Question Pedal Steel sound

[fbecir]

Hello

For one song of my band, I am trying to emulate the sound of a pedal steel. I play a part with a lot of bends in order to have a "pedal steel spirit" but my sound is not perfect.
Do you have an idea or suggestion ??? Do I need compression, delay ... ???
I know, the best way to have a pedal steel sound is to play a real pedal steel , but in France the pedal steel is really not well known.

Thanks !

 

[balance]

Ask this guy:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_4lbi_CqFs"]YouTube- 3 Steve Morse April 07[/ame]

 

[Spudmurphy]

Great demo that.

If you have a floating trem - a little bit of quick palming on the bridge (not the arm) adds a nice characteristic too.

 

[threeminutesboy]

amazing lesson

As François is a huge Morse fan i'm sure he will like it also

 

[beej]

It's more of a technique issue than a gear issue. Check out some of the Albert Lee instructional videos, he's got some excellent techniques for different kinds of pedal steel type bends.

 

[the24thfret]

SM is fantastic, wow. Glad I have a hardtail to try this stuff.

 

[brownpants69]

What Steve Morse said, and lots of practice with a volume pedal! Volume swells with the volume knob are fiddly IMO, especially as I use lots of hybrid picking. Obviously there are loads of players around who use the volume knob, but there is definitely control with a pedal. Don't wanna sound like a fan boi, but the EB volume pedals are excellent for this

Play around with pre bends too.

As for your gear setup place your volume pedal before any delay or reverb, but I guess most guys do this. I gues compression you can take it or leave it.

The main thing is trying to think outside of your usual licks. I tend to use lots of pentatonics when I solo, give or take a few notes to get modal sounds or bluesy notes etc. If I'm pretending to be a pedal steel player I tend to go very much for major scales and partial chords, not pentatonics. There no hard, set rules so playing around and experimenting is the fun part!

 

[fbecir]

Ask this guy:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_4lbi_CqFs

This guy looks familiar
Thanks a lot for the link. I didn't know this video. I have most of them, but this one was missing in my huge Morse collection.