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Topic: "Nighttime" on frying pan and Moog lap steel |
Tom Gray
From:
Decatur, GA
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Posted 8 Jan 2012 7:52 pm |
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I recently got a Moog lap steel, and it has quickly become my main guitar at gigs. I’ve been wanting to experiment with recording the Moog in its “infinite sustain” setting. Ambitiously, over the holidays I decided to start with a version of Jerry Byrd’s Ebow tour de force “Nighttime” from the Master of Touch and Tone album.
Recording a Jerry Byrd arrangement is both humbling and rewarding. I got a lot more out of this project than I expected. The lead is a Rickenbacher A-22 frying pan in E13, and the answering and wailing parts are the Moog lap steel. I had to stack three single-string parts on the eight-bar sustained section, just as Jerry multitracked his original Ebow parts.
This was a lot of fun to do. I hope you like it.
http://soundcloud.com/delta-moon/nighttime
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www.tomgraymusic.com |
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Rick Stratton
From:
Tujunga, California, USA
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Posted 8 Jan 2012 11:19 pm
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Very cool, Tom!
I've always liked that tune.
Never knew it was done with an E-Bow. I'll have to experiment with one.
Can you tell us more about the Moog?
Great wailing!
Thanks for posting....
Rick |
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Bob Russell
From:
Virginia, USA
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 4:56 am
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Beautiful!  |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 5:48 am
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Very nice, Tom. How do you like playing that Moog? Is the instrument itself nice to play?
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Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Tom Gray
From:
Decatur, GA
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 5:49 am
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Thank you both. Rick, several years ago Jerry Byrd said on this forum, "George Lake mentioned the only gadget he ever saw me use was the E-Bow, which is true. I used that for a while - it went good with my style of playing but I didn't over do it. I would play 8 or 16 measures of a song using it and that was it, like 'Danny Boy' and things of that nature." On "Nighttime" he used it for three voices stacked in an eight-bar passage, to great effect.
If you can imagine 12 Ebows built into two 6-string pickups, one in each polepiece, that's basically the Moog guitar. You can activate the sustain a little or a lot with a foot pedal and control too with right-hand damping. I'm still working on the subtleties but have great hopes for developing some kind of technique.
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www.tomgraymusic.com |
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Tom Gray
From:
Decatur, GA
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 5:53 am
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Mike, I like it a lot. It's a solid piece of ash with strings through the body so there is plenty of natural sustain. 95% of the time I'm playing it as a straight steel with no effect, and even my vintage-gearhead guitar player thinks it sounds great.
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www.tomgraymusic.com |
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Steven Cummings
From:
Texas
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 8:56 am
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Thanks for sharing Tom, that is a wonderful sound you have going there!
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Lookin' on the sunny side.... |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 9:15 am
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Wow ! Very cool.
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Bob |
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Michael Milton
From:
Ontario, Canada
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 1:21 pm
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Congrats on your Moog - they are a great instrument. That is the first black (sparkle?) one I've seen. How do you like the finish.
Also...
- do you find the mag pickups noisy?
- have you been able to use a pick as a steel? |
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Tom Gray
From:
Decatur, GA
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Posted 9 Jan 2012 4:22 pm
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Michael, it's solid black, no sparkle. I had originally considered a natural finish, but the solid paint knocked a chunk off the price because they didn't need to use prettier wood. I'm fine with that. It's alder, not ash as I said above. The fretboard markers are beautiful (maybe abalone?) but sometimes they disappear completely when the light changes. When that happens and I'm high on the neck I can make some ugly sounds. So I'm considering having them replaced with something easier to see.
I've had no problems with noise. Sometimes I get a high-pitched electronic whine, but flipping the ground switch on the pedal kills that.
The manual says use only Moog strings, but they make only Spanish sets. The engineer who designed it told me any good steel strings will work. They also suggest you don't adjust the pickup heights, but I had to lower them and it was no big deal.
I've worked at the fingerpick move shown in the Moog video, and if you use the middle or base of the pick with a little meat behind it you can hammer and pull a grace note like a fiddler might play. But for longer notes with decent tone you need the mass of a bar. At least I do.
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www.tomgraymusic.com |
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Michael Milton
From:
Ontario, Canada
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Posted 10 Jan 2012 3:27 am
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In fact, Moog shipped mine with George L.’s Stainless Steel Dobro strings G tuning: Gauges: Stainless Steel, G tuning - 16, 18, 28w, 36, 46, 56
http://www.georgelsstore.com/strings.html
They also suggest Frenchys Pedal Steel Guitar Store. http://sites.google.com/site/frenchyspedalsteelguitarstore/strings
I've used Frenchies successfully. I think the heavier gauge of string gives a better result than on the fretted guitar (although I tend to use gbdgbd or dadFad not the higher tunings).
My pickups definitely have a level of white noise so I tend to use a noise gate or the piezos.
Also, I've had some luck using the picks as slides but only at some settings which I have trouble reliably returning to. I'm thinking of trying to get some machined with a heavier bottom 'ring'. I do find you can play with 2 bars which has been fun to develop as a technique.
Cheers, m |
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