Copedant on an 8 String Steel

Casey Olson · From: Wisconsin, USA

I have this 8 string pedal steel guitar made by Wayne at Innovative Guitars and set up for C6 tuning. It has 4 knee levers with the ability to raise but not lower the pitches. So the tuning is (from lowest pitch to highest A-C-E-G-A-C-E-G) and each lever raises a pair of strings that have the same pitch (for example the first lever raises both G's the second lever lifts both C's etc...) Right now I have the first lever ( to the left if you are playing it) lifting both G's up to A. 2nd one is lifting both C's to C#. 3rd lever lifting both E's to F# and the 4th lever raising both A's to A#. I was looking to get some copedant ideas that would give me the most versatility in my playing. I am new to the pedal guitar and want to start on the right track so I don't have to change the copendant down the line and have to relearn. Does the way I have it set up seem like a good copendant? I know there is no real standard on this type of specialized instrument but what would you say could be a good standard?
Thanks!
-Casey

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

You are starting out on an odd bird. More of a "lever steel" than a pedal steel.

Your setup is workable, but it involves changing frets to do diatonic chord changes and a major scale, like a lap steel. Hopefully someone else with more experience on unusual beasts will chime in here. My best advice would be to play it as is for a while and see what you think. Chances are you will want to change something.

The forum founder is an 8 string player, but with a different tuning and setup than yours. Maybe you could get some ideas at his copedant page though.
https://b0b.com/tunings/blee.htm#DesertRose
He also has listed the C6 copedants of other great players. As you can see, many of them tune string 1 to D, and have B and F somewhere in the pedal or lever changes, so all 7 diatonic notes are there at any one fret.
https://b0b.com/wp/?page_id=686

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