Advice on Creating Pedal Steel Guitar Instrument

Question

Level 3

673 points

Advice on Creating Pedal Steel Guitar Instrument

Hi, everyone.

I am looking for some advice on creating an authentic Pedal Steel Guitar software instrument. I have all 4 Jam Packs, so would have access to any existing Guitar software instrument. I've played with the Jazz Chorus Electric, Twangy Electric and Clean Electric instruments with varying degrees of success.

The best results have been from starting with the Twangy Electric instrument:
Effects:
Compression>None
Amp Simulation>Manual>British Clean (defaults)
Chorus>Manual>Defaults
Equalizer>Manual>Bass Gain 30%>Mid Gain 80%>Mid Freq 80%>Treble Gain 80%
Echo>20%
Reverb>60%
* All values approximate. *

However, the sound is not quite there yet. Not being really familiar with how a Pedal Steel sound is actually created, I have just used trial and error based on what I can hear.

Anyway, if anyone can help out with any Starting out instruments and settings to modify that instrument to get a Pedal Steel sound, I would be very grateful.

BTW - Has anyone compiled a site yet with tips and tricks, or lists of instruments that can be created using the default and Jam Pack instruments? If not, it may be something I may undergo creating! 🙂

Thanks for any help you can give.

Gary

Dual G5 2.5 GHz Dual Core, 2.5 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD Mac OS X (10.4.7) iLife 06, Final Cut Studio, Jam Packs 1 through 4

Posted on Nov 13, 2006 11:01 AM

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Answer 1

Zoomman

Level 1

89 points

Nov 14, 2006 12:22 AM in response to Gary Sumlak

The problem with pedal steel is that the absolutely unique sound is created through a complex mixture of techniques.

The "steel" slide itself which is effectively a smooth pitch shift.
The volume pedal which gives you the swell effect .
Various other pedals and knee operated levers which change the tunings of the strings.

Even if you get the basic electric sound I'm not sure how you can program all those parameters into the sound.

I guess you could use "expression" in place of the volume control but the pitch shift would be virtually impossible to do as the pitch shift in GB is limited to such a small range. You have to be able to create a smooth slide over more than octave.

If you do find one let us know as I'd love to see how they did it 🙂

Cheers

Dick

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Answer 2

Schneb

Level 5

4,957 points

Dec 5, 2006 2:14 PM in response to Gary Sumlak

I dabbled in pedal steel for about a year. To really accomplish this on GarageBand is formidable. Just remember, that everything about the Pedal Steel was metal to metal. The contact points for the strings were metal, the strings were steel, the picks used were steel and the steel used to produce the notes was... well, a steel.
The pickups had all the room in the world, so they were large and thick sounding. Any chord changes were either gradual rises or falls in portamento, but only on certain strings. You can do as one mentioned above by experimenting with sound fonts. But the real sound will be in how you change from note to note, and chord to chord.

I was a big fan of Al Perkins who played with most of the early Jesus People musicians. Love a good Steel player. Here's to your uncle feeling better.

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Answer 3

HangTime

Level 9

53,863 points

Nov 13, 2006 11:23 AM in response to Gary Sumlak

I don't have a direct answer to your question, just a suggestion (incase you can't create an authentic enough instrument from the ones you have access to).

There are 10s of thousands of SoundFonts available freely on the web, I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one, if not many more, for a Pedal Steel.

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Answer 4

Gary Sumlak Author

Level 3

673 points

Dec 4, 2006 12:27 AM in response to Zoomman

Thanks for the reply Zoomman.

Gave me quite a bit to think about! My uncle is actually quite a formidable, and well respected pedal steel player in the Vancouver area - the list of artists he has played with is a veritable who's who of the Canadian and US scenes. Unfortunately, he is quite ill and I am afraid quizzing him on the finer points of Pedal Steel tones may be a bit taxing for him.

I will keep researching though, and post an update with the result and the top 5 best results.

Gary

Dual G5 2.5 GHz Dual Core, 2.5 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD Mac OS X (10.4.7) iLife 06, Final Cut Studio

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Answer 5

Dec 4, 2006 5:35 AM in response to Gary Sumlak

Unfortunately, he is
quite ill and I am afraid quizzing him on the finer
points of Pedal Steel tones may be a bit taxing for
him.

I would think that your interest might bring him a little joy, which I bet he needs right now. Just be careful, that's all. ;~)

iMac G5 20", MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.8)

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