My Funny Valentine - Played on pedal steel, Palatino EUB bass track

[Jif]

Hi all, thought I'd put this vid up by way of introduction, just joined yesterday. I put this track together a couple of years ago just after I purchased my current pedal steel guitar. It was recorded for a pedal steel audience but I use my Palatino EUB for the bass track. Hoping to get a hold of an acoustic upright at some point for future recordings.

I was trying out the PIP function on my then new video camera which can wifi up to a phone to use as the source for the PIP picture, other pedal steel players like to see what you're doing with your feet and knees, (pedals and levers). Unfortunately there was a delay between the phone and the video camera, so the PIP is out of sync with the main video, probably most people wouldn't notice anyway.

My friend Danny Scott plays the jazz chords on guitar, the rest I multi-tracked.

Hope yoos like it.

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Jif

[songofthewind]

Very fine! Move over Jeff Baxter!

[Jif]

11 hours ago, songofthewind said:

Very fine! Move over Jeff Baxter!

Thanks. Think the Skunk would have something to say about that though!

Caravanserai is one of my all time favourite albums, classic. I was lucky enough to see Santana at the Playhouse in Edinburgh 1976, unfortunately not the original band, however Greg Rolie and Neal Schon came on for a few tracks and played Just in time to see the sun and Song of the wind. To my surprise it was Neal Schon who played most of the solo on Song of the wind, not sure if he played it on the album but sounded pretty close to the original.

There's an audio track of it on Youtube,

https://youtu.be/MGqxxfFGIlw

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Jif
Correction

[songofthewind]

Glad you know where my handle comes from!

You're quite right, Neal Schon DID play SOTW on the album. I wonder if the Playhouse band was the same line up that played at Green's Playhouse, with Earth Wind and Fire? That was a COSMIC night, that was! The joint was jumping. There was nothing like a Green's audience.

BTW, have you ever thought of having a stab at east St Louis Toodle-Oo? That would be very cool too.

I also saw Poco at Green's: Rusty Young was playing pedal steel through a Leslie cabinet, and it sounded wonderful. Have you heard that sound?

[Jif]

That would have been a night to remember, not sure if it was the same tour, I don't remember there being a support in Edinburgh, I would have remembered Earth, Wind and Fire fer sure, but then I read recently that Journey were supposed to be the support that night but for some reason didn't play, hence Greg Rolie and Neal Schon were there. Apparently Aynsley Dunbar also came on for a few numbers but I don't remember that.

Guessing you're a Steely Dan fan, my mate Danny who played the guitar on the above track is a huge Steely Dan fan, in fact he's known locally as Steely Danny 🙄

Might give that one a shot at some point, I've got a Golden Throat 2 voice box, would be fun to try that on the steel, don't know if my dicky thyroid would take it these days though. I have a version of Samba Pa Ti played on pedal steel on Youtube but I'd like to do a better version at some point, was quite new to pedal steel when I did it.

My mate Calum has a Leslie simulator pedal that he uses with pedal steel and it sounds really good, would be better with the real McCoy, bit heavy to carry around though. In the traditional pedal steel world effects other than reverb and delay are looked down on, very purist, tbh it does sound at it's best with just a touch of reverb n delay, but it's fun trying other stuff out. Compression is done manually with the volume pedal as compressors suck all the tone out of it and the pedal steel is all about achieving tone.

You got me thinking about trying a version of Song of the Wind, not sure how that would work out on the steel, probably have to do a bit of 6 string on that too, but it was my favourite track from Caravanserai, still listen to it a lot. 

[songofthewind]

You're right, I am a die hard Dan fan. I would get on well with Danny, I expect. Nice playing from him too, btw.

You guys wouldn't be Scots, by any chance?

I seem to remember that BJ Cole was something of an experimenter with MIDI and so on. I think he made an album of MIDI stuff. This would be about 1990.

 

[Jif]

Yep, both from the land of the kilt. Danny's a fine guitar player, did a great job on that track. I'm into the Dan myself, not to the same extent as Danny though. I heard they were touring the UK next year, might try and get a ticket for that.

I bought a Fishman Triple Play guitar midi controller earlier this year, fantastic piece of kit. I was hoping I might also be able to use it on the pedal steel on 6 of the strings but the string spacing is different unfortunately so unless Fishman come up with an alternative pickup....

Not a big fan of BJ Cole, great player but uses too much all the time vibrato for my taste, much prefer the country rock players, Sneaky Pete, Buddy Cage, Milo Deering, Skunk Baxter is also a fine player.

I had a play along with Song of the Wind, think maybe I was being a bit ambitious there 😎

[songofthewind]

I’m from Paisley myself, but I’ve lived in England since the early eighties.

Saw Steely Dan last year. Very sad after the death of Walter Becker, and a wee bit disappointing. I find them to be something of a tribute band to themselves, they don’t really cut loose. Plus, you can never hear the bass!

The Fishman sounds interesting: I’m getting to looping bass, and I’ve got a wee gig coming up soon. I’m investigating ways of getting atmospheric sounds. Do you think it works on bass?

I hear you about excessive vibrato: oddly I like it less and less on any instrument these days. 

[Jif]

One of my sons stayed in Paisley for a while some time ago, visited a couple of times but can't remember too much about it. I attend the Scottish steel players gathering which is held monthly in Gartcosh, most of the guys are from the Glasgow area, great banter and some great players. One of the guys plays rockabilly bass, his wife got him interested in learning pedal steel as a way of calming him down a bit! He brought his band along one night, PA the lot and they entertained us for an hour, very good slap bass player, early stages on steel. There's a saying that it takes 2 years to sound crap on the pedal steel, there's a grain of truth in that, it's a very steep learning curve to begin with, even if like me, you've played guitar for a lot of years.

Yeah, was looking at the prices of the tickets for Glasgow, not sure I want to pay that much, as you say Donald Fagan is probably the only original left, shame about Walter Becker, I always thought he should have stuck to bass though rather than guitar, I guess though you get fed up eventually playing what you're best at. Yeah you gotta to hear the bass man, annoys me when the mixer guy downs the bass in the mix.

Don't think the Fishman would work on bass, different string spacing so the pickup poles would not be aligned with the strings, would also be a bit sluggish on response on the lower frequencies, works pretty well on the low E on the guitar but you can hear it struggling a bit at times. Never seen a midi pickup for bass, I think the response time for analysing the lower frequencies would cause a delay that would be unplayable with current technology anyway. I've tried other guitar midi pickups in the past and the Fishman is the first one I've tried that responds pretty much in realtime.

IMHO Too much vibrato takes away the feeling you can get by using vibrato. Some steel players use it to disguise the fact that their bar is not exactly in the right position.

Me and Danny are from Fife, Lang Spoon and all that 😎

Edited November 13, 2018 by Jif

[songofthewind]

Ah, you’re still living up there! And fae Fife. I’m trying to forget about Paisley myself. Not the toun it once was, sadly.

That steel players meet sounds good. But maybe not if they’re all playing at once..

Do you by any chance know Freddy Mail (spelling?), who used to work in McCormacks waay back in the day? He was a fine guitar player who switched to pedal steel. I think he was in a band called Nickelson. 

I agree about Walter Becker and sticking to bass, his soling in SD got old very quickly. Shame.

I'm getting into looping, hence my interest in bass to MIDI. Got a solo gig coming up and I’m nervous about sounding one dimensional using just bass! But guitar sounds so weedy to my ears now. Back to the woodshed!

[Jif]

Yeah, you got that right, it can be a right racket, Donny the guy who runs it keeps us all in check though! McCormacks, brings back a few good memories, dont know Freddy but I'm sure one of the guys will, they know every pedal steel player in the known world. It's a small pretty tight community, mostly older guys, I'm getting on and most of them have years on me, very friendly though and helpful in passing on techniques etc, known as the Brethren of the Bar 🙄

Good luck with the gig, you're a brave man taking that on, hope it all goes well.

This is one of my favourite modern pedal steel players, American of course, this is how good you can sound if it's your main instrument and started playing when you were a nipper.

https://youtu.be/BIWuQgzbCBs