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Topic: Fat sound wanted |
John Speck
From:
Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 9:32 am |
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| When I play out, playing with enough volume sometimes leads to accidental shrill notes will hit my ears. I get it that my volume pedal skills are not what they should be and maybe that is the correct answer. I have tried graphic eq. and compressor pedal, and just doesn't help. Is there an effects pedal that will help fatten the sound like a bass expander or something. |
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Jack Hanson
From:
San Luis Valley, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 11:44 am
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Hard to answer without knowing what your rig consists of. You may just need to back off the treble and presence controls on your amp and kick up the bass.
My 6-string Gibsons sound nice and fat into my Fender amps when I dime the bass control and dial the treble way back, if not off altogether.
Check out this clip of Chris Scruggs playing his old Fender into a (reissue?) Deluxe Reverb:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuAchSYA6Xo
At about 0:27 you can see his amp settings:
Volume: 2-3
Treble: 1 (off)
Bass: 10 (full-on)
You would seldom if ever play a standard guitar with those settings, but they sound great for steel (especially in the hands of a master like Scruggs). |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 12:07 pm
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The best way to fatten your sound is to make sure you're picking right. I don't know about your experience with playing and I don't know about your equipment, but it starts with the way you pick the strings and the density of the bar and the amount of pressure you use with your left hand.
If you can, fill us in more and your gear, etc.
_________________
http://www.steelinstruction.com/
http://mikeneer.com |
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John Speck
From:
Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 2:13 pm Fat Sound
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| I used to have a Fender Dual 8 just like the one Chris Scruggs plays. When I play out I double on guitar and lap steel. The guitar is a Hofner jazz box w/Kent Armstrong neck pickup and the guitar is a Recording king with a Seymour Duncan Classic Stack pickup. The two instruments are played into a Peavey mini mixer. The guitar settings are no bass,3/4 mid and full treble. The lap is 3/4 bass, 1/2 mid and no treble. Mixer played to vol. pedal. The pedal played to Rowland Cube 80XL on clean channel. I have several dobro bars and a couple of pedal steel bars. I get the best sound with the pedal steel bar. The sweet spots on the neck for sound is on the lower strings at about the fifth to ninth frets. The sound I am trying to clean up is my attact on the upper strings. Just every now and then I will hit to hard and the note will just scream at me. I sorta think I just have to get better with my volume pedal. I also have strings on to play E 6th and C 6th by retuning. Most of the time I use the C 6th, so my strings may be a little slack...I've had 4 pedal steels and trying to sell My MSA and put my money into non pedal steels. My issues with pedal steels is: too many strings, way to complicated to play and the weight. And being 67 years old doesn't help. I played guitar most all my life and wanted to play pedal steel as a teenager but didn't have the means until I was 60. Started playing dobro in my 50s. I work as a luthier. |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 2:21 pm
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As fantastic as those particular Fender guitars are, they are prone to a problem that will probably need to addressed at some point by everyone who owns one, if they are indeed trapezoid pickups.
There are a few threads here already describing the issue, which in short is a result of the inner material of the pickup, which is a forbon type material (vulcanized fiber)--I don't know exactly what was used back then. Anyway, this material warps and causes crazy overtones (you describe certain notes screaming) and a real thinness in the sound.
Does this happen with both necks?
If you can, make a short video demonstrating these sounds and I'm pretty sure I'd be able to diagnose if that's the issue.
_________________
http://www.steelinstruction.com/
http://mikeneer.com |
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John Speck
From:
Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 2:40 pm
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| I don't have the fender anymore. The problem that I described has been the same issue every steel I've had, even one Shobud and even with the MSA I have now. The guitar I use now is a Recording King Lap steel. I put a Seymour Duncan Classic Stack in it. Yes, the Fender did have some issues that you decribed to me. |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Jack Hanson
From:
San Luis Valley, USA
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Posted 20 Dec 2014 9:36 pm
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The process of elimination may help identify your problem.
Eliminate the mixer from the signal chain. Plug the Recording King into the volume pedal, and the VP into the Cube. If the problem persists, eliminate the volume pedal.
Assuming the instrument, the amp, and the cable are all functioning properly, it may just be a matter of tweaking the tone controls on both the Cube and the Recording King.
Backing off the on the guitar's volume and or tone control a click or two can also make a huge difference. Another consideration is the distance between the strings and the pickup. If they're too far out of the "sweet spot," all kinds of weird overtones sometimes happen.
Doubt there should be any issue with technique considering all those years of Dobro playing behind you. It could just be that the guitar and the amp don't match up particularly well. Sometimes that happens. |
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 21 Dec 2014 6:22 am
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I think Mike Neer is right. Picking too near the pickup, for example, can affect the balance of harmonics.
Moving the picking hand toward the center of the guitar will help bring out the more fundamental harmonics. |
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Tom Pettingill
From:
California, USA (deceased)
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Posted 21 Dec 2014 8:53 am
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| Quote: |
| The guitar I use now is a Recording King Lap steel. I put a Seymour Duncan Classic Stack in it. |
I'm assuming you mean the modern import RK with the P90 sized route?
If so, you might try wiring the stacked coil in a series configuration rather than the stock parallel. Wired series should fatten things up a bit. If you want to also keep the parallel option, you can use a push pull switch / pot or if you go with an independent 3 way switch, you can wire it to get parallel, series, and split coil single mode. http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/products/electric/specialized/501025-105.pdf
Short of that, if I was looking for a humbucking solution to fatten up an import RK, I'd probably look to Vintage Vibe for one of their P90 sized humbuckers.
_________________
Some misc pics of my hand crafted steels
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John Speck
From:
Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 21 Dec 2014 12:10 pm
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| Thanks guys you have all be a great help for me to think this thing through. |
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John Speck
From:
Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 21 Dec 2014 12:52 pm
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Tom: WOW, Those instruments you make are really nice. I work as a luthier with violins as my main line. But I have built a few other types in instruments like this S8 lap. I want to make a few changes to it like a good pickup. The one that's on it was from a Washburn Bass. What would you suggest for that.
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Jean-Sebastien Gauthier
From:
Quebec, Canada
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Posted 22 Dec 2014 6:15 pm
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| I think the key to have a fat sound is to have a light touch. |
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Gary Meixner
From:
New York, USA
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Posted 25 Dec 2014 5:03 pm
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John,
I agree, technique and how you generate your sound is always the first place to look. But also take some time to investigate the subject of comb filtering. This is a phenomena where frequencies can be lost through wave interference and phasing disruptions from a number of causes.
I too have experienced situations where specific frequencies jump out while others are lost - I have found that placing my amp about fifteen feet behind me tends to help a lot, but still a crowded and loud stage can be a nightmare.
If you sit while playing the steel you are not as able to move around the stage like when playing standard guitar. Sometime even a few feet can make a big difference in how you hear yourself. Multiple sound sources, monitors, other amplified instruments, hollow stages etc. all come into play.
I did a festival a few years back, playing in a large tent to a rowdy, noisy (drunk) crowd. Despite a good sound system and engineer all I could hear clearly were a few specific notes, all others were just mud. No matter what I did I couldn't find a solution so I played on. Later on I heard a recording from the mix board and all sounded fine but I didn't enjoy a minute of that performance.
Best,
Gary Meixner |
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Andre Nizzari
From:
Bronx, NY
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Posted 26 Dec 2014 6:34 am
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picking directly in the middle, between the bar and bridge gives a nice fat "hollow" sound..
_________________
Blues in a doggy bag, is what I got to eat! |
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