Pedal steel live debut (and subsequent efforts).

jpfamps

I am making my live debut on the pedal steel this weekend (3rd and 4th August) at our regular once-a-month gig at the Blue Posts in Berwick Street, SoHo on Saturday evening, and at The Boogaloo in Highgate at 4.00 pm Sunday.

I normally don't advertise my gigs that much, however I have done so in this case to make sure I am fully committed to the enterprise (I normally play straight steel on this gig)!

The band is Major A and The Magic Mile.

I will be playing my Fender 400, the details of which I have posted elsewhere in this forum.

Jimbro66

Wish I could be there Frank. I take my hat off to anyone who can play pedal steel at performance level. Good luck with the gigs!

Cryptid

Good luck... I adore pedal steel. Had a few lessons but never got round to getting myself a steel, it's a kind of all-or-nothing instrument and I just don't think I have the discipline and time for it. 

Kudos!

merlin

Excellent. Having owned two and realising that it's way out of my league, I respect anyone who can commit to playing pedal steel live! 

Have a great couple of gigs. 

jpfamps

Thanks for the support!

I will report back.......

I've been playing straight steel for several years now and have quite a few gigs under my belt, so it's not a cosmic leap, especially as I have a pretty limited set up.

I'm using E13th, which is my prefered straight steel tuning, so I will be playing most of the gig as a straight steel, but using the equivalent of the A&B pedals from Nashville E9th tuning (which is where most of the money is!) for the more country stuff.

Essentially, I am following the pathway of the 1st generation of pedal players (Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day, Ralph Mooney, Lloyd Green etc) who started on straight steel then added pedals (then later knee levers) to enhance their sound.

In fact if you want to get into pedal steel, I would thoroughly recommend starting on straight steel.

Unlike pedal steel, where you need to make a sigificant financial investment to get a playable instrument, you can get a decent straight steel for not a huge amount of money.

You can get a handle on your picking, bar work and the volume pedal on straight steel before making the plunge.

Of course you may decide you actually prefer the straight steel!

jpfamps

Well I survived!!

There were some interesting moments, but on the whole it went reasonably well; there may even be some video evidence....

Apart from a few obvious howlers (forgetting to press the pedals, and pressing the wrong pedals!) the main lesson was that I need to get (much) better at employing the volume pedal independently of the other pedals.

Using the volume pedal on the steel guitar is harder than you might imagine, and it's definitely something that requires significant practice to get to sound right.

I'm in the habit of practising unamplified (I live in a flat).

I did try DIing the steel into a mixing desk and using head phones.

This allowed me to mix the steel with backing tracks and practice using the volume pedal, but tonally the steel sounded so horrifc I couldn't bear listening to it for very long.

Of course that may be my playing!!

I need to come up with a better solution......

stickyfiddle

Nice one

Vids pls!! I'm dying to get more into this stuff 

AntonHunter

jpfamps said:

...

I did try DIing the steel into a mixing desk and using head phones.

This allowed me to mix the steel with backing tracks and practice using the volume pedal, but tonally the steel sounded so horrifc I couldn't bear listening to it for very long.

Of course that may be my playing!!

I need to come up with a better solution......

Are you just straight DI'ing? Joyo American Sound before the mixing desk would probably fix that I reckon.

stickyfiddle said:

Nice one

Vids pls!! I'm dying to get more into this stuff 

And I second this!

jpfamps

Yes I was just DIing directly into a desk with a high impedance input.

I suspect some form of amp modeller may assist.

Regardless, I have managed to upload some snippets of the last gig onto my Youtube Channel (!?).

There is not that much steel on there, and scant evidence of me employing the pedals.

I'll see if there is anything else in the firmament.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fzT1Bq7OCM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ff9tttLt8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsNWTmqxABA 

 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DOSI2E7BMJE

stickyfiddle

Good stuff!! 

Stuckfast

That's awesome. You are much too modest! You've got the Don Helms thing down really well and your playing is really in tune, which for me is the hardest thing about pedal steel. Great tone, too -- what amp are you using?

Jimbro66

Very nice and great music. From those clips it definitely shows that you have come from lap/console steel guitar. If you have that feel, but can also throw in some characteristic pedal bends when the song needs it, you have the best of both worlds. I look forward to hearing/seeing more.

jpfamps

Stuckfast said:

That's awesome. You are much too modest! You've got the Don Helms thing down really well and your playing is really in tune, which for me is the hardest thing about pedal steel. Great tone, too -- what amp are you using?

Thanks for the positive comments.

I've spent quite a lot of time on the Don Helms style. 

It's a great starting point as his playing is very measured, and he uses a bright tuning (E6th), which exposes innotation issues.

I was using a Fender Pro Junior amp. 

I added a touch of reverb from a Surfy Bear reverb unit I had borrowed to test out, but it's a pretty lively room, so I expect you are hearing more reverb from the room.

jpfamps

Jimbro66 said:

Very nice and great music. From those clips it definitely shows that you have come from lap/console steel guitar. If you have that feel, but can also throw in some characteristic pedal bends when the song needs it, you have the best of both worlds. I look forward to hearing/seeing more.

That's exactly the approach I'm aiming to take, ie trying to enhance what I already play with pedals.

Dominic

Great playing /sound .........even got your own Redd Volkaert on the tele

jpfamps

Dominic said:

Great playing /sound .........even got your own Redd Volkaert on the tele

Or Dave Biller!

Might need to work a bit on the playing.....

ElectricXII

I loved that. Would love to see you guys live.

jpfamps

Some more PSG with moving tones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sNqxParCuc

jpfamps

Here's a PSG solo in Crazy Arms from a recent gig with more moving tones.

Ironically the worst intonated part is where I don't use the pedals!

Right hand position still a work in progress.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASXzojj1QDM

dcg

I really enjoyed these clips, and definitely think you're overly modest about your steel playing; one of my bands does Crazy Arms, so the last vid in particular really hit the spot... 

jpfamps

dcg said:

I really enjoyed these clips, and definitely think you're overly modest about your steel playing; one of my bands does Crazy Arms, so the last vid in particular really hit the spot... 

Thanks for your supportive commments.

I was actually fairly pleased how Crazy Arms came out, especially as it was just a clip taken by a friend of mine on a phone; it wasn't something that had been carefully selected from 2 hours of footage!