Part of Texas you in? I'll come out and make some country noise with you this summer.

I was warned away from buying a pedal steel student model by the old guys on the steel forum and found a decently priced GFI on GC used. This model is normally around close to $3k, but I was able to get this one for $1500. I would have been ok with a student model but they re priced way too high on Reverb and Ebay - they are usually priced right on the aforementioned forum ( hundreds LESS than $1k if anybody is looking for one) but they sell quick as hell. Anyways, I spoke to a dude at GC and he assured me it worked and thought I d take advantage of the return policy if not. Apparently they forgot to pack it in the case and it showed up weirdly disassembled and with the 1st string tuning peg shaft bent at a 45 degree angle. Instead of just pulling the rods off of the pedal board, they unscrewed everything so I had to go off of google images to put everything back together. It took me a day after unpacking to get it going, but honestly I m kind of glad that I had to mess with it. I cold messaged a couple local pedal steel players and found a guy 20 min down the road in Louisiana who repairs them, but I m keeping this dude in my pocket as a last resort. GC refunded me enough to buy another tuner, and while I ve never replaced one, I feel like now is the time to learn. Once I had it going and *basically* tuned I looked up some common E9 chords and tried my hand at the might E minor chord I got a taste at how hard this instrument was to play immediately. Plugged into a BF Princeton chasis and a little 1x12 with a Celestion Blue I could tell that the pedal steel sounded great, but it was basically impossible for me to play anything outside of the Looney Tunes slide up the neck. People have compared playing this thing to driving a helicopter, and I don t doubt that at all. Moving from one chord to another in a given position requires you to think about the movement of each string s interval, and you have to know what each of the three pedals or four knee levers does to each string. You also have 10 strings and they re not necessarily tuned from low to high. I had pretty lofty ideas about what I was going to do with this thing but i scrapped all that pretty quickly and started trying to play Heart Of Gold after I found a tab. I m right back to where I was when I started playing guitar and had to figure out everything one note at a time. Though I still can t even handle the first chord change I m still excited to get this thing figured out. The pedals and knee levers all sound basically in tune and this instrument excersises every bit of music theory that I ve picked up over the years. I have a relatively rigorous practice schedule for regular guitar, and while I m sure the pedal steel is going to eat up pretty much all of that time outside of band practice, I can t see how doubling down on the chordal stuff will hurt. Here s to sucking again!

Just a couple of quick "Overview" things there, and then back to micro-reviews.While it is certainly a totally new world technically, there is some "If you have played guitar, you should be able to grasp this..." stuff.While you might already be aware, I'll mention them anyway,- Strings 8/6/5/4/3(low to high) are essentially a "C" chord if you had a capo on the fourth fret of a standard tuned guitar.- Pressing down the "A" and "B" pedals will raise strings to form a "F" chord if you had a capo on the fourth fret of a standard tuned guitar.- Obviously, leaving those pedals down and playing the bar on the second fret with give you a "G" chord shape(just the "F" shape shifted up two frets) if you had a capo on the fourth fret of a standard tuned guitar.- Pressing down the "B" and "C" pedals will raise strings to form a "Dmin" if you had a capo on the fourth fret of a standard tuned guitar. The catch there is that it only really counts on the 6/5/4/3 strings, and it will be a "Dmin" with the "F" on the "D" string/3rd fret instead of having the open D string.That's kind of the end of the stuff that translates pretty easily.

Turns out the rando Sonic (brand you see a lot around here as they were made in Cudahy) 1x15 cab I bought for $80 bucks has a pretty sweet JBL 2226H that sell for about twice that used, speaker alone. I thought I'd be looking for a used Delta Pro or Black Widow (to complete my bass rig on the cheap) but I think I'll keep it! Only played it at moderate volumes but so far quite good.

Pedal steel update:It is as weird to handle as everyone says, like a guitar that plays like a helicopter, but I ve improved so much in the past couple weeks that I m as not worried about the learning curve. I ve been playing around with sparse songs that are without any steel and I m getting to where I can hit the chords in certain positions ok. Intonation isn t easy, but it s generally kind of intuitive when you re playing along with something. However, one big problem I was having with it was when I d hit an open string before another note on the same string. My intonation was always really bad then, so much so that I was having trouble with dinky major scales. Someone on the Pedal Strel Forum recommended that longer tone bars were easier to control, so I found one meant for a 12-string steel and got it coming. It works great! The length of the bar is now closer to the base of my thumb, so all around the general feel has improved. Intonation going from the root to the major II was much easier. The bars weigh about half a pound and it s fine when you re sliding around, but it can kind of feel weird to lift it off of the strings since you re only holding it with your thumb. This one just keeps it in a more comfortable position. Make no mistake, I still sound like a guy that s only been playing for a couple weeks, but I feel more confident about playing it with other people now.

endofanera wrote:numberthirty wrote:Boombats wrote:numberthirty wrote:Boombats wrote:Sennheiser e935;So much better than an SM 58.Honestly, most things are. When my brother put his PA together, we wound up finding the Blue Microphones "SM-58" analog. I think it's the E-100? Blue enCORE 100? https://www.sweetwater.com/store/search.php?s=enCORE100 Yep. That's the one.Beta 57s and 58s are significantly better than their SM equivalents.I just got an e935 for jamspace because one came up for cheapish and this thread - Put against a beta 58, we all agreed the e935 had better lows, louder at same level, clearer but dammit.. everyone just sounded more enjoyable singing through the 58. Maybe covered up our shit I guess.

I picked up a 73 Fender Vibrosonic Reverb. It was at Music Go Round and I just couldn't pass it up...I traded a 1x10 tube combo, a USA Rat 2 plus $350 in cash. I am very happy and it feels like I got a great deal. The cabinet is pretty beat, but it was just completely serviced, lots of odds and ends replaced, and it sounds perfect. Doesn't have the original JBL, but an Altec 421A that was reconed in 2015. Sounds fantastic with my EGC. I haven't gotten to spend more than about 10 minutes playing it yet, but damn. It's fucking awesome.

Nate Dort wrote:DOD Carcosa FuzzThis thing is rad on bass. Doesn't cut any low-end, might actually enhance it. Lots of tonez in here. I'm replacing my Joyo Ultimate Drive with it.Sounds like this:Obligatory full disclosure: I'm a Harman employee, DOD's parent company.I'm very interested in the Carcosa, DOD is doing some good stuff at present. Might need a current issue Gonkulator (the old one was balls). Hook a brother up

DOD Carcosa FuzzThis thing is rad on bass. Doesn't cut any low-end, might actually enhance it. Lots of tonez in here. I'm replacing my Joyo Ultimate Drive with it.Sounds like this:Obligatory full disclosure: I'm a Harman employee, DOD's parent company.

vintage Sho Bud Volume Pedal. Got it for the pedal steel. I already have a modern Hilton that came with the steel, but the Sho Bud was $50 so I thought I d give it a try since people on the pedal steel forum were complaining that they were selling for three times that at times. Sounds really cool. I like the action better and it attenuates the high end in a really pretty way. This is going to sound weird, but playing with a certain kind of vibrato with it I can mimic a sort of Melotron sound, especially with certain compressor settings. Totally a sound worth exploring and it s nice to have a spare low profile volume pedal. You can t really play a standard Ernie Ball while sitting down behind one of these things. Unfortunately for the mean time I ve got to practice steel with my foot resting on the volume pedal wide open because I was using it to cover too many mistakes with regard to playing cleanly. Which sucks because I really just want to make that swelling howling wind sound! Still improving though. Anyways, not crap, waffle factor for the usual caveats that make vintage effects cool but not right for everything.