Reinventing the wheel? Building a visualizer tool, looking for feedback

[Evan Goedde]

Hey all - long time lurker, first time poster here.

I've been learning pedal steel for a while now and one thing that's consistently tripped me up is visualizing what's actually available at any given bar position with different pedal/lever combinations. Staring at copedent charts works, but my brain wanted something more interactive.

So I started building a tool for myself. It's an interactive visualizer where you can toggle pedals and levers, move the bar position, and see the resulting pitches in real time. Click a chord from the available options and it highlights which strings to grab. The idea is to make the "what can I play here?" question instantly answerable.

I'm calling it PedalSteelPro and I've put up a landing page with a working concept demo: https://www.pedalsteelpro.com

Before I go too deep on this, I wanted to get a sanity check from people who actually know what they're doing. A few honest questions:

1. Is this actually useful, or is there something out there that already does this better?
2. Am I missing something fundamental about how experienced players think about the instrument that makes this kind of tool irrelevant?
3. What would make this genuinely valuable to you vs. just a novelty?

Being relatively new to the instrument is exactly why I felt I needed something like this (and it's helping me connect the dots), but that also means I might be solving a beginner problem that disappears with experience. Totally open to hearing "this already exists" or "that's not how anyone actually learns."

Appreciate any feedback. And if you sign up on the page, it's just for launch notification, no spam.

Thanks for having me.

[David J Moore]

I picked up my first steel last week and I find it incredibly useful. I'm working on learning different voicings and this'll show all the ways to play a IV chord (for example) up and down the neck.

I learn best by reverse engineering, and I think this will give me the answer, then I can find the pattern, then I can figure out the "why" with the theory.

[Evan Goedde]

Thanks for checking it out! I'm glad it's useful.

Your learning style is exactly why I built it. My day job is working on industrial manufacturing machines, bridging machine hardware and data with software. I've always learned by jumping in, finding the answer, reverse engineering the pattern, then figuring out the theory.

It popped in my head as I was sitting at the steel last week and thought it might be a useful and fun side quest to embark on.

Congrats on the new steel!

[Fred Treece]

I think a lot of new players wish for the same thing. I know I tried to invent my own wheel. Look up Steel Sidekick in the App Store. Forum member John Sohn created it in 2014. Not quite as elaborate as your design, but the fretboard graphic is the bomb. Somebody should advertise it in the Forum store. It’s a very helpful and intuitive app. I still use it after 10 years.

[Evan Goedde]

Wow. That fretboard visualization is absolutely brilliant. I'm on Android, so I'm not sure it's the exact same as iOS.

I remembered doing a few searches about a year ago on the app store for similar resources and not coming up with anything. It looks like Steel Sidekick was released on Android in February so I probably didn't do my due diligence before I started building. I had an idea in my head and just wanted to get it out and working.

It does seem they take slightly different angles. Steel Sidekick lets you pick a chord and find it everywhere. I foresee using it quite a bit as a learning tool (even when I'm not sitting at the steel). Mine just shows you everything available at a fret position given a pedal/lever configuration. More of a "what can I play here" tool than a "where do I play this" tool. I am working on a chord finder for PSP, but I doubt it can be visualized better than how John did it. Probably more complementary than anything.

I greatly appreciate you sharing it!

[Fred Treece]

You’re right; there is no droid version of Sidekick. There is a Windows app called “Guitar Map” that was developed by Forum member Karlis Abolins, but he stopped supporting it a few years ago. I used it when I was PC. It was very simple and easy to use, like a spreadsheet. I still have it on an old laptop.

Here is a screenshot of it with my 12-string copedent loaded. I can pm the .exe file to you if you want.

Guitar Map.jpg

[Daniel Morris]

Rodrigo de la Mora has released his PSG Compass, which is a very valuable tool. psgcompass.com
It seems that your visualizer is on that order, though I don't know if everything is the same.
Just an FYI.

[Evan Goedde]

Thanks for the heads up! I just checked out PSG Compass and that's a seriously comprehensive suite.

My aim with PedalSteelPro is functionally similar in ways, but my priority has been mobile-friendly and web-based from the start. I've got a tablet/phone holder I attach to a leg while practicing, so that's really been my motivation. How can I make something useful, configurable, and feature rich while maintaining a relatively simplified interface?

I've watched all the videos on PSG Compass and am really looking forward to sitting down with it. I should have a few hours on Tuesday to try it out.

If I've learned one thing, it's that this community definitely has some talented developers creating tools that are filling in the gaps!

[Robert Miller]

Mobile phone/pad functionality with that much information is spectacular. Your interface is intuitive, for me at least. Super teaching/learning tool.

[Robert Miller]

Curious...

In working with the demo, I'm not sure I understand the selective voicings. For example, when selecting A6/F#m7, AB pedals down, the visualizer highlights a first inversion A6 - C#, E, A, F# (Strings 5, 4, 3, 1) up top. I don't quite get why it picks that particular voicing, rather than the whole shootin' match of C#, E, F#, A, C#, E, A, F# (Strings 10, 8, 7, 6, etc). Seems like it would make more sense from a practical standpoint to highlight all the chord tones and then maybe have an inversion option to select the bass.

[Evan Goedde]

Sorry about the delay... Crazy week... You are correct to call that out. I appreciate it, because it's causing me to revisit an aspect that I had contemplated before.

As I was building that, I was trying to give myself a way to hit all the notes for any given chord at a glance without missing. My quick reaction was to show the minimum. I think the correct way is, as you suggested, to show all. I'm working on color coding per note now, which I think accomplishes both - still at a glance.

[Evan Goedde]

Curious...

In working with the demo, I'm not sure I understand the selective voicings. For example, when selecting A6/F#m7, AB pedals down, the visualizer highlights a first inversion A6 - C#, E, A, F# (Strings 5, 4, 3, 1) up top. I don't quite get why it picks that particular voicing, rather than the whole shootin' match of C#, E, F#, A, C#, E, A, F# (Strings 10, 8, 7, 6, etc). Seems like it would make more sense from a practical standpoint to highlight all the chord tones and then maybe have an inversion option to select the bass.

I have updated the landing with the new functionality for testing. I also threw in a few additional features. Let me know if this is more in line with what you were expecting to see. Thanks again for the feedback!

[Robert Miller]

To quote Eddie Van Halen - "If it's all you can eat for a buck, gimmie 3 bucks worth."

That's more in line with how I think.

The only thing I don't get, quite, is the description of the 6th/13th as an unnamed extension. By rights, I would call anything outside the triad an extension (Actually, I use the word tension, but it's really about the interval flavors/colors, so whatever communicates it.). Maybe I'm missing the intent.

The thing looks great and it's getting even better. I dig the naming of the scale degree and color coding. Much more accessible and elegant than my inversion selector idea from before.

[Colton Stokley]

No offense to others who have done similar things. But this is the best one I've seen. I can instantly see myself using this and it gives you the useful information very easily

Great job on this!

[Evan Goedde]

Thanks Colton! That's encouraging to hear. It's starting to look like the heads-up display style tool I set out to design.

Robert, you're absolutely right about the 6th/13th. Calling it an extension is sloppy. It's like any other interval. I've updated it so it's no longer listed that way.

I've also reworked the interface layout to hopefully make the workspace more usable while keeping all the same features. Would love to hear any thoughts on the changes.

Really appreciate all the feedback. It's making this thing better.

[Robert Miller]

You're homing in on it. The next thing that probably needs some attention is the interval quality.

Traditionally speaking, your interval qualities would be described in terms of diminished, minor, perfect, major, or augmented, smallest to largest. I imagine you already grok that, but I'm mentioning it because it really is the "color wheel" of harmony.

Your interval row should display those qualities.

For instance, the AB down F#m7 reads R 3 5 7. In most pop or classical musicians' minds that is going to spell "Root, Major 3rd, Perfect 5th, Major 7th," which is a Major Seventh chord. It really should read as some variation of "R, b3 (or m3), 5, b7 (or m7)." There are a few other variations in standards running around, but you get my drift.

Again, I'm assuming from what you've done with the tool so far, you already know this intuitively, but many of your core audience do not and are going to be there trying to make the connections. No patronization intended.

The second thing is, if you're really trying to drive home the possibilities, you need to provide names for all the colors in each change. For instance, the same AB down not only gives you the F#m7/A6, that D# (+11th) and, to a lesser extent, the D (11th) are pretty important colors/tensions. The 4ths/11ths are muy importante colors in the world of major and dominant chords (Why is a different discussion).

Maybe a "How far do you want to extend the chord?" option slider evolving from triads, to 6th, 7th, 9th chords etc. I dunno.

Dead horse thoroughly beaten, I'll say it again, you're really on to something and every time I exercise it, it gets better. Hope my input is helpful and not overwhelming. I'm excited to see this develop.

[Evan Goedde]

Robert, this is exactly the kind of feedback I need, and I appreciate you taking the time.

Full disclosure, I'm basically the target audience for this app. I've been a by ear player for 25 years. I've played with a lot of musicians who were strong in theory and absorbed some through osmosis, but I never formally learned it. Pedal steel is what finally ignited that desire. I know enough to recognize the pieces I'm missing, but I'm still working on connecting them. So corrections like this are genuinely helpful to me because I'm trying to put the pieces together, research, and build.

I think I see what you're saying though. Hopefully I'm getting all this right. Looking at my own interface, when I select Dsus2, the interval row shows "R 3 5." But a sus2 chord doesn't have a 3rd. The 3rd has been replaced by the 2nd. It should read "R 2 5." The chord name is right, but the interval display doesn't match what the chord actually is. Same problem you're describing with F#m7 showing a major 3rd instead of a b3.

The interval row needs to reflect the actual harmonic content: b3 for minor, 2 or 4 for suspended, b7 for dominant, etc. That's the color information.

Your point about extended tones makes sense too. Once someone selects a chord, the other available notes should be identified by their function relative to that root, so the D# isn't just "root of D#dim" but also "#11 of F#m7" depending on context. The slider or selector idea would let players see as much or as little of that information as they want. I'm going test around that idea.

Keep it coming. I'm not sure what etiquette is surrounding discussions like this on Steel on the web, but feel free to PM if that is better. Thanks again for helping me build something useful while filling in my own gaps!

[Robert Miller]

Glad to help any way I can. We're in the same boat on learning by ear and coming into the theory stuff sideways. I've just likely been in the boat picking up crumbs longer. I was worried about my contributions getting too windy myself. If you have any questions/ideas that require picking apart at length, feel free to PM or email me through the site. I'm happy to share anything I know and kick things back and forth. Otherwise, seems like keeping the big evolutions of the thing visible in this thread can only be a net positive. There are guys on here that can contribute that outrun my knowledge and experience by lifetimes.