The British Steelies Society

Hi All, apologies as always for another potentially stupid question, but is there a 'normal' way to get a C natural on string 5 please?

I can do an almost adequate job pressing the A pedal halfway, but wondered if a tweak to my copedent may make it a bit more accurate, e.g. set RKL to drop Bs to Bb, so that in conjunction with the A pedal I would get a C natural on strings 5 and 10. There's a really nice diminished chord with string 5 raised a semitone - just wondering what do proper players do to get this?

Thanks for any advice, Sid

Hi Sid
I don’t think I qualify as a ‘proper’ player yet but this very issue is what started me adding to the basic copedent and hasn’t stopped yet! The most common way to do this is with a vertical lever which drops 5 a semitone and in conjunction with A pedal, gives you the C.
Time to get out the tools!
Cheers
Calum

Sid, I'm far from a proper player, but I achieve that note shift by having a LKV, dropping the 5th and 10th a semi.

Thank you gents! That's a big help - I shall tinker with the beastie's undercarriage later this week

I've always "half-pedaled" the A pedal, and still do, with or without the B pedal engaged. I reckon once you start looking for additional pedals and kls to achieve a particular lick,there's no end to it and you can easily get sucked into the situation where your co-pedant dictates the licks you play and not your own ingenuity. So beware of adding "stuff" especially to an already loaded guitar, try learning the work-around until you're absolutely certain that you need more ironmongery.
Just my opinion, of course

Like Tony, I have always half-pedalled the A pedal, purely because I played Push-Pull and Pull Release steels for many years, so it was not possible to use splits on those type of steels.
I still half-pedal on my ZB, which of course is capable to do splits, just force of habit I suppose.

A question.
Do you have adjustable screws at the changer end i.e. directly behind where you hook your strings at the changer. If you don't know what I mean, have a look at pedal steel guitars shown for sale on this and the US Forum.
If you do, then there's a way of tuning in all the half-stops on various strings.
If not, there are ways around this which need a bit more effort to achieve but which do the job!
Let us know what you've got and there'll be a deluge of advice!

Aargh! Who would have thought it would be possible to get conflicting advice from this forum?

Thank you all for your help with this - looks like there are two schools of thought, and I wonder if I would do well just to learn to 'half-pedal' the A pedal as accurately as possible before doing anything more.

Nick Bidmade wrote:A question. Do you have adjustable screws at the changer end i.e. directly behind where you hook your strings at the changer.

Nick, I do not believe I do, although I don't have the guitar in front of me at present. It's a Sho-Bud Pro 3 with all pull fingers - some pics are here on the forum but don't show the changers in great detail: https://www.thebritishsteeliessociety.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9268&p=44843#p44843

I'll have a look later and confirm.

Sid, I reckon the 'half pedal mastery', is the way to go. Ninja style! When you consider what Lloyd Green gets out of a minimal setup Boggling.

Nick Bidmade wrote:Do you have adjustable screws at the changer end i.e. directly behind where you hook your strings at the changer.

Aren't those screws for "split" tuning? To "true up" a note raised a whole-tone by one pedal and simultaneously lowered a half-tone by another pedal or KL? e.g. raise E string to F# with pedal C and then bring it back to an accurate F by lowering the E string on a KL?
(Not suggesting you want to make that change, just giving an example)