Pedal Steel Music

Hello fans and fellow players,

This is Vic Lawson subbing for Bobbe Seymour.

I want to talk about the differences between pot and potless volume pedals. First of all, I’m not an electronics whiz but I do know the basics.

Pot driven pedals have resistance measured in ohms that can affect the tone in some way during the travel of the pedal, whereas the Hilton pedal is more like a true bypass circuit which has no tone change through the travel of the volume pedal.

Essentially, using the Hilton pedal is like plugging your guitar directly into the amp because it doesn’t affect or color the tone in any way. This is very desirable in a recording situation. It does take a little getting used to not hearing the coloring that a pot pedal adds to the tone, but it’s very clean.

I just plug straight from the guitar into the amp, set the tone the way I like it and then put the pedal in the chain and I’m ready to go. Also, you don’t have to replace pots that wear out since the Hilton is a potless pedal.

I’d also like to talk about what order you should place effects units in when hooking everything up. If you’re using a reverb pedal, always put it last in the chain before the input to the amp. The reason for this is that way, everything in your chain has reverb on it. If you happen to use a delay as well, if you put it last, it’s going to delay the reverb and that’s going to sound like a train wreck.

Ideally, if your amp has a post EQ effects loop like the Nashville 112 has, you should run the reverb through that and the way you hook that up is to take a patch cable from the send of the effects loop on the front of the amp to the input of the reverb pedal. From the output of the reverb pedal, run a patch cable to the return of the effects loop on the front of the amp if your amp is a Peavey Nashville 112.

Many amps have effects loops built in, but not all are post EQ. The reason I like to run the unit through the post EQ is because none of your EQ knobs affect the sound of the reverb as nothing is patched in after that point. If the EQ were to affect the reverb, it would obviously change the effect of the reverb and could give you undesirable results.

If I do use an overdrive, I like to make it second in my chain of effects. I like to run my delay first, straight from my guitar into my delay pedal. Then I run out of my delay pedal to the input of the overdrive unit on those rare occasions that an overdrive unit is required. I then run out of the overdrive pedal to the volume pedal and then from the volume pedal to the amp.

If I’m using an amp that doesn’t have an effects loop, then I run out of the volume pedal to the input of the reverb and from the output of the reverb to the input of the amp. If your amp has two inputs, one low gain and the other high gain, use the high gain.

There are no set rules. Feel free to experiment to suit your own personal tastes. This is the way I do it and most everybody I know does it. Since tone is a very personal thing, play with different settings until you find what suits you.

Typically your delay doesn’t need to be heard, but it needs to be there. You need to set your delay where it’s not overpowering. I feel that the need for delay is just to fatten up your tone versus actually hearing your delay I just like to know that it’s there.

As with setting any effects pedal, it’s as much an art as it is a technique, at least when it comes to steel guitar. Guitar players can get away with a lot more especially because they can change instruments with each song if they wish.

The difference in sound between a Les Paul and a Telecaster can require different effects. So guitar players rely more on their effects than we steel players do. Furthermore, steel players aren’t going to change guitars with every song. We play one guitar all night long, we don’t switch between two or three.

Something that a lot of steel players don’t give a lot of thought to are the cables that connect everything. Cheap cables can affect your tone in a noticeable way. I like the George L cables for several reasons. First of all, you can make them to custom lengths so that you don’t have excess cable running all over the place to trip on. It keeps things nice and neat.

They’re a reasonably priced cable and well worth the price. In the rare instance I have a problem with a cable, it’s a solderless design so I can fix the problem in two minutes with a small screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters which everyone should carry in their pack-a-seat.

Finally, George L cables won’t color the tone like less expensive cables will do. When you’re striving for a clean, clear, consistent tone which you always should strive to get, don’t neglect your cables. It’s a small item that can make a big difference.

The tone you put out with your hands has to go through all these components and ultimately you want the tone coming out of your amp to be as good as the tone your hands are putting in. To that end, you want to have the best gear your budget allows and keep it in the best condition.

That’s why Bobbe has hand picked what we stock for steel guitar players. If he won’t use it, he won’t sell it.

Check out our monthly specials at www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and we’ll try to save you a lot of money.

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
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Hello fellow players,

This is Vic Lawson subbing for Bobbe Seymour.

For those who don’t know me, I’m a professional steel player in Nashville. I’ve worked several road jobs, two years with Tracy Byrd, two years with Joe Diffie, a year with Josh Turner, a year with Kevin Denney, one and off with a family group called The Wilkinsons for about three years and Luke Bryan.

I currently work with two time world champion bull rider Justin McBride.

I also worked in Branson for a year with The Collins Family and then in 2005, I worked for Country Tonight, a country variety show. I work an average five nights a week in Nashville, mostly on Broadway.

Last night I went out and heard a prominent Nashville studio player and was thinking this morning how his approach to songs is different than mine. I would like to suggest getting out and listening to other players as a means to expanding your own skills.

After playing 5 nights a week, I don’t want to go out and listen like I should, however it helps immensely and not even necessarily listening to steel players, but guitar players are very helpful in their approach.

Here in Nashville, there are seldom rehearsals because everybody is at such a professional level that all they need is charts or if one guy knows a song, they can throw numbers to everybody else. This is part of what makes it fun.

I think a lot of steel players, when they play, they tend to think about nothing but steel guitar and they sometimes forget that steel guitar is first and foremost a musical instrument. I think the only way to take the steel to a new level is to treat it like a musical instrument instead of just steel guitar. In other words, try to make music instead of imitate your favorite player.

I’ve actually learned a lot from a guitar player friend of mine to approach solos from a guitar player mentality. That’s what keeps steel fresh here in Nashville.

I know Sonny Garrish approached steel from a piano players point of view and it made his playing far more unique and interesting. With today’s modern steel guitars there are endless amounts of changes you can make or take away to personalize your guitar.

I think it’s important to be open-minded as a steel player. If you walk in a place and it’s not traditional country and they have a steel player, I think it’s important to listen for awhile because you don’t know what you can pick up from the guy who is playing even though he may be playing rock or whatever. You might still pickup something that you’ve never thought of.

It’s important to listen to the other people in the band instead of being wrapped up in what you’re doing on your steel. Show up at a gig with big ears, meaning to listen to each instrument onstage because there’s a lot of musical lines or parts that somebody may be playing that you could unison or harmonize with that makes it even more interesting not only for the audience, but for you as a player.

Granted, you won’t get the part every time, but when I screw up, I screw up loud enough so everybody can hear. Then I just laugh along with everybody else and go on. You can’t take it personal. It’s like getting thrown off a horse, you have to climb back on.

One way to really critique yourself is to record the band every time you play a gig and study that. Boy, that will step up your playing, not only for tuning but for phrasing. Most of us are our own worst critics so you’ll definitely be inspired to improve your playing.

When you get to a point in your playing where you think you’re not learning anything new, that’s when it really helps to go out and listen to other players playing live, even though it’s sometimes a hassle, I’m always glad that I did.

Listening to CDs is not the same as seeing a live player because you don’t see what they are doing. The vibe is different because they are feeding off the other players. If all you do is listen to yourself, you don’t know if you’re getting any better or not because you have nothing to compare it to.

From the guys I’ve met over the years, a lot of locals bands tend to rehearse a lot and try to copy the record to the “T”. In fact, a lot of times you should approach a song the way you would play it and not worry about what the session players did.

Session players are often at the mercy of the producer. The producer dictates what the final outcome is so if you take the same session player and the same song, put it in a live situation, you will find that he’ll play it completely different than what was on the recording.

For example, I had been in Nashville for about a year. I was playing a 2 to 6 shift Saturday afternoon at Legend’s Corner on Broadway. John Hughey was in the band that followed us. It was our last song of the set and someone requested a Conway Twitty song.

John was already in the club so I told the singer in our band I didn’t want to play a Conway Twitty song out of respect for John. John overheard this conversation so when I was tearing my guitar down, John came up to me very frustrated and told me, “Vic. I don’t want to ever hear that again.”

I said “What?”

He said, “You don’t worry about what John Hughey played on the record. You play it the way Vic wants to play it. I’ve forgotten what I played anyway. If I recorded a song today, I’d play it different tomorrow.”

John was very adamant about it and made me realize that you should play it the way you want to play it. This is a lesson I’ve never forgotten coming from a player I greatly respect.

I realize that it’s expected that a local band should try to sound like the recording, but if you can’t change the signature lick, try to at least put your own flavor to the fills or try to create your own solo.

When I’m driving to a gig, I purposely don’t listen to country radio. I usually listen to jazz because I don’t want to get to the gig and have my head filled up with someone else’s steel guitar licks. I want to arrive with my own approach. This is something that Bobbe Seymour taught me and is probably one of the things that makes Bobbe such a unique player.

There is a time to listen to steel guitar music and a time to not. Well rounded players listen to all kinds of music. Think of yourself as a musician first and a steel guitar player second, especially when you feel you’re at a dead end on your playing.

We all run into blocks and feel we can’t do any better or learn anything new. That’s when we have to reach outside of steel guitar for inspiration.

Check out our monthly specials at www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and we’ll try to save you a lot of money.
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
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Hello fans and fellow players,

This is Bob Hempker subbing for Bobbe Seymour.

We had an interesting question from a reader this week wanting to know how to do chimes correctly. This is a subject that is better demonstrated than explained, so we shot a video and put it up on YouTube.

Here’s the link: http://youtu.be/ku_FwTTzo_I

This week we’re going to get into copedents. This is basic knowledge for those who have been playing for awhile, but will be essential knowledge for beginning and novice players who should find this week’s newsletter pertinent.

Copedents are as personal and individual as anything else we have in our lives and vary from player to player. I guess the main basic difference in a lot of E9th copedents would be based on Buddy Emmons or the Jimmy Day setups.

The Buddy Emmons setup which is referred to as standard by many people has the fifth and tenth strings raising a whole step on the outside floor pedal, the second pedal will raise the third and sixth strings a half step from G# to A. The third pedal raises the fourth string from an E to an F# and the fifth string from a B to a C#.

With the Jimmy Day setup your main two pedals are your second and third ones. The Jimmy Day setup which is still used by some of us, and is what I use raises the fourth and fifth strings as explained above on the first pedal. The second raises the third and sixth stings the same as the Emmons setup does. The third pedal raises the fifth and tenth strings like the first pedal does in the Buddy Emmons setup.

To simplify the differences, the first and third pedals are reversed. So when you are reading tablature, if you are playing the Jimmy Day setup, remember the pedals go C, B, A, instead of A, B, C.

When I write tab, I don’t use the letters A, B and C. I use the letters R and L for raise or lower. I’ll use the numbers 1 or ½ after the letter. That way you don’t have to read tablature backwards or forwards, you just pay attention to whether you have to raise or lower.

When it comes to knee levers in a copedent, you need to put the changes on your knee levers to coincide with the floor pedals you use them with. In other words, with the Buddy Emmons setup, you need to raise your fourth and eighth strings with your left knee left so you can use it with the pedal that raises the fifth and tenth string, referred to as the A pedal. Alternatively, you can put that change on the right leg.

If you’re playing a Jimmy Day setup you would want that change on your left knee right lever or on your right leg. I personally like having the E raises and lowers on the same leg. I have them on my right leg which is somewhat unorthodox, but whether you choose to put them on your right or left leg, I would recommend having them on the same leg.

I’d like to talk about lowering the second string. A common way of doing it with a knee lever is having a half stop on the knee lever so you lower your D# string to D, then if you want to lower it a whole step to C# keep pushing the knee lever until it goes against the permanent stop.

Some people have two separate knee levers doing this, one to lower a half step and one to lower a whole step. Another way of doing it is tuning your second string open to C# instead of D# and raising it twice to stop at D and then D#.

Still another way is to tune your second string open to D. You can raise it a half step with a knee lever and lower it a half step with a different knee. Jimmy Crawford was the first player I knew to do this. My friend Terry Bethel in Branson who works for Mel Tillis, does it this way. Tyler Hall, a phenomenal young player who works for Joe Nichols plays this way also.

I have a vertical knee lever on my left leg which raises the first string to G#, raises the second string to E and raises the seventh string to G#. That is not a standard knee lever but I like it especially the seventh string raise. I like being able to play a Major Seventh chord with major seventh note which would be the seventh string, in the middle of the chord. It’s hard to get that particular inversion any other way.

One other common change is lowering the sixth string. I like to lower it a whole tone, but I have the string split tuned to where I can lower it a whole tone with the knee lever to F#, then raise it back with my A floor pedal for a G note.

For those who are wondering, a split tuner is found on some modern day steel guitars. They are the row of hex screws at the end of your changer assembly on the right end of the guitar when you’re sitting behind it.

I especially like to split the sixth string by lowering it a whole tone with the knee lever, then raising it a half tone with my B pedal to get a half step raise. In actuality you’re lowering the string a half step. I like using this with my A and B pedals for a dominant seventh chord.

It also works well just with the B pedal for a minor chord. In open position, this gives us an E minor chord when you play strings four, five and six. You can also play the eighth and/or tenth string with this. It is easy to relate to this position in our minds because it is the same position for an E major with no pedals or knee levers.

With the personal nature of copedents, you’re better off to buy your steel guitar from a store like Steel Guitar Nashville where we understand the differences and where you can specify what you want.

If you buy a guitar on Ebay or from an ad on the internet, you get what’s on it and what’s on it may not be comfortable for you or may not fulfill your needs for the music that you play.

Here at the store, we get many players who have bought their steel on Ebay and they have to send it to us to set it up correctly and after paying for shipping and everything, it ends up costing them more than if they had bought the guitar here in the first place.

Another issue with steel guitars is that because they are so mechanical, you don’t know what kind of condition the guitar is going be in until you actually receive it. At least when you buy a guitar from us, you know that it’s been gone through and everything and properly adjusted and setup and nothing is stuck or broke underneath.

School is back in session in Tennessee so we decided a Back-To-School event would be appropriate. For the month of August, we are paying the shipping on all guitars shipped anywhere within the lower 48 states. We’ll also throw an extra set of strings in the box.

Check out our monthly specials at www.steelguitar.net/monthlyspecials.html and we’ll try to save you a lot of money.

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
Closed Saturday and Sunday