The British Steelies Society

This is a really good one for lap steel twisting the bar between forward and reverse slants. I used my 2009 George Boards S8 and also played lead guitar and harmonica.
https://soundcloud.com/mike-hearn-197524187/hello-darlin

I have changed the end as John goes really high which is too high for a lap steel of 22 1/2 inches to sound nice.

In the words of Will C "Who needs pedals".

Nice one Mick, lovely tone!

Great stuff again Mick. The guitar and harmonica work is also damned good.

Wow! Great sound and super playing.

Arrangement, playing and tone? All first class, as Will says 'who needs pedals'
Great stuff Mick.
Dave.

Mick, A question- what amp are you using, settings, any effects?

Great steel playing Mick, the first minute and ten seconds emulates the pedal steel guitar perfectly, to get this sound from a " Lappy " must make pedal steel players wonder if it's worth the sore back carting a pedal steel around!
The work you have done on this number is first class in every way, your playing skills are equally matched by your recording expertise, as for effects, the biggest one is the overall sound you create from your playing and bar control.
Thanks for sharing this and please, please, please, continue to upset pedal steel players even more
Robert

I was using a George Boards S8 solid maple, 22 1/2" scale fitted with some of JC's SIT strings so a bit slack compared to the La Bella balanced sets I use on my National. This was fed in to a Roland Cube 80 on the JC Clean setting - Bass 7, Middle 5, treble 6, presence 6. A line out was fed in to a little peavey mixer and then in to my computer running Windows XP. There may have been some slight EQ changes on the mixer to get it sounding right under the headphones. No other effects were used in Cubase. Backing was courtesy of Band in a Box 2017. I did try a little bit of compression in Cubase but decided against it. The guitar was recorded the same way except a little compression was added. Harmonica - played about 2 feet from the mic.

As far is the tune is concerned I was very lucky I was listening to John Hughey as he makes effective use of two notes. I listened to the melody line and then the harmony line memorising them like two separate songs. The next bit is then combining the two and that's where you find out where your slants are going to be. In a lot of cases I am holding a bass note and changing the high note and vice versa. At the start where the D chord changes to a D7 I have to hold a note whilst the note below it starts three frets lower and comes up one fret at a time until the bar is straight. On another occasion it's start with a traight bar and as I am sliding up the neck gradually changing to a forward slant- stopping and then immediately twist the bar back to allow the higher note to drop whilst hanging on to the lower note. It's good fun working them out and you feel good when you achieve it.

I first tried this style when I wondered if I could play Blue Jade on lappy. Those at the SESGF would have heard it there. I was using E13 on that occassion. It worked so I just pushed the idea.

OMG I just found John Hughey's "I Just Destroyed the World". Why the hell did I not discover this way of playing a lap steel earlier as this song is gonna be a real challenge. Seems I started on lap steel too late in life for what I want to achieve - Joaquin Murphy and the likes plus pedal steel sounds - so much to learn.