New to Pedal Steels

[Tony Russell Davis]

Thanks Jif,
You’re very kind to offer me a visit, at the moment I’m playing guitar for 3 Pantomimes and a 2-day Christmas show which will take me up to the end of the year. I will take your kind offer in the New Year if that’s ok. If you’re on Facebook look me up under Donald Laird. If not my mobile is 07740676286. I’ve been offered a GFI Ultra single E9 keyless, with 4 pedals and 5 kneelevers. What do you think?

Cheers
Donald

Hi Donald. I have worked on a couple of GFIs (one a student model) and both were first class in tone and mechanics. As a plus point I found the company to be very helpful when I needed to buy new parts - which included a whole set of keyless tuner buttons and various other small parts - meaning I didn't have to bulk-buy anything. Also working on them is a doddle due to the late Gene Fields brilliant design (let me say that the overhaul/repair was needed due to extreme abuse before my client bought it).
Whether the one you're offered is a good buy depends on the condition and price. Keyless guitars look "different" and many players see that as a detraction but I've got a keyed and a keyless PSG and both work fine. There are some advantages of keyless, so long as you are happy with the look.

[Jif]

Thanks Jif,
You’re very kind to offer me a visit, at the moment I’m playing guitar for 3 Pantomimes and a 2-day Christmas show which will take me up to the end of the year. I will take your kind offer in the New Year if that’s ok. If you’re on Facebook look me up under Donald Laird. If not my mobile is 07740676286. I’ve been offered a GFI Ultra single E9 keyless, with 4 pedals and 5 kneelevers. What do you think?

Cheers
Donald

Sent you a PM Donald.

[Danny Mitchell]

Hi Donald,

As a very happy owner of a GFI Ultra Keyless with 4 pedals and 5 levers, I can thoroughly recommend this guitar. Although fairly inexperienced myself, a certain Mr Willie Gamble (a major picker) had occasion to sit in on my guitar for a full gig and even though Willie is a confirmed Mullen devotee, he had nothing but good things to say about my GFI and how enjoyable it was to play (it was a treat for me to hear my guitar sounding so good, I jumped on to mandolin ).

Also, as you sound like a pretty active, gigging muso I think you'd find the lighter body weight a bonus when it comes to sh#tty get ins.

Good examples of this make can be heard on YouTube, search for Mike Sigler, Ralph Mooney, Norm Hamlet or Mike Mogis.

[lordalladin]

Can I ask what the 4 pedals and 5 levers do?

[Haddock]

Big Question!
Think of the bar as your first finger playing a barre chord on the guitar and the 4 pedals and 5 levers as your 9 fingers doing the chord bit except some of them can play notes on the other side of the barre. (There must be a planet somewhere where the locals can do this!) And then there’s the combination invisible fingers in the spaces in between. You can change the guitar setup to do almost anything you want but there are standard setups thankfully and very well worked out. Do a search for Pedal steel Copedents and you’ll get a world of options!
Enjoy
Calum

[lordalladin]

Hi
Thanks Calum!

[Jif]

Hi Donald, to take Calums analogy a step further, the pedal steel bar is like barring on a guitar that is basically already tuned to a chord, that chord being E9 on most pedal steels these days. That's simplifying it as picking different combinations of strings can result in other chords but it's a good plaçe to start.

The 3 pedals are commonly referred to as A,B & C, and in the Emmons setup the A pedal is the furthest left and the C pedal the furthest right. The A & B pedals are the one's most used. Relating to the guitar, if you are playing an E open tuning and you place your pinkie on the 3rd string 2nd fret lifting the g# to a, you get an E suspended, the same happens if you depress the B pedal on a pedal steel. Now if you also place a finger on your 2nd string 2nd fret, b to c#, you effectively have an A chord if you don't play your 5th string. The same thing happens on pedal steel when you depress the A pedal. So on pedal steel open tuning no bar you can play an E chord, then pressing down on the A & B pedals gives you an A chord.

Basically by using different combinations of pedals and levers and selecting certain string combinations you can get just about any chord you require, but the beauty is you can bend strings from one note to another over time or play a chord and morph it into another chord over time.

Adding pedals gives you ability to widen the range of options you have at your disposal, but 3 pedals is plenty to be getting on with. The link below shows you a pretty standard setup for E9 10 string pedal steel and will most likely be close to how the GFI will be setup.

https://www.steelguitar.com/sampleS10Tuning.html

The coding for the levers is LKL = left knee left, LKR = left knee right and these are the two most commonly used on that particular setup. You can see that pushing LKL to the left with your left knee, raises the E's to F and pushing LKR to the right with your left knee lowers the E's to Eb. So engaging LKR gives you an E major 7th or a Ab minor depending on what the root note is. Combining LKL with the A pedal gives you a C# and combining LKR with the B pedal gives you a B7th.

You can also play single note melodies or use harmony scales to play melodies.

It's an extremely versatile and fluid instrument and it's a pretty steep learning curve to begin with but once you start getting it, it's very addictive.

Anyway I hope this helps to give an idea of how it works.