Besides pulling strings behind the bar, a major "trick" he uses is a back slant that brings the C string up to unison with the D and even more often, a forward slant that brings the D string up to the E. I stared at those videos a lot.
I would strongly suspect that Mike's special tuning* was the top 8 strings of Reece Anderson's non-pedal 12:
D
B
G
E
C
A
G
E
---
C
A
F
D
If it wasn't, that's still a bangin' tuning for this, with the two lower top strings and roughly four strings underneath for unison slants (depending on your bar length) - the opportunities for mischief abound.
*actually since he mentions C# and G#, his was probably the same relatively but with an E major base. Tonally you'd have -
The key is bolting about 50 pounds of lead weights to the lap steel. I find that the main thing to the sound of pedal steel is derived from the agony of carrying mine.
Do you know which Lap Steel was used in this clip?
i think that might have been a guitar made by chet wilcox. maybe a 10 stringer. if its a 12 string, then i made that. i did a lot of recordings with 8 10 12 and now 14 strings so they all run together. i didnt make any notes on the recording sheets except they were all recorded using an alembic f2B tube pre straight into a vmp II preamp and a LA2 copy compressor by dimario labs. all the steels i have or have had use mostly E66 pickups. extended leavitt tuning.
