The British Steelies Society

HI ZUMBILLY I UNDERSTAND YOU HAVE THE FRANKLIN PEDAL OR 4TH PEDAL ON YOUR STEEL. COULD YOU HELP ME AS I HAVE SAME .HOW DO YOU WORK IT WITH PEDALS A B C OR KNEE LEVERS . THANK,S IN HOPE .DEREK

Derek.

I have it too, I rarely use it. It does have its uses, but there's so much to learn without knowing what you can do with a franklin pedal. One lick I love with it is this....

Key D...

Strings 4 and 5 only... Pick together at 6th fret, A pedal down and E's lowered, after picking, slide back to fret 5 and release the knee lever, then release the A pedal, then press pedal 4, then slide back to fret 4 and raise your E's.

Great lick. All slide after the original pick on fret 6..... You will hear the top note doesn't change but the bottom note has five notes. It's hard, as you have to sustain all the way to the end, keeping the volume the same, and you must do smooth slides and pedal operations so as NOT to hear the top note ever drift off pitch....

That should keep you busy using Franky Ped.....

PS.. B's always return sharp after a full lower, so press A pedal soon after to get the steel in tune...

All steels do this..... Anyone who says otherwise is wrong... Unless you have compensators underneath which maybe Zum and Franklin steels may have, but too much metalwork underneath leads to problems, and extra weight....

It's the dreaded characteristic that we all see on our petersons more than we actually hear... It's nothing to worry about, AND, never keep looking at Peterson tuners after you've tuned your steel, use your ears and compensate audible tuning issues with your bar... If you look at a Peterson you will see out of tune strings after lowers, etc.....

Have fun....

Come down sometime, visit Suffolk, and have an hour or two here with your beautiful guitar...

David H..

Hi Derek

I sort of agree with David's thoughts, but would add:

Zum's do have lower compensators, they work superbly and they're so simple. With the B's to A's drop and the string 6 drop they really help.

The Franklin pedal is quite an ingenious change... Messing about with it, I've twigged it works well with Franklin's knee lever arrangement.
i.e. string 7 raise and string 9 lower, and perhaps the greatest benefit is gained if you can do both at the same time.

You can probably view this pedal in a few different ways... just considering it as a 2 above.
So, say you're at the first fret playing an F chord on 8, 6 and 5, move up two frets to the 3rd fret and press the Franklin pedal, play 9, 6 and 5 - you have the same chord.
You'll notice that strings 7 and 6 are the same pitch, if you're guitar is adjusted correctly; so you could play 9, 7 and 5.

With this group you can raise string 7 a semi-tone and get the sus chord, like ped B does at fret 1. Note that lovely 9th note you have on string 4.
I know you have the same thing in the fret 1 position on string 1, but it's what comes next!

Playing string group 9, 7 and 5, with the Franklin pedal and string 7 raised a semitone, now drop string 9 a semi-tone... a very nice 5 chord voicing.

Okay.. If you have an Emmons pedal setup, you can use the C pedal with the Franklin pedal, but it's nice if you can balance the 5th string so it remains the same pitch when both pedals are pressed.
So, we're at fret 3 with the Franklin pedal in and string 7 raised a semi-tone... Now pedal in the C pedal with the Franklin pedal... Wow! just strum from string 4 down to 10:)
Just remembered... you have a nice 4 chord here, with C ped added.
And finally drop that 9th a semitone to bring in the 5 chord, then resolve to the root chord at fret 1.

It's surprising what can be done with this change... I would bet Franklin could blow your mind with this change alone!

That's my thoughts Derek, I hope it helps.

Cheers
Mark

My thank,s once again Billy for your reply , It looks like i will have to study this in more detail.How ever I must confess ,I took up the steel not knowing what i was getting in to, and started from scratch with a steel and book, and gradually things started to happen .ithink i am at an intermediate stage right now.What really is pleasing is i can get in touch with top players and learn. i am allways practicing and never get tired ,and as long as i can i will try to better myself as a pedal steel player .Did you read Dave Hartley,s reply ? He is class isn,t he? Any way thank,s once again .Regards derek.