Unusual Modifications

[Haddock]

Thought I might try a wee discussion on this topic to see if anyone has any interesting offerings. On another thread, Ken Byng described a ‘feel stop’ on the A half pedal and it got me thinking that there’s bound to be a lot of crazy and not so crazy things that people have tried with their steels over the years. Indeed, Donny mentioned a while ago that he used to use a ‘Golden Throat’ voice box effect which is not something you see every day. Anyone got any stories about ‘unusual modifications’ that they have tried or seen? Or any interesting effects or electronic tweaks? Surely not everyone plays vanilla steel……
Cheers
Calum

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

Ere you go Calum I have posted this b4 but theres always a new audience on here. This is Barry Gaskell aka "The Buzzard" semi incontinent twangster at his best

[Haddock]

Thanks John, thats exactly what I’m talking about and what a clever idea! It instantly made me think that the pedals could actually have a full second row, sort of like the black and white keys on a keyboard! There’s this ‘one note’ thats missing from my copedent that I’ve just not been able to accommodate and this might just be a clue as to the way forward.
Quality stuff.
Cheers
Calum

[Jif]

Thanks John, thats exactly what I’m talking about and what a clever idea! It instantly made me think that the pedals could actually have a full second row, sort of like the black and white keys on a keyboard! There’s this ‘one note’ thats missing from my copedent that I’ve just not been able to accommodate and this might just be a clue as to the way forward.
Quality stuff.
Cheers
Calum

You mean like this Calum? Using the toes to push up on a 2nd set of pedals, you could even get a 3rd row of pedals worked from the heels as in Johns video. Problem would be that by the time you've tuned all the pedals the gig would be over and folks would be heading home

Totally over the top, but certainly innovative!

[Danny Mitchell]

I thought the heel pedal in John's video was mindblowing, but that Sierra D12 Behemoth is mind-bogglingly-blowing, Geoff!
Can't even imagining how heavy that might be, let alone the copedent possibilities.

[Jif]

I thought the heel pedal in John's video was mindblowing, but that Sierra D12 Behemoth is mind-bogglingly-blowing, Geoff!
Can't even imagining how heavy that might be, let alone the copedent possibilities.

Think it was a one off that never caught on Danny. An example I suppose of taking things to an extreme, far too complicated, you'd end up getting your feet all tangled up, I would anyway.

A one off heel lever on the other hand looks like a pretty cool and usable idea as Barry demonstrates in Johns video.

[Uncle Roy]

Wow Geoff, what a monster that is ? that would frighten the the sh—e out of Ole 3x5 me.
Love to hear that being played though.
Who is the pictured player?

[Haddock]

Up the way pedals, Geoff. Great discovery and I hadn’t considered that. I was thinking though, that organ players manage a full set of black and white notes on pedals so there are all kinds of options to explore. It would be possible to condense a universal into a smaller space this way though the cross shaft department might be a challenge. Doesn’t affect me as I’m far from universal but I do fancy a wee ‘black note’ pedal in between A and B for the missing note in my ‘no pedals’ harmonised scale routine….
All good fun!
Cheers
Calum

[Jif]

Wow Geoff, what a monster that is ? that would frighten the the sh—e out of Ole 3x5 me.
Love to hear that being played though.
Who is the pictured player?

Indeed Roy, more a novelty than a practical setup. Can't remember who the player was, one of the "older" players on here might remember. There was an old thread on the US forum all about the guy in the picture who also designed the setup. If I remember correctly there was some kind of scandal surrounding him relating to defrauding the US tax dept and he ended up doing time, think it was some kind of pyramid scheme that went badly wrong!

In any case his toe pedal design never took off for obvious reasons.

Last edited by Jif on Sun Apr 10, 2022 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Jif]

Up the way pedals, Geoff. Great discovery and I hadn’t considered that. I was thinking though, that organ players manage a full set of black and white notes on pedals so there are all kinds of options to explore. It would be possible to condense a universal into a smaller space this way though the cross shaft department might be a challenge. Doesn’t affect me as I’m far from universal but I do fancy a wee ‘black note’ pedal in between A and B for the missing note in my ‘no pedals’ harmonised scale routine….
All good fun!
Cheers
Calum

Yeah a one off up pedal between A & B would be do-able without over complicating things, though as you say the cross shaft set up might get a bit complicated, though it's obviously do-able as shown in the Sierra.