wiz Feinberg from the Chicago area.

Subject: What should I do about my neck screws?

Bobbe;
How do you like the subject? 😉

Seriously, my 1983 push pull, with 8 pedals and 9 knee levers is in need of a slight adjustment of the neck screws on both necks. I almost got them right, but no banana.

The problem.

Harmonics don’t jump out any more like they used to; they are clunky and I have to be dead on to get a harmonic at all. When they sound, they don’t sustain very long. The 3rd string is thin sounding above the 12th fret; no sweetness at all. Sustain on plain strings is way down. Cabinet drop is noticeable on un-pedalled strings when 1st two pedals are mashed (E9). When strummed unplugged, the guitar does not “bloom” very much on the E9 neck, but does on the C6.

I believe that the guitar is fighting with me on harmonics and tone on the high strings. It now sounds more like my old Super~Pro than an Emmons push pull!

The decline has occurred gradually over the last half year or so. Temperature varies in the Eagles Club, where the steel lives until I take it out for the occasional one-nighter with another band.

What I have tried.

I loosened all (aluminum) neck screws equally, then pushed down on the necks as I struck harmonics at the 5th, 7th and 12th frets (no bar). When I found places that improved the tone when pushed, I tightened the screws under that area. The screws at both ends are a bit tighter then those in the middle.

I have tried raising and lowering the Lawrence XLR-16 pickups and even tried tilting them with the bridge side higher. No improvement. Sustain sucks and harmonics are hard to hit and keep going.

All other screws are tight, including body to frame and bridge mounts. The anti-warp bar is in place across the front to back in the middle of the body.

Which way should I go with the neck screws? Tighter or looser all around? Tighter in the middle than the ends? If I start with the screws all the way tight, how much would you recommend loosening each pair?

I am trying to get back the classic push pull tone and harmonics like John Hughey or Buddy Emmons had. I play classic Country at a local Eagles club and outlaw Country with another band on Fridays when they can afford the extra man. Any recommendations for adjustments will be appreciated.

My amps are a Nashville 400 at the Flint Eagles and a lighter Nashville 112 on the one-nighters. I use Goodrich electronic volume pedals. One I bought from you, the other from Bob Moss. I have a buffer plugged into the end of the guitar, which I built, which provides 1 meg ohm in and 10k out. Nothing in the effects chain affects the tone directly. I go from the guitar to the volume pedal to the amp, then feed the effects using the first patch loop. They include the Bobro I got from you. I use it every night, on multiple songs.

Wiz Feinberg, Pedal Steel Guitarist Extraordinaire!
www.wiztunes.com

I am a firm believer in my answer in the fact that every screw and nut and bolt on a steel guitar has a purpose. The purpose is to hold something together or to make the guitar perform as well as it can under many different circumstances. Because of this I’ll say that almost every nut, bolt and screw on a steel guitar should be as tight as possible without being in danger of stripping or breaking.

Yes, there are some in the world that feel that different tensions on these things in different places will improve the tone if left loose. If it does affect the tone it will not be in a favorable way and I feel all these ideas should be discarded. Let these individuals that think they need to take your guitar, charge you $200 to loosen up various screws on the neck and so on should technically be put in jail as far as I’m concerned.

Put your guitar together the way it was designed to be put together. If you’re having trouble with sustain, try new Cobra Coil strings, check your cords and volume pedal and you should end up being okay.

Several people have called or asked me via email what they have to tear down, unplug or disconnect when they go on break after a set in a club or go home at night after the gig. My answer is turn off nothing when you go on break except anything that might cause the guitar to feedback when you’re in the middle of a cup of coffee seven tables.

As you know, many volume pedals work so easy that a good stomp by someone walking across the floor or someone tripping on your volume pedal cable can cause your volume pedal to go all the way down. When this happens I think you know what can go on from there. Of course, if you have a tube amp, put it on standby.

When you go home in the evening or leave the stage for long periods of time, it’s a very good idea to turn everything off and possibly even disconnect one of your cords and put it in the back of your amp. Even better yet, unplug the amplifier so the janitor in the club won’t be trying to play steel when you’re not there.

You tube amp players need to keep the smallest amount of time on your tubes as possible. Tubes are kind of like an old electric light bulb, they deteriorate over time and can be pretty expensive to replace. When it comes to tube amplifiers, steel players generally don’t really care for them because of the problems that can invite.

Some guys absolutely love them as I do myself if they sound good. There are some tube amps that sound absolutely horrible and some that are absolutely wonderful. Just like transistors, there are some transistor amps that are horrifyingly bad and there are some that just sound better than anything in the world. It’s not the tube or the transistor that is determining good or bad, but the total design concept of the amp.

The thing I don’t like about tubes are their undependability compared to transistors. The weight of the transformer in tube amps makes the amp very close to impossible to move around. A hundred watt tube amp will probably weight more than your car, but a hundred watt transistor amp will only weigh twenty to forty pounds.

Several people that I know love the Fender Twin 12 tube amp or the Peavey Delta Blues. I agree they are both good sounding vacuum tube amplifiers, but when you figure all the problems that a vacuum tube can give you, the transistor is probably the better choice for your rig.

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour

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Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Open 9AM – 2Pm Second and Third Saturday of each Month
Closed Sunday

This is Bob Hempker and since it’s the Fourth of July holiday, I thought I’d share a few of my Fourth of July memories with you.

Spending so many years working as a road musician, I remember being gone over holidays. Back in the seventies and part of the eighties, the fourth of July usually was spent playing an outdoor country music park.

Outdoor country music parks were very, very popular back then. I’m not sure they even exist today. There was Buck Lake Ranch in Angola, Indiana. Ponderosa Park in Salem, Ohio. Ontelaunee Park in Tripoli, Pennsylvania. Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania. Most of the parks were in Pennsylvania, Ohio or Indiana. There were a few in Michigan and Kentucky.

Usually our summers would consist of these outdoor parks on weekends and working fairs during the week. Performing outside could really become a challenge at times. The weather could really become a prime factor. It was either brutally hot, raining or miserable in some manner.

I have played outside in 120 degree heat and also in temperatures as low as 16 degrees. I remember one fourth of July playing on the Mississippi River in St. Louis right by the arch when a ferocious thunderstorm started. Lightning struck a transformer and blew out the electricity. We had no PA or anything.

The crowd was all sitting on the ground out in front of the stage. They couldn’t understand why we couldn’t play the show. I thought they were going to riot. We got our stuff packed up and on the bus and got out of there. Such is the glamorous life of a road musician.

Back in 1976, Mooney and some other people had an authentic wagon train which traveled all the way to the west coast to celebrate our country’s 200th anniversary. We performed at several stops along their way. The only modern convenience they had was rubber tires on their Conestoga wagons.

Holidays in general were just another work day for us. I never had to work Christmas but every other holiday was a common work day. Part of the life of a road musician is not being able to celebrate holidays.

The Easter weekend ritual was always flying to London to play the Wembley Festival. At that time, all the name artists of country music would be on one plane together with their bands. The other passengers on the plane must’ve been scared to death. Anybody who was anybody in country music was on that one plane going over and coming back. One plane crash could’ve wiped out country music’s biggest stars.

The last Fourth of July and this year, Hillsdale College is promoting an event where people stand up and read the Declaration of Independence. I always do this because that’s what the Fourth of July is all about. If you’re a proud American, take some time to reflect on what Independence Day means.

My personal routine on this holiday is to have my morning coffee, then read The Declaration of Independence before I do anything. Every single person who signed that piece of paper knew that if they lost the war, they would be beheaded by King George. That’s the kind of courage our Founding Fathers had.

We will be closed Thursday and Friday in observance of Independence Day. Have a happy and safe holiday.

Be sure to check out our Fourth of July Sales Event happening now through Monday, July 8th. www.steelguitar.net/sale.html

www.steelguitar.net
info@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Open 9AM – 2Pm Second and Third Saturday of each Month
Closed Sunday

June 27, 2013

Bob Hempker here. To me, being a musician is about finding that one instrument that you are totally compatible with and falling in love with it, sleeping with it and always wanting to hold it in your hands.

Different people have different aptitudes for different instruments. I know one guy who is a great banjo player and another who is a great bassoon player. Each found his own space in the musical landscape.

Many colleges will allow you to go to school there if you play steel guitar, but it has to be a secondary instrument to you. Anyone who has ever studied steel guitar knows that to really be a great steel guitar player, it has to be your number one priority. If you really get engulfed in steel guitar, you don’t have any time to get involved with other instruments.

It’s very beneficial and helpful to be able to hunt out chord inversions, harmony lines and things of that sort on the piano, then convert them to steel guitar, but that doesn’t make you a piano player. It’s better to concentrate on mastering one instrument than a whole bevy.

The love of music and the love of your instrument should rise above any fame and fortune aspirations.

Of course, your goals have an influence in what you focus on. I have a friend whose passion is writing songs. He doesn’t care if he ever writes a million seller or not, he just writes because he loves writing songs.

His goal is to become reasonably proficient in several instruments rather than master one because he wants to be able to understand guitar, bass, piano and drums in order to write better songs.

When you really love doing something, you’d do it for nothing just because you love doing it. Having said that, we need to keep that fact to ourselves or we’ll be taken advantage of mercilessly by music producers, club owners, singers, in short, anybody who needs to hire musicians.

The saying goes that a successful musician is a guy whose wife has two jobs. There are so many musicians willing to work for so little just to be able to play. This is part of the root cause for the plight musicians are in.

If we were to collectively hold out for what we believe we’re worth, we’d all be better off, however solidarity will never be achieved in the music industry. There is always a new kid in town who wants to play for free just to prove himself and get his foot in the door.

There’s no way of winning the battle against these elements. This is a dark side of the music business we are forced to accept. If we allow this to take up space in our mind, it can eventually take over. I know personally several people with superb musicianship who have developed horrible outlooks and attitudes over this. They eventually find it next to impossible to find work.

When people develop bad attitudes, people don’t want to be around them and don’t hire them. Bottom line, the best players don’t always get the best jobs. The point is, you don’t want to let the low pay or bad conditions make you bitter so you blow yourself out of jobs you could’ve gotten.

I had to turn down a job the other day and I recommended another guy for the job and was instantly told, “No, we’ve used that guy before. If we play anything he doesn’t like he takes his picks off and just sits there.”

I understood and told him I didn’t blame him not wanting to hire this guy. This type of attitude reflects on all steel players whether we like it or not, many people will categorize us and lump us all into one stereotypical category by just experiencing one player of that sort.

When being paid to play, we must try our best to make every song that’s played sound better because there’s a steel guitar doing something that enhances the song. That is, unless we’re asked or told not to play on certain songs.

Just some general thoughts, choose an instrument that you dearly love and want to play. Learn to play it as well as you possibly can. Learn how to allow any negativity from other people about you or your instrument roll off your back. Use whatever social skills you have to get along with other people.

Be to work on time. Keep your opinions to yourself. Play as well as you can play no matter what the job pays. When you’re done playing, put your money in your pocket, go home. Don’t hang around.

Next week, we’ll be closed for the July 4th holiday and closed July 5th as well. We wish everyone a happy holiday.

www.steelguitar.net
sales@steelguitar.net
www.youtube.com/bobbeseymour

Listen To Steel Guitar Music Streaming 24 Hours A Day!

Steel Guitar Nashville
123 Mid Town Court
Hendersonville, TN. 37075
(615) 822-5555
Open 9AM – 4PM Monday – Friday
Open 9AM – 2Pm Second and Third Saturday of each Month
Closed Sunday