Mike Bacciarini
From:
Arizona
|
Posted 27 Aug 2022 3:03 pm |
|
It really all started in 1967 when I happened onto a Buffalo Springfield concert in North Shore Tahoe. There was so much talent in that band and my particular sensibilities followed Richie and Jimmy when it all fell apart. The Beatles were so cool that I had traded in the clarinet for a guitar, and the Byrds definitely had my attention, but when the first Poco album came out in May of 1969, my musical compass was set forever. Rusty’s steel work was overwhelming and I thought “Wow, a pedal steel in a rock band!” But when I first saw them in November of 1970 at the Filmore West, Rusty was smokin’ on the steel, but what I often heard was a Hammond B3. “How the heck does he do that?” Yes there was a Showman powered 122 stacked up behind him with the Twin and another Showman cab, but it wasn’t just the sound of an instrument through a Leslie….. it was something more.
By 1972 I could stand it no more. I bought an MSA Semi-Classic 4+2 S10 and a bar, and then spent about eight months listening to Poco records and trying to get it to do something musical. Had no amp, just a flat pick, and I’d stick my ear down near it as I finally figured out that 3,4,5,6 would give me a major chord, and that A and B would change that to the IV chord, etc. (Where was the Forum and the Internet when I needed them?). 1974 and ’75 found me hooked up with the Christian country-rock band “Hallelujah!” for two US tours. A guitar-driven band doing original Poco-ish and Eagles-like tunes, we had no keys. It was then that I took a stab at the B3 thing with a Maestro Phase Shifter and a wah pedal (I had seen Rusty use a wah to emulate the drawbars on a B3). Also got inside the phase shifter and tweaked on a couple of little trim-pots that gave the pitch-shift a bit more depth and more of the doppler effect sound.
Years went by, I cut my hair, got a real job and the steel gathered dust until it was eventually sold. Fast forward to 2018 and I was going to sell off the sound company, semi-retire and get back into playing music before I got too old (to make my fingers move). Realizing that guitar players are a dime-a-dozen, my best chance to get into a band was on pedal steel. The wheels began to churn upstairs and a month before I even got another steel, I had designed an FX rack to do just what I wanted. A hefty order from Sweetwater arrived about a week before I even made the trip to Jim Palenscar’s Steel Guitars of North County. Came home with a super clean MCI Arlington S10 3+5 (black of course) and sure enough, it started coming back to me. Now for the fun part….
Wanting to be able to get the B3 thing on demand as well as use the steel in more traditional ways, I planned out my FX with two full-time parallel paths. Both the “steel” path and the “B3” path would be simultaneously fed by the steel, and then an A/B switch would select which was output to the amp and house. This let me switch real-time between the two in a song such as Poco’s Good Feelin’ to Know.
As for the “voice” of a B3, I settled on two components besides the steel itself. The first was an Electro-Harmonix B9 pedal, generally set on the “Fat and Full” setting with the Key Click and Modulation turned off. This provides the overtone-rich sound of an organ. It also uses compression to emulate the sustain of an organ. The second thing was to simulate the drawbars of a B3. Rusty had used a wah pedal effectively, so that’s where I started. I realized after a while (at least in the classic rock type material I was doing) that it would change from mellow to bright, but being a band-pass filter, it omitted all the other frequencies that it wasn’t passing. In other words, when I would go from mellow to bright, all the bottom would drop out. Now I know on the real B3 you can have any combination of low, middle and high registers by pulling the stops, but I was simply looking for a change from lows and mids only, to full range. Aha! The good old passive tone control! I wired up another VPJR as a tone circuit with a .022 cap (an .033 took out too much of the mids) and that did the trick. Just wired it so that in the heel down position, it rolled off the highs.
Now a Leslie effect has been discussed to death already, but I settled on the Neo Ventillator II with an Ashby half-moon speed switch. I attached the half-moon with Velcro on the psg’s rear apron near my right hand so I can change speeds while holding a chord, and my right foot is free to “pull the stops” with the tone pedal. A friend of mine has a B3 and a 122 so I had him help me tweak the controls on the Vent until it sounds really darn good.
Some odds and ends….. There is also the matter of not doing “steel things” while trying to sound like a B3: no left hand vibrato, no bending with pedals or sliding the bar, no need to keep right foot on the volume pedal as the EHX B9 does the sustaining. Also thinking more percussive like on a keyboard helps. I’m only able to do some simple single-note things besides the full chords / pads, but to think like a keyboard player or learn some parts note for note.
Building my FX rack was a ton of fun (almost as much fun as using it). I had a 6-space rack available so I started by putting wheels on one lid (now officially the “bottom”). I built in the Strymon power supplies as well as a cooling fan for those summertime outdoor gigs, and there was room below the FX pedal “deck” to store the pre-cabled volume and tone pedals as well as a sandwich or two. The Volume and Tone pedals are right after the psg pup output and they go directly to a Korg Pitch Black tuner, then a JHS buffer that feeds the two chains. The “normal steel” FX chain includes an EHX mini POG, an Ibanez mini Tube Screamer, an MXR Phase 95, then a TC Electronics Hall of Fame 2 ‘verb. The “B3” chain starts with the EHX B9 then the Neo Vent into a TC Electronics Hall of Fame mini. The Boss AB-2 switch silently selects which chain goes to an internal Radial DI for an XLR out as well as the ¼” to the amp (currently a Fender Rumble 200 1-15). The Boss switch only accepted batteries, so I retrofitted a 9v power jack with resistor so as to not have to deal with batteries. I originally experimented with having a stereo 25K volume pedal that placed one circuit between the buffer and the steel chain, and the other half (and a wah) between the B9 and the Neo Vent. This was with the idea of controlling the “organ” volume post “organ voice” (B9 and wah). I’m now currently using a Bradshaw 470k pot in an EB VPJR pedal along with another VPJR pedal (they’re strapped together) with the tone circuit.
All in all, I’m very pleased with my setup. Everyone has their own way of doing things , but it’s quick and easy for me to get the FX I need during a show. As Jerry said…. “what a long strange trip it’s been”.
Examples of my “B3”
No Matter What
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTQZg6jxZA0
Don’t Dream it’s over (with original wah pedal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee_q7xsYz6g
Good Feelin’ to Know (with original wah pedal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpNOgS1u50
It all started with Rusty...
The old MSA....
Jim and I with my new MCI....
Inside the rack....
The FX....
Volume and Tone pedals....
Half-moon switch....
_________________
MCI Arlington S-10 3+5, George L E-66, BJS & Emmons bars, Fender Princeton 65W, Fender Satellite SFX, custom FX rack, 1983 Dobro 60D, SX-8 lap steel, Martin D16GT, Ibanez AS73, 1978 Rickenbacker 4000 custom.
Last edited by Mike Bacciarini on 29 Aug 2022 5:07 am; edited 6 times in total |
|
Richard Sinkler
From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
|
Posted 28 Aug 2022 5:05 am
|
|
Great story Mike. I have always admired your ingenuity in setting up your "B3" setup. Being able to use the half moon switch was sheer genius. I wanted to try and hook up with you to check it out before I left California, but never got around to it.
I couldn't make the B9 work for me though. I guess all my fingers don't pick the strings at the same velocity, and the weaker picked string would drop out. I tried a compressor in front of it, but still didn't like the tracking of the unit. So, I sold it. I would have loved to pick your brain on how to make it work.
Back in the 70's and 80's, I used a PEI Junior rotary simulator. There weren't many, if any others that I was aware of, and I thought it was awesome, although limited. On/off switch and fast/ slow switch was all. No speed control or ramp up/down. I eventually (in the 80's) decided to venture into playing keyboards and would use synths to get B3 sounds. If I can find a job here in Montana, I might try your setup. I currently use a Tech 21 Rotochoir, and impressed a keyboard player that sometimes plays in my band, but it has no ability to hook any kind of controller to it to vary the speed.
I use a pedal that creates an effects loop that I have most of my effects hooked up to so they are out of my signal chain when not in use. I also have a Radial Engineering double effects loop box (Bigshot EFX) if I need or want to have 2 separate loops, one for the B3 signal chain, and one for other effects. I could even switch both on to layer B3 and steel sounds 🤔
_________________
Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, NV400, NV112 . Playing for 54 years and still counting. |
|
Mike Bacciarini
From:
Arizona
|
Posted 29 Aug 2022 8:19 pm
|
|
Thanks guys. It’s so much fun to add some “organ” to the set!
_________________
MCI Arlington S-10 3+5, George L E-66, BJS & Emmons bars, Fender Princeton 65W, Fender Satellite SFX, custom FX rack, 1983 Dobro 60D, SX-8 lap steel, Martin D16GT, Ibanez AS73, 1978 Rickenbacker 4000 custom. |
|
