My Universal

[mick hearn]

Well at last I think I have my Universal. No - I didn't buy one. I made it. Well retuned my old Sho-Bud to be precise.

Like a lot of others I had been playing E9 pedal steel in country bands whilst it was all pretty popular but then got bored and confined the pedal steel to the garage. Then I started playing around with lap steels and getting some ideas and got into the swing mode. Then as some may know I started messing around with bar slants to get the E9 licks and it worked pretty well. Believe me it was a good road to discovery and I enjoy it.

When Alan Cook advertised his Kline guitar for sale I missed out because I spent too long pondering and reading up on Universals and in particular Kline guitars. My fault. I should have jumped sooner. Ah well.

But then I got thinking. I like C6 playing but most if not all Universals are E9 and with addition of extra pedals and the use of the knee lever to lower the E's you have a B6 tuning and the corresponding pedals to do a Buddy Emmons if so desired. Then I thought a bit more. Why hasn't anyone made a Universal to operate the other way round? (And this is where someone of knowledge jumps in and says it has already been done by .....) . Anyway I got a set of C6 strings from JD and put them on the Sho-Bud. Now for the pedals. Armed with Buddy Emmons' copedent I had to decide which of the 5 pedals to use. I only have 3 so having read how he came up with the idea of what the pedals did I settled for pedals 5,6 and 8. Thank god for rack and rattle cos I can do what I want with ease. I played around for a bit on these for a couple of days but decided for me the pedal 8 was not what I wanted. Back to the drawing board then, and back under the guitar. Lets have the third pedal as pedal 7. Oh yes. Beautiful - and the lovely chords that come out of that are great. Well for those with double necks you may have already found that out but I've never had one. Now for the levers. I have four to mess around with so opted for Buddy's set up on the right levers. Great so far so lets play. No, didn't work. Because on the E9 I have always had me E raise and lowers on the right leg I found muscle memory kept jumping in when I wanted to lower so swapped them round.

Ok now that leaves me with two levers doing nothing. Thinking cap on. What strings are already being raised and lowered and what do I have to add to get the popular E9 pedals 1 and 2 in to play. Well I finally settled on what I thought would work and hey presto it did. Even morew chord combinations and some really nice Lloyd Green unison notes to boot.

Well lets see how it all operates once I have played around quite a bit. So far I have spent a week behind the guitar stopping only to eat and feed everyone else and do the household chores.

HELP!!!!!! I've been bitten by the bug again and I still have slants as well. And now Xmas is coming to interfere - never mind.

[nevada150]

Well Mick I don’t understand much of that, but with the addition of pedals and knee levers to your slanting dexterity, I expect to hear some very good stuff in the near future.
Keith.

[Danny Mitchell]

Well done Mick,
that's a very interesting path you've chosen, and like Keith, I'm looking forward to hearing the results of your labours having enjoyed all of your adventures in 'lap'land.
Once you've settled on your setup, it would be most appreciated if you would post your copedent, to better understand the changes that would be possible (discounting the 'dark arts' of slants, of course).
Thanks for keeping us informed

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

Just passing it on.....Take the hug &kiss I don't mind

[mick hearn]

Well I must say I love what I have done with the limitations - however - I now realise that they were right after all. The way the current Universals are based on E9 is right after all. It does not work as well the other way round. I might have known that people like Reece Anderson would not sell us a dud and if there was a way of reversing it he would have done in it. Never mind - I continue with my learning curve.

Well done JD. Yes I was aware. The Buddy raise and lowers on the right leg are important and thats why I went in that direction. There are some really nice combinations to be had.