QUESTION: During recent days/weeks, a lot has been discussed about "which steel guitar was BE playing on TIME"....etc., comments about "overtones/harmonics" of one manufacture over another, etc. etc.
On other occasions we've talked about Herb Remington, Leon McAuliff, Jerry Byrd, Buddy Emmons........being so identifiable by "their own sound", etc. etc.
On other occasions, the outstanding musical advantages of one pedal steel over another of like design, similar cost, etc.
The disadvantages of cabinet drop.....
My question, if music does come from the cranial area, thro' the heart, and thro the hands, then the guitar and lastly the amp....
WHY? then do so many steelers of today then spend BIG BUCKS to muddy up and screw around with the exceptionally fine tonal and mechanical qualities that are factory built into todays instruments?
It's kinda like auto makers who invest millions into design, style, safety and passenger comfort........only to have the ultimate purchaser replace the quiet mufflers with LOUD EXHAUST STRAIGHT PIPES or CUTOUTS; seriously damage the roadability of the vehicle buy raising the body way up high
on a set of oversized wheels/tires, etc.; destroy braking ability by running slicks on the highway; installing 'draulics to make it jump up and down; and whatever can be done with a wrench.
It just seems to be self defeating to me.
Jerry Byrd, Billy Robinson, J. Murphy, S.West, took advantage of what was available
and interjected themselves into the forumula.
AM I COMPLETELY WRONG ABOUT THIS?
The GREATEST STEEL PLAYERS......
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Ray Montee (RIP)
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Frank Parish
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To do nothing to enhance the basic sound your instrument puts out would be like moving into a new house and not paint the walls. There's nothing wrong with effects when used tastefully. It's just a matter of taste. I'm not one to think everything was better a long time ago or all the "good old days" stuff. If somebody doesn't experiment and push the instrument into new areas, it would become stale and boring very fast. You can't just settle for any one thing and just quit there. Music and all intruments have to expand just like the looks on our cars, buildings and everything else out there.
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Ray Montee (RIP)
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Eric West
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The Short answer to your original GREATEST STEEL PLAYERS post, in my opinion, would be "Yes, you are".
However your additional post seems to identify it as a "rhetorical" question...
Soo..
Possibly only the reverb on certain songs, and then the chorus only on rides, the doubler on intrumentals, and the flanger on the verse backup?
I can remember Bud Charleton sitting across from me for hours at a time using a phase 90 in a mild sweep. I also remember watching Mr Emmons use the same phase 90 during a full evening on virtual every song. Also Ron Lashley made a custom guitar for Bud C in 79 that had an active pickup that was on "all the time". Further, I remember a certain Steel Player here on a local cartoon show 40 years ago that constantly used a german made echoplex, on top of reverb. I guess though that he's not working a lot though currently.
Les Paul used the Echoplex on virtually EVERYTHING. He seemed to do alright.
I sense that you've possibly been spending some extra time cosmically communicating with Mr Hankey, and stating a problem without a solution, and implying a "theory".
Is it possibly that all players except these early non pedal masters suck?
I myself went over twenty years before I even got a SINGLE effect. No doublers, no matchboxes, no flangers, no choruses. Matter of fact it was this latest RV3 that I got less than a year ago. Never used two amps until 6 months ago.
Sometimes I have trouble with the Sound Man putting me in a channel that already has too much "effect" in it. Sometimes I work with Bands that are too loud. Sometimes I work with people that I've already "fired".
If I didn't do any of the aforementioned, I'd be sitting home with my dignity intact, but I'd still be sitting home.
It would be like a detective sitting home because he disdained dealing with drug addicts, sleazy private detectives, hookers and thieves. He'd never make that One Good Bust.
I don't sit home. I do have Good Gigs. They run about 5 or 6 per month of the "run of the mill". I've had a run of about 20 years worth of them. I wouldn't trade the good ones for not having to play the bad ones.
Guys that have "All Good Gigs", I envy. I haven't met one yet though.
Using "effects" finally, or double amping?
It's really something I decided to do because for better or worse, I wanted to incorporate into "my style". Maybe I just decided to make it sound good to ME.
If there are some jobs like a weekly jam session I heard about in NW Ptld that has bands that do Eagles and Elks on a regular basis playing the "old stuff", believe you me I'll try to sound like Jerry Bird. Even my reverb would stay home. It can't be any harder than trying to keep up with a band that plays fast current music, like Ricky Scaggs, George Strait, Kevin Denny et al.
I'm afraid that a lot of current music ( after 1955) HAS pedal steel guitar that HAS these "effects" on it. Some of it ALL THE WAY through every song. Verse, Chorus and all.
In short, a working musician had better not show up dressed like a zebra if he wants to work with a band of leopards (or vice versa.)
If I'm correct in filling in the last part of your "theory", I'd have to say that the "Premise" is Luddite in quality (click on the "word" and Mr Dictionary will explain it to you).
Were the implied wish to come true, Pedal Steel guitar would still be a novel instrument invented by a Cargo Tribe in Hawaii, but never blossomming into anything as advanced as a bakelite electric lap steel.
Jackson Browne would never have been able to make money sounding like a "swarm of angry mosquitos" on his lap steel.
The road to Luddite-ism, (see above link) is one that you can't go halfway down. So is the road to "the future".
(Oh, I guess a guy can "retro out" alright, but one needs to be aware that the key word is "retro".)
Lots of roads are like that.
I'm on one of them. Should I say "We are".
The Internet is perhaps the best example of one of those newfangled things.
Things that used to only travel halfway across town can be put in worldwide publication in the blink of an eye.
That's one of the things I like about it. Not everybody does.
I'm thinking of getting one of those "chips" put in my Peavey. Maybe I'll get a bypass switch.
The only thing that I've learned to cherish more than "the way things were" is "the way things CAN be". Often things were never "that way" anyhow. (Didn't JFK say something like that?)
Eric West.
Just plain Eric will do.
Thank you "Fat Old Skipper"
Happy Easter.
Christ is Risen. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Eric West on 21 April 2003 at 01:50 AM.]</p></FONT>
However your additional post seems to identify it as a "rhetorical" question...
Soo..
Possibly only the reverb on certain songs, and then the chorus only on rides, the doubler on intrumentals, and the flanger on the verse backup?
I can remember Bud Charleton sitting across from me for hours at a time using a phase 90 in a mild sweep. I also remember watching Mr Emmons use the same phase 90 during a full evening on virtual every song. Also Ron Lashley made a custom guitar for Bud C in 79 that had an active pickup that was on "all the time". Further, I remember a certain Steel Player here on a local cartoon show 40 years ago that constantly used a german made echoplex, on top of reverb. I guess though that he's not working a lot though currently.
Les Paul used the Echoplex on virtually EVERYTHING. He seemed to do alright.
I sense that you've possibly been spending some extra time cosmically communicating with Mr Hankey, and stating a problem without a solution, and implying a "theory".
Is it possibly that all players except these early non pedal masters suck?
I myself went over twenty years before I even got a SINGLE effect. No doublers, no matchboxes, no flangers, no choruses. Matter of fact it was this latest RV3 that I got less than a year ago. Never used two amps until 6 months ago.
Sometimes I have trouble with the Sound Man putting me in a channel that already has too much "effect" in it. Sometimes I work with Bands that are too loud. Sometimes I work with people that I've already "fired".
If I didn't do any of the aforementioned, I'd be sitting home with my dignity intact, but I'd still be sitting home.
It would be like a detective sitting home because he disdained dealing with drug addicts, sleazy private detectives, hookers and thieves. He'd never make that One Good Bust.
I don't sit home. I do have Good Gigs. They run about 5 or 6 per month of the "run of the mill". I've had a run of about 20 years worth of them. I wouldn't trade the good ones for not having to play the bad ones.
Guys that have "All Good Gigs", I envy. I haven't met one yet though.
Using "effects" finally, or double amping?
It's really something I decided to do because for better or worse, I wanted to incorporate into "my style". Maybe I just decided to make it sound good to ME.
If there are some jobs like a weekly jam session I heard about in NW Ptld that has bands that do Eagles and Elks on a regular basis playing the "old stuff", believe you me I'll try to sound like Jerry Bird. Even my reverb would stay home. It can't be any harder than trying to keep up with a band that plays fast current music, like Ricky Scaggs, George Strait, Kevin Denny et al.
I'm afraid that a lot of current music ( after 1955) HAS pedal steel guitar that HAS these "effects" on it. Some of it ALL THE WAY through every song. Verse, Chorus and all.
In short, a working musician had better not show up dressed like a zebra if he wants to work with a band of leopards (or vice versa.)
If I'm correct in filling in the last part of your "theory", I'd have to say that the "Premise" is Luddite in quality (click on the "word" and Mr Dictionary will explain it to you).
Were the implied wish to come true, Pedal Steel guitar would still be a novel instrument invented by a Cargo Tribe in Hawaii, but never blossomming into anything as advanced as a bakelite electric lap steel.
Jackson Browne would never have been able to make money sounding like a "swarm of angry mosquitos" on his lap steel.
The road to Luddite-ism, (see above link) is one that you can't go halfway down. So is the road to "the future".
(Oh, I guess a guy can "retro out" alright, but one needs to be aware that the key word is "retro".)
Lots of roads are like that.
I'm on one of them. Should I say "We are".
The Internet is perhaps the best example of one of those newfangled things.
Things that used to only travel halfway across town can be put in worldwide publication in the blink of an eye.
That's one of the things I like about it. Not everybody does.
I'm thinking of getting one of those "chips" put in my Peavey. Maybe I'll get a bypass switch.
The only thing that I've learned to cherish more than "the way things were" is "the way things CAN be". Often things were never "that way" anyhow. (Didn't JFK say something like that?)
Eric West.
Just plain Eric will do.
Thank you "Fat Old Skipper"
Happy Easter.
Christ is Risen. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Eric West on 21 April 2003 at 01:50 AM.]</p></FONT>
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David L. Donald
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Even in the old days the recordists used effects. Natural acoustic room effects and instrument placement.
It started (even before Al's time!) when bands played live into a large horn built into a wall, that went directly to a diaphragm moving a cutting needle solely from acoustic preasure. No electronics. Remember Rudy Vallee and his megaphones. Same thing in reverse, but BIG.
How you placed the players in the room GREATLY affected the overall sound. And a very un-nerving experience for the musicians, because it had NOTHING to do with how they normaly set up to play. Bass drums and basses were told to do somthing else, because the were never reproducable..
Hey don't play so far down the piano it'won't be heard! Sometimes the bass was replaced by a tuba, because the upper harmonics could at least be descirnable in the recording. And he might have been placed 15' back, with the singer up front1'and the piano right behind and then the trumpets 20 feet back. All using different aspects of the rooms acoustics to effect the sound.
Later with electronics this changed somewhat.
Whether it was Leon's amp being placed next to the wall that "just right" distance,
through Buddy's engineer choosing a mic and placement he liked AND then putting it though EQ. and EMT plate reverb during the mix,
to the latest In-YOUR-rack versions of these same techniques, the effects have always been used. Now the player has more control of these effects anywhere he is.
If used tastefully this is a great addition to the basic good sound of the instrument, but no replacement for technique... Which I don't have yet on PSG I might add.
Also sometimes a great effect is the idea, as a changing environment for example, and the PSG is good source sound for it.
Eric
But since you mentioned active pick-ups which implies tone controls, I will note that,
with the advent of electronic recording, they were using acoustic spaces with mics and speakers as natural reverbs, and electronic tone controls to affect the sound.
So really this goes back to the late 20's early 30's. About the same time as the frying pans.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 21 April 2003 at 05:36 AM.]</p></FONT>
It started (even before Al's time!) when bands played live into a large horn built into a wall, that went directly to a diaphragm moving a cutting needle solely from acoustic preasure. No electronics. Remember Rudy Vallee and his megaphones. Same thing in reverse, but BIG.
How you placed the players in the room GREATLY affected the overall sound. And a very un-nerving experience for the musicians, because it had NOTHING to do with how they normaly set up to play. Bass drums and basses were told to do somthing else, because the were never reproducable..
Hey don't play so far down the piano it'won't be heard! Sometimes the bass was replaced by a tuba, because the upper harmonics could at least be descirnable in the recording. And he might have been placed 15' back, with the singer up front1'and the piano right behind and then the trumpets 20 feet back. All using different aspects of the rooms acoustics to effect the sound.
Later with electronics this changed somewhat.
Whether it was Leon's amp being placed next to the wall that "just right" distance,
through Buddy's engineer choosing a mic and placement he liked AND then putting it though EQ. and EMT plate reverb during the mix,
to the latest In-YOUR-rack versions of these same techniques, the effects have always been used. Now the player has more control of these effects anywhere he is.
If used tastefully this is a great addition to the basic good sound of the instrument, but no replacement for technique... Which I don't have yet on PSG I might add.
Also sometimes a great effect is the idea, as a changing environment for example, and the PSG is good source sound for it.
Eric
You're drawing the current line before I was born... makes me feel very modern LOL.<SMALL> I'm afraid that a lot of current music ( after 1955) HAS pedal steel guitar that HAS these "effects" on it. </SMALL>
But since you mentioned active pick-ups which implies tone controls, I will note that,
with the advent of electronic recording, they were using acoustic spaces with mics and speakers as natural reverbs, and electronic tone controls to affect the sound.
So really this goes back to the late 20's early 30's. About the same time as the frying pans.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 21 April 2003 at 05:36 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Eric West
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Scott. Having quite a collection of 78s, some of the "thick ones" too, what you said just hit home. I have always hesitated to say that some of them sounded like hell, but I've always thought that some of them did.
Some, such as the old Dinah Shore and Xavier Cougat records completely changed my selection of a "favorite vocalist".
Lap Steels WERE everywhere. At a certain point, EVERYBODY had one. It was the Hula Hoop of its time.
Some effects can indeed be overdone.
When I "double amp", what I like to do, is have one pretty clean going into the PA, and have the Session 500 sitting next to me without being in the mains, and I can put as much reverb or "phase" on it as I wish. Only those foolish enough to "sit up front" will be bearing the brunt of "what I like to hear".
Matter of fact, I just got the idea not to run the RV3 into my Nashville at all. It's the one I "mike". Hell, Maybe I'll cut the reverb to it altogether..
Anyhow, yes, just because something's old, doesn't mean that it's "good".
Some people thought Link Wray stuck too many pencils through his speakers 50 years ago. I happen to think in his case, that it was just the right amount.
I think it's all subjective, though it's a simple thing to say..
Thanks for the spark.
I was beginning to think I'd lost my mind..
Eric West.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Eric West on 21 April 2003 at 11:51 AM.]</p></FONT>
Some, such as the old Dinah Shore and Xavier Cougat records completely changed my selection of a "favorite vocalist".
Lap Steels WERE everywhere. At a certain point, EVERYBODY had one. It was the Hula Hoop of its time.
Some effects can indeed be overdone.
When I "double amp", what I like to do, is have one pretty clean going into the PA, and have the Session 500 sitting next to me without being in the mains, and I can put as much reverb or "phase" on it as I wish. Only those foolish enough to "sit up front" will be bearing the brunt of "what I like to hear".
Matter of fact, I just got the idea not to run the RV3 into my Nashville at all. It's the one I "mike". Hell, Maybe I'll cut the reverb to it altogether..
Anyhow, yes, just because something's old, doesn't mean that it's "good".
Some people thought Link Wray stuck too many pencils through his speakers 50 years ago. I happen to think in his case, that it was just the right amount.
I think it's all subjective, though it's a simple thing to say..
Thanks for the spark.
I was beginning to think I'd lost my mind..
Eric West.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Eric West on 21 April 2003 at 11:51 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Ray Montee (RIP)
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Eric West
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Oh Ray... I've always thought your "place" was, and IS as a if not THE Premier Pedal ( And Non Pedal) Steel Guitarist in the Portland Area.
I have not "put you there".
YOU did that.
If anything, I might have reminded you that no matter what you do or say, you still are the mark that most of us here "aim for", and to quit trying to diminish your contribution by any sourness you have been experiencing. In the days before the internet, we'd have never even though of it.
It happens to us all.
I am perfectly happy to have that thought in my mind of you, and have tried my best to let any "non playing" issues cloud the picture I DEMAND to have, of you playing the best Steel Guitar I remember from a local band.
Perhaps it is MY frustration at the hint that you might have "feet of clay" like the rest of us...
I'd certainly encourage you to get out more, and perhaps do some great stuff for everybody's benefit. Some of those guys like Dennis Wall and Keith Holder have continued being "active" far into their "later years".
(So has Mr Emmons, to our GREAT BENEFIT.)
A guitar player I went to High School recently played a horrible gig with me at tha ^M^ and told me of a jam in NW once a month with "older guys" ( such as you and I)that have full calendars with the good old timey stuff. I'll post it when I get the particulars. I plan on attending myself. I can't keep doing 7 niters and thing of a day job change.
We're not wrong. It's not "our fault" that some of us demand you be perfect. You should have thought of that before you gave us all those years of the BEST playing around.
( That's maybe why I "take musical dives" from time to time..)
That's maybe the price of being an "Icon".
Your Friend, and call me anything you wish,
Eric
I have not "put you there".
YOU did that.
If anything, I might have reminded you that no matter what you do or say, you still are the mark that most of us here "aim for", and to quit trying to diminish your contribution by any sourness you have been experiencing. In the days before the internet, we'd have never even though of it.
It happens to us all.
I am perfectly happy to have that thought in my mind of you, and have tried my best to let any "non playing" issues cloud the picture I DEMAND to have, of you playing the best Steel Guitar I remember from a local band.
Perhaps it is MY frustration at the hint that you might have "feet of clay" like the rest of us...
I'd certainly encourage you to get out more, and perhaps do some great stuff for everybody's benefit. Some of those guys like Dennis Wall and Keith Holder have continued being "active" far into their "later years".
(So has Mr Emmons, to our GREAT BENEFIT.)
A guitar player I went to High School recently played a horrible gig with me at tha ^M^ and told me of a jam in NW once a month with "older guys" ( such as you and I)that have full calendars with the good old timey stuff. I'll post it when I get the particulars. I plan on attending myself. I can't keep doing 7 niters and thing of a day job change.
We're not wrong. It's not "our fault" that some of us demand you be perfect. You should have thought of that before you gave us all those years of the BEST playing around.
( That's maybe why I "take musical dives" from time to time..)
That's maybe the price of being an "Icon".
Your Friend, and call me anything you wish,
Eric