Using PSG for slide playing

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Are there any players out there that use PSG for slide (i.e. blues, rock)? I've tried playing slide on 6-string electric and it never worked for me. But since I started messing around with PSG I've found that the ultra high action, heavy bar, and old single coil pickups work wonders for slide playing. And using the pedals is an added bonus, as I can create new 'open chords' with the tap of a foot.

I've also tried the PSG through an all-tube combo naturally overdriven, and I got the sweetest and richest 'blues' tone I ever heard. Ideally, I'd like to have a late 1970s 50 watt Marshall half-stack with a master volume and use it exclusively for steel. I love a real hollow and honking midrangey tone. Unfortunately that kind of amp is just too big and expensive for my liking.

I'm not interested in playing country music, so I'm not too worried about getting a good 'clean' sound out of an amp. Actually, the more I play, the more I like the sound of pedal steel through an overdriven amp.

Dan Sawyer · From: Studio City, California, USA

Sacred steel.

Bob Watson · From: Champaign, Illinois, U.S.

Dave Easley uses either a Marlin or a push pull Emmons through a Mesa Boogie. I have heard him sound like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Larry Carlton etc. I remember hearing him play the Eddie Van Halen solo to Jump on the C6 neck once. bOb has at least one of his cd's for sale on the forum. Its a Jazz cd with a band that he plays with called 3now4. He always gets an "edgey" tone cause of the tube amp sound. Check him out.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Sure, a lot of us have done that! It's sort of "steel playing 101" using a regular guitar...no pedals, no volume pedal, and simple harmonies or intervals. The sound we associate with slide guitar is very often overdriven or distorted. Slide guitarists use this for the character of the sound, but I think they mostly use it to get the same type of sustain that we get using a volume pedal. In my own mind, using a pedal steel strictly to get slide guitar sounds is kind of overkill. Sort of a ..."Why lug a pedal steel around if you're not going to use it as a pedal steel?" kind of thing.

I'm really not trying to discourage you in any way, but merely stating my own opinion, which is that the true beauty of slide guitar is it's simplicity. Once you start throwing in more strings and pedals to get complex chords, and start using a big bar for added sustain, like it or not, you're playing "pedal steel"...not slide guitar.

Randy Reeves · From: LaCrosse, Wisconsin, USA

have you tried a lap steel?
same deal as you approach to pedal steel, but less strings and no pedals.
laps have great tone, sustain, and dirt when you want to.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Leslie, there are a lot of possibilities for the PSG, not the least is that by using pedals when playing a "straight" steel technique you can do a lot more without moving all over the neck.

I am personally thrilled by the joy of hearing and the challenge of playing the righteous clean sounds of Country AND Western pedal steel but there are a lot more possibilities for the instrument than that. I have played mambos using pedals AND bar slants and when working with a band one can occasionally be called upon to impersonate piano, organ, guitar, horns, you name it - with and without pedals.

You might want to check out "Fire In Yer Eyes" on my pickin' page (linked below). It was played in 1978 on a ShoBud Maverick through a Maestro Phaser, a brown Fender "white knob" Reverb Tank and my old '54 (?) Tweed Fender Bassman with the original speakers, turned up to "12" (take THAT Spinal Tap!). No other effects. The pedals were used primarily to get an open minor tuning in the bridge.

Do what you like, but do it with enthusiasm --

Dave

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Dave Grafe - email: dg@pdxaudio.com
Production
Pickin', etc.

1978 ShoBud Pro I E9, 1960 Les Paul (SG) Deluxe, 1963 Precision Bass, 1954 Gibson LGO, 1897 Washburn Hawaiian Steel Conversion

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 24 November 2004 at 09:23 AM.]

Steve Howard · From: High Ridge, Missouri, USA

As a beginning steel guy, I am thinking this possibility to be a big portion of work in my band. I play in a new country band and there is as much slide guitar work as PSG work. I have a Derby E9 customized to have a non-pedal rear neck. I am going to be lugging the thing around anyway, so I was looking to use the rear neck in an open E (151351) tuning (nothin says I have to keep 10 strings on it). I am still gettin used to this whole new world of PSG and slide, but it makes me a much more valuable player in my band. I haven't restrung the back neck yet but have been using a Les Paul with a Hawaian Nut and it reproduces the lap steel sound rather well. I am also using the Dobro style slide so I can do a little more bar lifting and quicker movement.

Although as I think about it, it looks like the E9 neck already has the open E tuning I had mentioned on strings 3,4,5 anyway. I may not want to restring the C6 and see if I can get away with those strings on the E9. I guess I hadn't thought about it as I am really not getting my PSG until Christmas (wife's rules) and I have been just working with the lap style for now.

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Donny, the pedal steel also has a different sound than six-string or lap steel. I like to use the pedals while playing too (i.e. A & B pedal mashing on the E9th neck). Some of the so-called 'country' bends sound really neat when overdriven.

Peter Siegel · From: Belmont, CA, USA

Sacred Steel, Robert Randolph, Sneaky Pete, David Lindley (lap steel)

Greg Simmons · From: where the buffalo (used to) roam AND the Mojave

Here's a nice bit of info from Doug Beaumier on this

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Greg Simmons
Former custodian of the Unofficial Sho~Bud Pedal Steel Guitar Website

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Paul Franklin! A lot of what you hear on country radio that sounds like slide guitar is actually Paul on pedal steel.

I play in a rock band (Open Hearts), and I'd say that 75% of what I do with them is not recognizable as pedal steel to the untrained ear. When I'm playing rhythm, it sounds like guitar or keyboard. When I take a lead, it sounds like a slide guitar. It only sounds like the obvious "pedal steel" when I want it to.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra SD-12 (Ext E9), Williams D-12 Crossover, Sierra S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster (E13, C6, A6)

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