Adding pedals and/or knee levers

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

I beg your indulgence folks. And may Jesus forgive me if I sound patronizing or talking down to you in any way. That is not my intention I assure you.

But I have many many many hours of study on adding, deleting, changing pedals and knee levers for over 40+ years. And the experience MAY be worth something to someone out there.

In thread after thread, this subject has been approached. And I must tell you I have seen some looloos.

IF, you are comtemplating a change, you might consider some guidelines I have honed lo these many years.

1. What appears great jes may not be "onct' ya do it!"

2. MOST changes in life involve sacrifice. And sometimes that sacrifice is a step backwards.

3. Knee levers in particular should be highly efficient if one is to get the most out of their capability. IE, they should be placed in a way, so as to maximize combinations and ease of use.

4. Pedals should as much as possible be installed in pairs. That is; they should be so that you can always hit any adjacent pair to enhance a musical phrase. Rarely should they be arranged such that their changes appose each other.

I can tell you without any hesitation, that this is NO easy task. I have literally thousands of sheets of paper with copedents all over them in my house. They were done on airplanes, in hotel rooms, sitting on the dock of seaport, and at home, etc, etc; hours upon hours of time expended.

"If I do this, I will mess up that." "But if I do this, I will be able to get that sound. Oops, but that ruins this". Etc, etc, etc.

Beloved, it truly is a monstrous task when all is said and done.

I said all the above to bring you in on a very nice email I got the other day about just this type of scenario. I get emails all the time. A fact that humbles me more than you know.

Anyway, the question was, "Should I change the 4th pedal on my C neck to make it raise the A's to Bb since I only have ONE knee lever on my steel and it is lowering 3 from C to B?"

The answer, "Yes, this is ok. BUT that change is needed often with pedal 6. Also, with pedals 5 and 6 together. I would encourage you to insall another knee lever unless you want to use both feet like Buddy does."

This is just one of many many situations of where a change appears to be great. But causes frustrations later on.

So, moral of the story; think about it long and hard. It is not easy usually, to make the change. It is awful to go thru all that work only to say......

"OOOPS!"

God be with you in your quests,

carl

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Carl, you are so right. For almost 40 years now, I have played a setup that was "comfortable" to me, but quite different from everyone else. Had I the chance to do it all over again, I would think seriously about just using the standard setup. You see, I only feel "comfortable" playing my own setup, and few players will try mine (in public, anyway).

Yes, there is a certain "familiarity" that comes only from from playing the same setup for many years...for me anyway.

Bob Metzger · From: Waltham (Boston), MA, USA

Sitting in on someone else's steel is one of the more difficult things to do.

I once sat in on a guy's steel at a 4th of July jam; he said, "It's a D6 tuning, not E9". He had the 'chromatic' strings on the bottom at the 9th and 10th strings. It made for very interesting 1/2 hour.

Bob M.

Gil Berry · From: Westminster, CA, USA

Carl, I often play around (on paper) with different pedal changes (I guess we all do). And I'm always wanting to be able to use one change (example - "B" pedal on E9) with more other changes than can be reasonably accommodated with one foot and knee levers (example - A pedal, C pedal, E lever, Bo-wah pedal (i play universal) - etc., etc.) I wonder how it would work if the pedal bar was arranged in "tiers" so that a second tier of pedals could be slightly higher and behind the main pedal bar - it would make that "b" pedal combine with a, and c, and the 'tiered' pedal behind/between a-b and another between b-c, for example. Would have the effect of adding another bunch of accessible combinations (like more knee levers). What do you think?

RON PRESTON · From: Dodson, Louisiana, USA

Someday I will understand what you rocket sientist are talking about.

Mr. C....Good to hear what you have to say, and I must say, WELL SAID!

But, of all the years that you have experimented with this complicated beast, have you EVER heard OR ever SEEN a (E-9) set-up where your Vertical that lowers the B to a Bflat, on the same Vertical, have the 4th (E) RAISE to an F# at the same time? I could HEAR this change in my head one night lying in bed. (Ol' Lady had a HEADACHE anyway

)
So, next day, I set it up. I ask Paul Franklin Sr. at the Knoxville show in 2000 about this change, and ask if HE ever heard of this change, and BELIVE ME, he said NO! I showed it to Ron Elliott the same day, and he loved it. All in all, it has a wonderful 5th chord phrase. See, Ya can't lower and raise a string at the same time as we all know. The 3rd pedal that Raises the 4th (E)to an F# cannot be lowerd to a Bflat also.
Lenard Stadler (of the great MARLEN steel guitar Co,) stopped in at the Emmons shop one day, and he heard me use this combination and fell in love with it. He said that he was going home and set it up as soon as he could. My point is, Mr Dixon,is that,have you,(OR ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE) heard of anyone doing this change?
Now I just KNOW that I DID NOT BE THE FIRST in this ol' world to come up with this :cool; change. If Ya haven't heard what this change sounds like, Then try it, I am SURE you A pickers all the way to you Z pickers will LOVE this one.
All responses about this change is appreciated GREATLY. E-mail me on how to set it up...(Emmons owners)

[This message was edited by RON PRESTON on 28 June 2002 at 04:14 AM.]

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

Gil,

Tiered pedals is not a new concept. Dekley built one for Al Petty 20 years ago. And he debuted it at the ISCG shortly after he got it. Later Gene Fields built him one quite similar. He demoed it at a "tuning" seminar in a room at the ISGC about 5 years ago.

For those of you who have not seen one, it appears similar to a piano key board, where every other pedal is shorter than the other one. Plus the shorter keys are higher (at least in the GFI prototype as I recall).

While the concept seems good, I am not aware of any one other than Al Petty using it. I do know the man who bought Al's Dekley, but he put it up for sale almost immediately. As I recall it had 21 pedals.

So again, what often appears as a great idea, simply goes by the wayside for lack of appeal by the majority.

Ron,

Raising the 4th string from an E to an F# along with lowering the B's to Bb is not a good idea IMO.

Reason: one of the prime uses of this knee lever (B's to Bb) is to obtain an otherwise unavaible 9th chord on strings 3, 4 and 5 two frets below the main chord.

Example: Key of C at the 10th fret (strings 3, 4 and 5) playing the G chord (V chord if yo are from Nuuuu Yoke sssity

). Now you wish to move into the dominant 7th chord. You slide down two frets and lower the B's a half a tone. This gives you that pretty 9th chord ON strings 3, 4 and 5.

You can embelish this by doing the ole "Together Again" lick by interleaving the knee lever with the A pedal at this position for a very nice affect.

What you suggest would ruin this chord. In addition, raising the E to F# by itself IS a very necessary change.

It should have always been on a knee lever, so as to keep one's feet ON the A and B pedal. Actually one needs BOTH that AND the C pedal. But because the C pedal is needed MORE than simply raising the 4th srting a whole tone, we have opted to just have the C pedal. Some though, have used the lever in stead. I will have both. I think it is the best of both worlds.

Also, both the 4th AND the 8th strings need to be raised from E to F# if one puts it on a knee lever. It is too stiff if one puts it this way on the C pedal on most guitars. It also messes up some chords if you do this on the pedal.

God bless you both,

carl

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

My feet get lost with more than 5 pedals.

How true it is, Carl, that we need to scrutinize every change to our copedents, and understand what we are losing as well as what we are gaining.

Along those lines, I'm thinking of raising the low F to G (C6th) on the lever that lowers high C to B. What would I lose if I did that? I don't think I've ever used those two strings together...

------------------

Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic) Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Al Marcus · From: Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)

I'd like to mention about staggered foot pedals.
Chuck Wright built a lot of those in the early days.

I Saw Vance Terry playing one with 20 pedals on it. Just as it was mentioned here.

Also I was in Indianapolis visiting Jay Harlan of Multi-kord .

He had a Multi-Kord with about 16 pedals staggered one up and one down.

It was on a vibraharp stand with big wheels for easy rolling around....ah memories...al

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

b0b,

Interesting. You could probably get away with it with no problems.

There might be some ocassion that you might want the root note (on the bottom) when playing an F9th chord with a flatted 5th. Not sure. So I would recommend your going with it. One thing is for sure. You will love that G note on the 9th string. I have had it for years and I could not live with out it.

It might have been before you were born, but the original Popular recording of "Canadian Sunset", came about in the early 50's. And what made the tune, was that constant bass roll in the background. This roll, is used a lot in music. If you do put it on, try picking strings 10, 9, 8, 10, 9, 8 etc, etc. in a stacatto triplett like manor. You will hear what I am talking about.

I know of NO other good way to get this roll.

One problem you might have in coupling it with the C to B change is: That G note on the bottom for the first time affords us the opportunity to strum a powerful Tonic chord with the root on top. (strings 10 thru 3). And you would not be able to get this if you lowered the 3rd string with it.

What I do and dearly love it, is to couple the lowering of the E (2nd string equivalent-C6) to a D with the raising of the 9th string to a G. This is really great. Because that 2nd string CAN EVEN be used with the aforementioed chord and it embellishes it quite nicely.

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 28 June 2002 at 01:05 PM.]

Gil Berry · From: Westminster, CA, USA

Carl, I voilate one of your suggestions, i.e., that in one case I have opposing pedals next to each other. On my U12 I have the Boo-wah in P4 position. This makes it lower strings p5 raises. But in this case, rocking back and forth P4-P5 is a nice change.

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