Creating/Using Feedback With The PSG

Gerald Menke · Post by **Gerald Menke** » 9 Sep 2004 6:13 am

I started out playing guitar and played in the indie/post-punk style for years before taking up the steel in 2000. During my guitar playing days, one of favorite things to do was to use feedback: at the end of solos, beginnings of songs,ends of songs, etc. I've found it much harder to get and use feedback with the PSG, even though the pickups are like three times the output of the Les Pauls and Tele Deluxes I used in days of old. Once or twice at shows when I was playing loud, distorted and with a lot of delay, the most beautiful, rich feedback came from the steel it was amazing, but hard to recreate. I slid the bar down the neck, and the feedback just followed the bar down, trailing off into the delay taps, hallelujah...

Anybody else use feedback creatively onstage or in recordings? I believe there's a bit of this sort of thing on the Secular Steel album I mentioned in another post.

Thanks for reading my post.

Gerald
Williams PSGs, VHT amps.

(Don't forget to check out Bob Hoffnar's Drone CD for intonation practice!)

Kiyoshi Osawa · Post by **Kiyoshi Osawa** » 9 Sep 2004 6:33 am

although I haven't had a chance to play steel with my band since I started playing in 2001, I also come from a... well a non country background in music.

On a regular guitar, you can just point your pickups into the amp and control feedback by moving your body in relation to the amp. On the steel you cant really do that! Although maybe if you practice tilting your psg enough, you might get a controlable feedback, and it would make for a pretty flashy "phisical" type solo... you know, where your pelvic girations and facial expressions are more important than the notes your playing.

anyway.... now you got me interested in this, and I'm gonna try some stuff out during the weekend with some buddys i'm recording for...I'll post some results on monday.

------------------
Kiyoshi
------

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 9 Sep 2004 6:52 am

If you want something to create/use the "ultimate" in feedback on a PSG, try an E-Bow.

www.genejones.com

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 9 Sep 2004 7:09 am

I wonder if anyone has tried a Sustainiac with pedal steel.My buddy, well-known 6-stringer, Neil Zaza has a guitar with one. There's a regular humbucker in the bridge position, and the Sustainer pup in the neck position. Not my type of thing, but it's pretty interesting to fool with. In the studio I have used a signal splitter, a Boss LS-2. I send one signal to my Dr Z that's miked up in the isolation room, and the other signal to an old Vibro Champ, which I set on a chair right in front of my guitar. I can induce feedback with the little VC, but actually record the resultant sound from the Z. It is a technique that works well.
JB

Gerald Menke · Post by **Gerald Menke** » 9 Sep 2004 7:59 am

Totally hilarious, Kiyoshi! I look forward to hearing how your session goes.

I'll start working on my "physical solos" tonight after work, man.

Gerald

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 9 Sep 2004 8:31 am

I had that same thought about a Sustainiac (a sort of reverse pickup: it generates an electric field which vibrates the strings). Your muting technique would have to be impeccable to control all ten strings, for sure.

John Beatty · Post by **John Beatty** » 9 Sep 2004 10:57 am

Get a Sho~Bud and a Fender tube amp(I sometimes use a Fender Pro Reverb,'68, with 2-12" Webers),and position them relatively closely together. I read a funny post in the archives where the steel player couldn't control what he thought was his guitar feeding back--it turned out that an electric saw player behind him (he could not see him), and the saw player hit the steel's note and continued to sound no matter the steeler's attempt to mute. Maybe Ed Naylor could put a saw on a knee lever. I believe he cold find one at the Home Depot.

Maranatha, Johnny2crows

John Billings · Post by **John Billings** » 9 Sep 2004 11:20 am

David, I'm not sure that would be an issue. On the 6-string it doesn't seem to be. I've been trying to call Neil to find out if he ever has the problem you mention, but he's not answering yet. He's just back from Prague, and getting ready for the cd release party, and then an extensive tour in asia with his band. I'll find out from him. It might be interesting to try a sustainiac, but just putting in on a steel would be a pain. Maybe it could be temporarily mounted above the strings just to the left of your pickin' spot, just to see if it would work. It might actually work a lot better than a Ebow. Hmmm.

Jim Phelps · Post by **Jim Phelps** » 9 Sep 2004 11:36 am

.[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 17 November 2004 at 09:02 PM.]

chas smith R.I.P. · Post by **chas smith R.I.P.** » 9 Sep 2004 11:42 am

Back in the '60s, before I knew what a pedal steel was, I did the feedback solos on guitar.

Sometime around 1980, after taking up the steel guitar, I made a handle mount device, out of aluminum, that held an 8" speaker. Instead of bringing the guitar to the speaker, I brought the speaker to the guitar, it worked ok, but I couldn't get as much variation.

Michael Johnstone · Post by **Michael Johnstone** » 9 Sep 2004 12:23 pm

Or if you don't mind doing a little excavating on your steel,you could do what rock guitar player Randy "California" Wolfe from the 60s band "Spirit" did. He mounted a 4" speaker under his strings and put an in/out switch and a volume control on it. He could sustain and feedback any note as long as he wanted to. A couple decades back when I was into fuzz rock steel,I tried hooking up a wedge shaped floor monitor as an extension speaker on my amp and facing it up towards the bottom of my steel with a modicum of success.I've also played on a big hollow stage with a loud band where the sub-woof frequencies came up thru the legs of my steel and woke up every string on both necks. That was a long night. -MJ-

Gerald Menke · Post by **Gerald Menke** » 10 Sep 2004 4:58 am

Thanks for all of your replies guys, I've been using an E-bow for a few years with one of the bands, but I don't really like the tone -- like there's a 40 pound bumblebee in my amp, and it's a bit too controlled and even sounding. I'm thinking feedback along the lines of the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, AR Kane or Mr. James Marshall Hendricks, if you get my meaning. If I get anywhere with this, and some of you are probably wondering why I'd want to, I'll see if I can post an MP3 somewhere.

Gerald "practicing with his eyes closed" Menke

Kiyoshi Osawa · Post by **Kiyoshi Osawa** » 10 Sep 2004 6:55 am

on a side note... since you mentioned the band. Sonic Youth is playing here in mexico for the first time ever!!! I'm so exited I feel like a 12 year old waiting for a britney spears concert...

Anyway, S. Youth is an excellent example of creative use of noise and particularly feedback. They actually used a steel guitar like contraption at some point, with Glen Branka, that had all 10 strings with the same note. They had about 6 or 7 of those playing at the same time at full volume with distortion and feedback...

------------------
Kiyoshi
------

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 10 Sep 2004 7:38 am

Gerald, WAKE UP!

I think you're stuck in the '70s!

Dean Parks · Post by **Dean Parks** » 10 Sep 2004 8:40 am

I play a Fernandes sustainer guitar for infinite sustain. There is a pickup in the "neck" position, but in sustain mode it acts not as a pickup, but as a string exciter. There is a knob that determines how much sustain there is... you can set it so that it increases, or decreases at a slower rate than a normal ringout, or find a good spot in the middle which sustains evenly and steadily.

There is also a switch, 3-way toggle, which chooses normal, or slightly harmonic, or full octave harmonic takeover (this is the effect, at any rate).

They do make a width for 7-string guitar, which is similar to an 8-string Fender 400 for example (it's a blade-type pickup, not pole pieces). Would not be quite wide enough for a 10.

I have not tried this on steel, tho I did call them the week I got my 400, thinking I might try something with it.

There is a circuit board, and installation IN a guitar requires some room. But on a steel, I think all the electronics could be externalized somewhat, and the pickup itself could be mounted or "placed" on TOP of the strings, and in a temporary way (so you don't cut into your steel for a pickup install, and you could maybe use it on several instruments?). Perhaps it could be slid sideways to choose which strings you want to affect.

But here is one catch: the newer electronics have LESS sustain than the old "pro" models, but there are some available still. And some models have only a 2-way switch I think. You'd want the old "strong" model, and with a 3-way switch.

Company is Japanese, but US branch is in LA.

-dp-[This message was edited by Dean Parks on 10 September 2004 at 09:42 AM.]

Rex Thomas · Post by **Rex Thomas** » 10 Sep 2004 8:46 am

WOAH!! Welcome, Dean! If you haven't been already.
Like the Sustainiac, no? I used the heck out of those things when I lived out there.
If you run into Grant Geissman, please give him a BIG howdy for me.
Good to see you aboard.

[This message was edited by Rex Thomas on 10 September 2004 at 09:50 AM.]

Gerald Menke · Post by **Gerald Menke** » 10 Sep 2004 8:55 am

Dear Donny,

Oh no!! All this time I thought I was stuck in the 80s!

Thanks for the laugh.

Gerald

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · Post by **Archie Nicol R.I.P.** » 10 Sep 2004 9:39 am

I used to use an old boss-tone for a bit of distotion. I owned two Vegas400s, one would deliver excellent controllable feedback, the other wouldn't feedback at all, Weirdsville, man!
Arch.

Joerg Hennig · Post by **Joerg Hennig** » 10 Sep 2004 10:09 am

Once, on a rehearsal, I accidentally got massived amounts of feedback when I played through a Marshall amp and used the overdrive channel. However I found I couldn´t use it on stage since the way that channel is voiced it isn´t really suitable for steel. It just didn´t cut through so I quickly went back to the clean channel and my overdrive pedal, of course that didn´t push it into feedback. As an alternative, I´d suggest a combination of overdrive and compressor. I´ve never tried it on steel, but on six string, with the right settings, it almost guaranteed automatic feedback even without turning towards the amp.

Good luck, JH

Tony Palmer · Post by **Tony Palmer** » 10 Sep 2004 1:18 pm

I use a Tube Screamer and get a small amount of feedback...just right during a solo when holding a note.
It doesn't sound too buzz-y either.

Dean Parks · Post by **Dean Parks** » 10 Sep 2004 2:10 pm

Hi Rex! Thanks for the hello.

I have Sustainiac also, but that works by vibrating the neck with the pitch you're playing, so it's just like standing in fron of an amp, iniclucing inconsistencies, but without loudness necessarily. I would think that a steel is inherently much less resonant than a guitar neck, and so may not work at all with a Sustainiac.

Fernandes works directly on the string.

-dp-

Travis Bernhardt · Post by **Travis Bernhardt** » 10 Sep 2004 2:20 pm

Not sure if you were really looking for advice on how to get feedback, but couldn't you just turn up real loud and distorted and use the volume pedal to dip in and out? It sounds like that's more or less how you got the effect in the first place...

-Travis[This message was edited by Travis Bernhardt on 10 September 2004 at 03:21 PM.]

Rex Thomas · Post by **Rex Thomas** » 10 Sep 2004 2:33 pm

Right, Dean. I wasn't even implying to try it on steel. Besides, since you know how the Sustainiac works (older ones), it's like with playing steel we need one or two more things to do with our feet.

Sustainiac (Gary Osborne back then, don't know who owns it now) had a pickup model (like the Fernandes - on the string) that they tried in Hamers for awhile. Lost track of all that, but I assumed it fizzled.
But yeah, I'm with you. If you could mount that above somehow & still have some room to pick, you could sustain 'til the cows come home, plus if you can control the harmonic series, you could get some gorgeous tones on steel.
Since I've been there, done it, bought the t-shirt, sold it, bought it back, burned it, etc. with gtr., IMO, I think you're onto something there with steel, Dean.

Kiyoshi Osawa · Post by **Kiyoshi Osawa** » 14 Sep 2004 6:40 am

well, just for the record, I tried using feedback and tilting my steel over to control it while recording during the weekend. It kind of worked, and my pelvic girations were a big hit with the ladies...

But at the end of the day, we didn't have any usable takes because i kept hitting the Delete key with my butt

.

------------------
Kiyoshi
------

Ricky Littleton · Post by **Ricky Littleton** » 15 Sep 2004 2:02 pm

(deleted - see below)
Ricky...[This message was edited by Ricky Littleton on 15 September 2004 at 03:05 PM.]