Sacred/Blues set-up for 4&1

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

I have an old Shobud/Baldwin, that I've never even played. It's a 4 pedal, 1 knee, S-10 guitar. I'd like to set it up for Sacred Steel and Blues playing. Any ideas about tuning and set-up for this old blondie? I've done a search, but none really help with this 4/1 guitar. I can add some knees later, but any ideas on a starting set-up? JB

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

I'm thinkin' that I'd like to base this tuning around the low bass G tuning, DGDGBD. Doesn't anybody have any ideas?

Dean Parks · From: Sherman Oaks, California, USA

I have a Fender 400 and I think the basis for this tuning is pretty logical for blues (strings 3 thru Cool

. Mine is based on E, tho it could be D or C, I suppose. (Are you thinking G tuning because of Dobro?)

My copedant is near the bottom of this page: http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/009955.html

You could move my pedal 4 (E's lowering to Eb) to the knee lever (where it lives on standard E9) and move the pedal functions to the right (using pedals 2 3, and 4), and then used pedal 1 for E to F#, the "Mooney" pedal ... you could also use pedals 1 and 2 for two-note "fouth" moving together for snappy blues licks.

With 10 strings, you have lots of leftovers tho. Sacred steel has unison E's, but that's so you can pedal each down and up for more complex chords, but the home tuning is pretty strummable. To me, the thing that makes E9 awkward for blues, is so many strings to avoid... inhibiting to me. Less would be better for me. But I would love to move my pedals 3 and 4 to LKR and RKL.

Moving E's to D would be good too, but on my Fender, only one lower, so I choose Eb.

-dean-

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

Interesting set-up, Dean. But I've already got a couple of E9th/B6 steels. i was trying to think up something different. Not thinking dobro, although that's where I first started slidin', more along the lines of bottleneck. And my favorite bottleneck tuning is the low G. Sittin' down with some beers last night I came up with this:

--------P1--P2--P3---P4---KL
1--- F----------------------G
2---A----------------Bb----B
3
4---G-----------A
5---D---E
6---B-------C--------Bb
7---G-----------A
8---D---E
9---G-----------A
10--D---E

Don't know what to do with string 3. This made some kinda sense last night, but now I'm not so sure!

[This message was edited by John Billings on 28 August 2005 at 08:04 AM.]

David Doggett · Posted 28 Aug 2005 11:13 am

Here's the minimal Sacred Steeler 10-string copedent on the Carter site. Put one of their knee changes on your 4th pedal and you're done. It has the essentials - the two Es in the middle for framming, one of which can be pedaled to a 7th, and a fixed high 7th. The low B is nice, because when you use the A pedal for minor blues, that bottom string becomes a low root (you gotta add that low C# to the A pedal). A useful alternative would be to loose the low G# and add an F# on top (RR and Chuck Campbell both have an F# up there). I like it in E, but if I was going to put this in another key, it would be D. A lot of old slide players (Hound Dog Taylor comes to mind) used an E tuning with everything lowered a step (but that low B would become a very floppy low A). Whatever key I used, I wouldn't want to be without a high root on top.

		LKL	LKV	LKR					RKL	RKR


					P1	P2	P3	P4		


1	E									


2	D	D#								


3	B				C#					


4	G#					A				G


5	E									


6	E	D#					D			


7	B				C#					


8	G#					A				G


9	E									


10	B

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 28 August 2005 at 12:20 PM.]

Dean Parks · From: Sherman Oaks, California, USA

David-

FWIW, I put the D and F# on 1 and 2 (no root on the top), BUT, I ignore those top 2 strings normally... it's like E9 in that way... here you have a "stum chord" all the time, and you reach up for the extra notes.

-dean-

David Doggett · Posted 28 Aug 2005 1:38 pm

Putting the D and F# above the high E can work fine, although for fast sloppy playing, a lot of blues pickers like to have nothing up there above the high root. But John B. seemed to be considering a G tuning ending with the 5th as the highest chord note. 6-stringers have tradionally done that for both round- and square-neck slide playing in open G or A (when those keys fit their vocal needs). But they did that out of necessity, because a high G or A string is too thin to be practical. These days, an 0.012 can provide a high G, but a high A is probably unrealistic. I'm just saying that, regardless of whether you put some strings outside or inside the high root, I would want the high root up there somewhere - it's just too useful to do without.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 28 August 2005 at 02:39 PM.]

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

All very interesting stuff guys! But,,,I'd really like to build this set-up around Low G tuning. In my thinking (which was a bit loose last night!), strings 5 through 10 are standard Low G, to which I added the high root G, on string 4. Then strings 4 through 9 have the same intervals as E tuning . I figured an 11 should be easily able to make the pull to A. P1 then gives me E minor. P1 and P2 give me the 4 chord, C. The 1st string F would be a whole step below the 4th string G, and would pull to unison via the KL. 2nd string A would pull to unison with the 6th string, B, with the same lever. both very bluesy moves.

David Doggett · Posted 28 Aug 2005 5:54 pm

Okay, now why not move strings 4-8 up a string, and add a B at string 8? Then you would have (bottom to top) DGBDGBDGAF. Or you could leave the bottom strings as you have them, and add another G on string 7 to give DGDGGBDGAF. That G on string 7 would then get pedals or knees to take it down to a 7th and a 6th. The double root for framming, with the ability to drop one to a 7th or 6th seems to be one of the signature aspects of pedal Sacred Steel.

John Billings · From: Ohio, USA

Yeah! Dave , I like the way you're thinkin'! What about the pedal changes? JB

[This message was edited by John Billings on 29 August 2005 at 06:50 AM.]

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

     P1   P2   P3   P4     K


G


F                         +F#


D    +E


B         +C


G                   +A


G              -F         -F#


D    +E


B         +C


G                   +A


D

Deleted low D to C change on P1 - it was a wierd idea!

[This message was edited by b0b on 29 August 2005 at 10:35 AM.]

David Doggett · Posted 29 Aug 2005 8:54 am

b0b has the pedals pretty well covered. But I would really want to have 5 knee levers. I tend to think of using the pedals for common chord changes, and the knees for chromatic notes for color changes and melody work (knees work faster than feet). I'd want the traditional C pedal on pedal 3. It's very useful for getting moving harmony going to the IVm in minor keys. You would want that pedal to also pull the root on 5 or 6 up a step, since you don't have an A string. I have that pull on my uni C pedal, because I just like the sound of that pull. b0b's idea of dropping the low D to C on the A pedal is useful for giving you a low root in the pedals-down position. However, it sacrifices having the low root in the A-pedal minor position (if the A pedal pulls the low D up to E). The ideal might be to have the A pedal alone take it up to E, but then if you add the B pedal, it gets taken down to C. But that would require a 2 step lower, and I'm not sure how many guitars can do that. I would certainly like to have my LKL take all the Gs to G# (the traditional E9 F-lever). In addition to giving you another major chord position (used with the A pedal), it gives you a diminished (used alone) or an augmented (used with A and B pedals). RR and Chuck C. both have that.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 29 August 2005 at 09:56 AM.]

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I tried to stay within the defined parameters. I'm not even sure that the two lowers on the middle G string will stay in tune on an old Sho-Bud/Baldwin.

Yeah, more knees would be useful. I'd move the G-A raises to a lever, and then lower the B's to Bb on P4. A lever to raise G's to G# (on LKL) would also be highly desirable, to get an open E tuning with P1.

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

Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
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