Non-pedal vs. PSG without touching pedals

MUSICO · From: Jeremy Williams in Spain

I only have a PEDAL steel and am becoming fascinated with nonpedal.

Here´s what I´ve absorbed so far....

Non pedal is much more portable.

It´s cool.

OK....but is there a substantial difference in sound. If I am already taking my PSG to a gig, and I can for intance use my universal lock lever to flip it into 12 string C6 mode, would I really want to take a second instrument.

I´m too far away for it to happen but what I´d really like would be to hear someone who has a Millenium and a Superslide playing the same piece in the same tuning on the two instruments.

Any comments appreciated.
Jeremy Williams
Barcelona Spain

HowardR · From: N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville

Bill McCloskey has both Millenium & Superslide and can tell you first hand....if he can get away from them for a second.....

I watched and listened to Reece play his Millenium and then put the SS on his lap and lpay it. They both have a modern sound, and being 12 stringed, sure sounded full. It was difficult to hear too much of a difference in tone other than the lap not having the moving sounds of levers & pedals. Of course Reece's use of slants with that tuning has smooth transitions so they are not too dissimilar. I don't know how much this helps as I was just in awe anyhow.

If you compare the sounds of a 6 string Rick or an 8 string Fender, there will certainly be a greater difference in tone.

Les Anderson · From: The Great White North

Herb Remington's new non-pedal D8s and D10s are about as near to a pedal steel sound as any non-pedal on the market. I am mulling over in my mind the options of going for one of Herb's D10s.

I have been told that I would be wasting 2500 bucks buying a non-pedal D10 when I could buy a good S10 pedal for the same price and get a much better sounding machine. I am not so sure about that after hearing a one of Herb's D10s a few weeks ago.

If the player learns to use his/her bar and finger positioning properly, a good quality non-pedal D10 can do almost as much as a S10 pedal and sound just as good.

Just my point of view.

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(I am not right all of the time but I sure like to think I am!)

David Doggett · Posted 14 May 2005 9:26 pm

When I'm in B6 mode on my S12 universal, I rarely use anything but the lever that lowers string 8 to D, which is equivalent to pedal 6 on a standard C6. I mostly play the B6 mode as if it were a non-pedal. I like that sound, and just haven't learned much to do with the rest of the pedals. This works for western swing, sixth-neck '50s style country, rockabilly and some jazz. Sometimes for blues I wish I had an 8-string non-pedal that was not cluttered up with the "chromatic strings."

Bill McCloskey · Posted 15 May 2005 7:49 am

Well,

As Howard said, I have both. I'm sitting here right now going between the two. I have a universal E9/b6 tuning on the steel and Reece's 12 string tuning on the SuperSlide. Tone wise, they are more similiar than different, but they are different. I'm not good enough on either to play you the same tune on both yet, but getting there. I find myself splitting my time equally between the two and wouldn't give up either: each has their advantages. Reeces' 12 string tuning let's me do some things on the Lap steel that I haven't been able to do on the Pedal yet, but on the other hand, I'm learning things on the pedal that are so cool and could not be done on the lap.

What was the question again?

Whatever the question, the answer is they are both great: get both.

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

I want an old S-12 PP with Al Marcus's old tunings.
Adding a pedal each time , 2-3-4 pedals ,
or a lever,
each one a move towards one of his classic tunings.
And that TONE too.

Not so much to have the moving tone, like E9,
but more to have the tunings at hand quick,
though no doubt several things will work moving between tunings too.

Billy Carr · From: Seminary, Mississippi, USA (deceased)

I've played non-pedal licks on pedal steel for years. The basic E tuning is right on the E9th w/o pedals. With pedals 1 & 2 pressed(Emmons set up) the old A tuning shows up. Lower the E's and you can play in the C6th mode. It's all right there. But of course your not usually going to find that old non-pedal sound on the current pedal guitars. That's why I have the 53' National and two Carters. Thanks!

MUSICO · From: Jeremy Williams in Spain

Billy

You have mentioned something that´s becoming an obsession of mine. No peddlers have a big advantage on PSG. They know how to play the tunings. As you say, a PSG has E9 tuning and A6 and B6 and a lot of wierdies in between. But, at least in my case, we just concentrate on going from fret X pedal combination 1 to fret Y pedal combination 2. Non peddlers know how to play a tuning, I spend too much time playing the transitions.

I saw a post abouit Paul Franklin having a pedal fail, and playing a full gig without touching pedals or levers. That´s fantastic. As I play a lot of 2 minute sessions standing up as I pass my pedal steel, I am quite adept at "E9 dont touch pedals" mode...and thanks to my Universal lever lock quite good at "C6 dont touch pedals mode". But I couldnt do anything in A6 or any of the other pedal combos. I know I am losing a lot of musicality by not thinking like a non peddler in each pedal position of my PSG, and changing pedals when I want a different tuning or a transition effect.

Jeremy Williams
Barcelona Spain

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Has anybody ever compared Excel's "Jerry Byrd" model with their standard pedal steel? It would be interesting to hear what the differences are besides one being non/pedal and the other pedal.
Erv

Chris Brooks · From: Providence, Rhode Island

Jeremy,

Are you still doing your one-man show in Spain? How is it going? Any other musical activities?

A sus ordenes,

Chris

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now living in the Ocean State ....

Billy Carr · From: Seminary, Mississippi, USA (deceased)

I think it depends on what type of style a player is trying to find for a particular song. That's pretty much how I look at the tunings I play in and out of. If I were playing background to an old Hank Sr. song I'd probably use to C6th or maybe the open E. If it was a western swing number, say Texas Playboys, I'd probably use the A tuning(with pedals pressed) and add the 7th string to 3,4,5,6 & 8. My Hawaiian songs I play are usually on the C6th tuning such Blue Hawaii & Harbor Lights. This is a very good topic!

MUSICO · From: Jeremy Williams in Spain

Western swing...A6. Excuse me while I write this down. I had no idea of that. The information we Pedal players tend to treasure is "down 3 frets go from A+B to A+F".

¿Western swing A6? And we universal players frown on a lock lever to keep it in B6, because it´s all one big tuning. I do agree, but for practice purposes I´d love even more lock levers. Not when playing but when practicing. I need to practice A6 now. Maybe we should see it as one big tuning BUT made up of LOTS of different tunings.

SO...... next question. I now know I have versions of three tried and true non-pedal tunings. E9, C6(tuned down to B6) and A6. ¿What other pedal combinations give me an approximation of a tried and true non pedal setup?

Thanks to another thread with a question to Reece I now regularly tune my 12th string B up to C so I can play an approximation of Reece´s 12 string non pedal tuning
"D FACEGACE GBD"....mine is actually
"D FACEGACE ADG" but the essence is there and I´ve learnt why Reece has that unusual bottom D instead of the more symmetric C.

And Chris
Thanks for asking. Still doing the one man show in Spain, humor and virtuosismo on wierd instruments. (being a virtuoso in theatre is not hard, learn one, just one, complicated sounding piece on each instrument, practice it ´til you can play it good and fast). After doing a TV show singing a song to our most famous TV chef accompanying myself on snazzy fingerpicking U12 I got an offer to join a country group...I don´t know standard country repertoire, but it´s a fact that the audience only hears what you play, not what you can´t and don´t play,

Also now doing a "one man+wife" show. She´s a mean ukelele player. There´s a Hawaiian number just waiting to be included in the show ¿don´t you reckon?

Jeremy Williams
Barcelona Spain

David L. Donald · From: Koh Samui Island, Thailand

I make a point of trying to play periodically with just one pedal or lever to see what I can tease from that particular tuning.

Each combination IS a tuning by itself, and there for a way to play most anything,
if you look fior the transition positions.

Jeff Au Hoy · From: Honolulu, Hawai'i

Hi Jeremy,

Some people like taking the A6 tuning and flatting the lower E to get a B9/11 (usually referred to as "B11"). This way, the top four strings give you a 6th chord sound while everything below the top string gives you a 9th chord sound.

This B11 and slight variations on it, I suppose, is considered one of the "Hawaiian" standard tunings.

[This message was edited by Jeff Au Hoy on 16 May 2005 at 11:53 PM.]

MUSICO · From: Jeremy Williams in Spain

"B11th"

OK, found it here on the links to Leon McAuliff´s tunings

B(low) A C# D# F# A C# E

¿Is that the standard?

If I put my Universal into "lock mode" and press A+B I get

B e A C# D# F# A C# d# a c# f#

which gets everything but the top E. I could get closer by just detuning one E string to D# instead of using the
E->Eb lever.

Two questions for you "real" non peddlers.

1 ¿Is that B11 standard?
2 ¿Where do I go about learning the B11 Hawaiian style?

Jeremy Williams
Barcelona Spain

David Doggett · Posted 17 May 2005 6:03 am

Back when lots of people played multi-neck nonpedals, one of the necks was often E7. You can get a similar B7 neck by playing in the B6 mode with the B pedal down. That pedal raises the 6th to the 7th. This is similar to the Sacred Steel E7 tuning, which is mostly played nonpedal. A 7th tuning is good for blues, rock, jazz and Johnny Cash style country.

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

An easy way to experience the non-pedal mode without buying one is to leave the pedal board in the case and "fold" the knee levers out of reach!

www.genejones.com

Les Anderson · From: The Great White North

An interesting thought came to mind as I have been reading this thread. Would it not be to the advantage of a pedal steeler to learn a number of bar slants to augment his/her pedal and lever work?

Since I picked my D8 non-pedal, I have been sitting in with a fellow who has a S12 and do occasionally try to pick away on his machine. I must say that I have a much easier time picking out chords on his pedal 12 than he has with my non-pedal. (Mind you, the string spacing of my D8 helps him to grow three extra thumbs).

------------------
(I am not right all of the time but I sure like to think I am!)

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

I play a U-12 a lot of the time but when I want a change of pace or when I play 40s period music with the Riders,I play a Stringmaster.For me the difference that makes it worth bothering with is the tone of certain instruments like old Bigsbys,Rickys and Fenders - and frankly I wish sometimes I had a couple of pedals on them. But I make do with 8 strings and my limitations on such an ax and play it as best I can because I love the sound. And then there's the challenge of keeping the promise I made to Jerry Byrd to learn to play well on a non-pedal 8 string guitar. But if I'm gonna struggle with something,I want a payoff and that payoff is the tone of those old instruments and the musical era it conjures up.
So therefore I don't see the point of having a lap steel that sounds like a pedal steel and from what I've heard a lot of the modern ones do. Sierras with horseshoes and Cruztones (also w/horseshoes)are exceptions to this.

As far as playing a pedal steel w/out touching the pedals - isn't that just part of playing a pedal steel?
-MJ- www.ridersofthepurplesage.com

HowardR · From: N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville

Stephan Miller · From: Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

Jeremy-- you asked about the standard B11 tuning: pretty much everybody has strings 5 thru 1 as D# F# A C# E, so the variations revolve around how to tune strings 8-6. Some different versions are: the one Leon used with low B, A, C#...some prefer B A B...also there's F# A B and F# A C#, the latter being long popular as the easy half-step string 5 retune out of A6 that Jeff mentioned. I'll bet there are more useable variations.
One cool thing, since the high 5 strings are the same, is that every version of B11 (or any 11th chord with this construction) has, in strings 2-5, a major third stacked on top of two minor thirds, which can be played as a rootless dominant 9th chord, or a minor 6th with the 6 on the bottom. With stuff like this at your fingertips, you'll love B11. It's a much more versatile tuning than it's been given credit for, I think. --Steve

Jay Jessup · From: Charlottesville, VA, USA

Jeremy,
The best place to get a feel for many of the various open tunings is Jerry Byrd's instruction course which I assume Scotty still has available, expensive but worth it IMHO. He walks you through all the popular open tunings and provide other valuable tips in the process.
The B11 tuning mentioned above is a great very Hawaiian sounding tuning and another that's not mentioned above is one Jerry calls C#m9 which is available by simply holding down the A pedal.
The problem with playing most of these open tunings on a pedal steel is that the scale length/string spacing of most pedals steels makes the slants hard to play cleanly and in tune which those new lap steels may take care of but I have to agree with those above in wondering what the point is in having a lap steel that sounds like a modern pedal steel.

Jeff Au Hoy · From: Honolulu, Hawai'i

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

B11th is a powerful tuning indeed for the right songs. I played around with it for a few years but ultimately ditched it as an everyday tuning on my Stringmaster. Some good B11th here can be found here:

http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/001954.html

[This message was edited by Andy Volk on 18 May 2005 at 06:00 PM.]

Patrick Ickes · From: Upper Lake, CA USA

Hi Jeremy,
I have to say that, each guitar will dictate your style and sound. We all learn our basics and then go from there.
I started with a Dobro, then Stringmaster, MSA D-10 8x4, Fender 400, and then '02 Zumsteel D-10 9x9. I found that I was playing the style of the old non-pedal/few pedal guitars of the 50's, so I off'd the Zum and went back to the Fender 400 w/6 pedals. It don't have the volume pedal induced sustain of the "pedal steel", but I just love the sound. I don't use a volume pedal, I go straight from the Guitar to the amp(tube), so technique is muy importante! So back to your question.....No... you can't play lap "style" with a modern pedal steel guitar because the sound is all wrong.
Pat

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