Knee levers on E9

Mareijn van Dijk · From: Netherlands

Hello everybody!

Years ago out of nowhere the YouTube algorithm decided to bless me showing a bunch of videos from Vojko Loncaric. I had never really seen a steel guitar before so it sparked quite some curiosity. A couple weeks later another video popped up, this time some amazing pieces from Tommy White playing on a pedal steel guitar... almost instantaneously I realized how much (and how urgent), I actually needed a personal pedal steel guitar in my life. The next objective was to find one second hand somewhere so I could try it out for myself for a while, but this had proven to be incredibly difficult since the pedal steel guitar scene in the Netherlands turned out to not be very large. A couple days ago I had given up a bit on the search, made some concessions and decided to try to hunt down a lap steel to keep myself busy. I signed up to this forum with the idea to ask for advice what tunings would be beneficial with a future transition to pedal steel in mind, until out of nowhere I found a listing within a day's worth of driving away from my house for a pedal steel. Picking it up was a no-brainer, it was someone else's project, far enough into the process for it to already be playable, but in a condition where it is still within my skillset to "finish" it and turn it into something reliable and solid.

I can't honestly express the happiness after such a long search to finally own one!

I had to fix some minor details like a mistake in the wiring for the pickup, I've also now ordered a piece of rosewood and binding material to finish off the missing "fretboard", I spent some good time adjusting everything here and there to get it to play in tune. Shoshanah has been incredibly helpful already during signing up to this forum, steering me into a good direction where to find learning resources to start playing the instrument, but after already hours and hours of practicing (and I know... I should technically be doing a couple lessons with an instructor first to prevent learning bad technique), now I feel like I am running into issues.

During performing the setup procedure listed in a manual the seller provided me, I was already wondering why some adjustments on the changer did not seem to match up properly with the mechanics. He told me the guitar used to originally be an Ernie Ball "black eagle pedal guitar". It happened to be in such poor condition he decided to use part of the original mechanism and the legs to build up a new instrument. I also now found out he changed the functionality of the knee lever. The manual states the following:

I've been scrolling through many E9 copedents, some of which seem to have a knee lever with similar functionality to the table shown above, others do not. The way how it is currently set up, the D# gets dropped down to C#. This is something that seems to be almost a standard functionality, but I always see this action being paired up with something else so I somewhat understand why he did this mod.

But in the end, my pedals do what they're expected to do when I compare my pedal steel to the ones I see in the study material but it seems my knee lever is a bit of an oddball. There's also a lot of stuff out there that requires me to use more than one knee lever which I also do not have. Therefore the following questions regarding modifying my instrument further:

What do you think would be most useful changes to get the most out of that knee lever functionality-wise?
How do you all cope with dealing with variation between your pedal steel and the pedal steel used in the source material?

Keeping in mind, I have the drawings and materials already laying around for manufacturing extra bell cranks and pull rods.
What would be the most versatile tuning for one or two additional knee levers?

Finally, maybe a bit less relevant to the questions above. How hard is it to transition between E9 and C6 in the future?
Should I really decide on a specific tuning now if I am going to spend the time modifying my pedal steel anyways, or is one tuning more convenient as a beginner than the other before it becomes interesting to transition to a different tuning?

My apologies for writing such a wall of text and sounding a bit cryptic. I am completely new to this world, I still have to build up some experience and expand my pedal steel vocab Very Happy

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Best regards,
Mareijn

Andrew Frost · From: Toronto, Ontario

That is a beautiful looking instrument. Congratulations.
It would be helpful if you posted a chart of what changes you currently have so we can understand more clearly what's going on.
There are many changes/pulls that some consider 'standard' but a lot can be done with a minimal set up.

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Some pictures would help. And give a better view of what you are dealing with.
Some close up pictures of the changer (End where Strings are raised or lowered at) from top and underneath guitar.
There is an old post here on the forum, And in the post there is a site, That on Reverb there is some pictures of a Earnie Ball Black Eagle for sale.

It looks like the guitar has a pull and release changer, Set up 3 pedal and 1 knee lever To lower 4-8 to Eb=D#. It looks only the strings that are raised or lowered actually has fingers in the changer.

Good luck in this project.

Mareijn van Dijk · From: Netherlands

Thank you for the replies already Very Happy

Andrew Frost · From: Toronto, Ontario

Aha. Well you'll get plenty of advice here I'm sure on what you can do with that set up. Both Es lowering a half step on your lever would probably be the best way to go.
Looks like you have the bellcrank there for a second pull If I'm seeing it correctly.
That lowering of string 2 to C# would be useful - usually to D, and then to C# on a lot of guitars, but the E lowers will probably get you way more mileage on your set up.

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Hi, Mareijn. Thanks for the pictures, that's helpful.

In order to play most of the instruction material, you would ideally have these 3 knee levers:
1) On strings 4 & 8: Lower E's to D#
2) On strings 4 & 8: Raise E's to F
3) On string 2: Lower the D# to D (that note is more useful than the C# you have now)

I'm glad to hear you have the skills to add knee levers, but the problem is that it looks like this changer mechanism is only able to handle one change per string.

For example, it would be nice to have your knee lever lower both E's to D#... but your P3 is already occupying the 4th string on the changer, and that's a useful thing to keep.

Given that limitation of "only one change on each string," I would rearrange the knee lever so that it lowers the 8th string E note to D#.

Or, if you could get the additional parts, you could leave the lever set as it is (but re-tune it to lower that 2nd string to D instead of C#). And then add a second pull rod on that same knee lever to also lower the 8th string to D#. I think this is as close as you can get with this guitar to what you'll find in the instruction material.

Your guitar is probably going to be a "gateway drug" that will get you addicted to pedal steel. So... longer term, you will probably want to save your money and get a steel with a more flexible changer and at least 4 knee levers. Here's a good choice, and it's made in Germany so it will be less expensive than importing one from the US:
https://www.wbssteelguitars.com/index.php?page=preisliste&lan=DE

You can get an economy model for 2.450,00 EUR and the professional "custom" model for 3.000,00 EUR. It's a lot of money -- but you're an addict now. So, you'll gladly pay. Shocked

Mareijn van Dijk · From: Netherlands

Tucker, I can't thank you enough for the wealth of information you've given me. Like you advised together with Andrew, I am going to rearrange the fingers on the changer later week so I'm able to lower the 8th string E to D#. It also clears up a bit of the limitations I was experiencing, I already ended up retuning the lowering of the 2nd string to D since there were enough C#s around the instrument with all the other pedals. I can very much see the value in the D#, I am quite thrilled to give that a try.

It took me a while to sit down and really understand how this changer does its job, I understand where you're coming from now for it being the big limiting factor of the guitar. Maybe before committing to a new pedal steel in the future, I'd like to try to adapt two of the non-changing fingers to accommodate two rods rather than one. It would then allow me to do all the necessary changes you listed... There's nothing to lose anyways, I got it at a bargain, it is already a bit of a project guitar, I might as well experiment on it and get a bit of a feel adjusting the mechanism. But that's probably reserved for the future, for now there's still plenty of other things I can focus on during practice.

Regarding WBS, I AM surprised regarding the complexity and customizability, they still manage to manufacture them for those prices! It sure is a financial commitment but significantly more doable than I could have imagined. I'll keep them in mind whenever I am going to upgrade. My questions are answered, thank you for the tips!

Now I have some work to do Very Happy

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Thanks, The pictures and tuning chart are a big help.

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

It looks like the previous owner was trying to work something out on the guitar, To get a 7th Chord. And maybe converting the lower on strings 4 & 8, To raise 4-8 to F, To widen the guitars ability and playability.

By lowering the 2nd string to D, You can get a 7th at same fret as a major chord.
With the bar at any fret down the neck, That the major chord is found, (EXAMPLE) Bar at 3rd fret major chord G, By adding the knee lever lower the 2nd string to D, It becomes a G7th.

With the knee lever changed to lower strings 4-8. With the Bar at 8th fret, Lower the 4-8 strings with lever, Add the B pedal and you have G7th.

If you could get a copy of Mel Bay Pedal Steel Guitar Chord Chart. It shows all the different way to get Major, 7th, Minor, Augmented, Diminish chords. Would help in understanding how pedals and levers change the chords up and down the neck.
Mel Bay Pedal Steel Guitar Chord Chart is sold here on the forum under INSTRUCTION at top of forum, On page 5. It is the road map of chords on E9th neck. If not found in Europe.

Good Luck on your journey with a pedal Steel guitar.

Mareijn van Dijk · From: Netherlands

Hi Bobby, thank you very much for your input. Having the chord chart is a really good idea, I now remember also receiving one from my teacher when I started out playing the organ many years ago. I managed to find a copy locally and ordered it immediately Very Happy

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