Steel Guitar?

[GenoBluzGtr]

Has anyone found a good, realistic way to create a Steel Guitar tone using Helix?  some country tunes I would like to add in some licks here and there that sound like a pedal-steel.

[zooey]

IME that's way more in the playing than the amp. Pedal steel is usually just a really clean amp, often with a fair bit of reverb.

 

Clips of what you're after?

[DunedinDragon]

Getting a pedal steel sound has more to do with technique than amp or setup.  There are a number of YouTube videos on the subject.  It's not hard, but it just takes practice.  There's nothing special about the tone other than a clean sound with reverb.  There are also some gimmick pieces you can add to a guitar to help get you there like a b-bender.

[jbuhajla]

It's in the fretting hand ( or a telecaster with a G/B bender). It's all about the bends. There are some guys out there that have some great benging technique on the G/B strings on a Tele that sound great. 

[GenoBluzGtr]

Here is one tune we get requests for quite often... at about 0:56 you hear the pedal steel begin, and it crescendos into a double stop bend right at the 1:00 mark....  I can play the lick, but it just sounds like a guitar pretending to be a pedal steel, usually.  

 

[jerseyboy]

It's not so much the bending of strings but volume swells which can bring on more realistic Gnashville Cat Steel guitar.  Certain chord inversion's very important too.  To be effective you must always pluck the notes slightly ahead of the beat and bring 'em in time using the volume swell.  

 

Start with Tele bridge pups (very similar to Fender lap steels) the Special can be good too, IMO.  Mild compression and wet reverb usually rounds out the amp setup.  But working the volume pedal is where it lives for me. 

 

TBH, I don't care for the Helix LT volume pedal taper.  It comes on much too quickly for my tastes even using Log settings.  Workaround helpful to put the volume pedal after the amp so you're not cranking amp channel gain which tends to speed up the swell rate.  Old XT live did a pretty good volume swell but Helix LT still not much fun yet...

 

Give the intro to "teach your children" a listen.  That one helped wrap my head around this technique.  Jerry Donahue, Will Ray have this stuff down in their respective wheelhouses too...

[jasdadgad]

That's Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel on "Teach Your Children".  Sublime.

 

It would be easier to achieve a pedal steel sound on the Helix if the "volume swell" worked as well as it does on, for example, the Line 6 DL-4.  But it doesn't.  Not for me, anyway.

[DunedinDragon]

That's Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel on "Teach Your Children".  Sublime.

 

It would be easier to achieve a pedal steel sound on the Helix if the "volume swell" worked as well as it does on, for example, the Line 6 DL-4.  But it doesn't.  Not for me, anyway.

 

It works fine for me for simulating a steel guitar through a volume pedal.  The trick is you have to finger pick and palm mute in the same way as you would a normal steel guitar.  The volume swell will swell on the first note played, so you need to play multiple strings the same as you would a pedal steel then mute them before the next chord or riff.

[rzumwalt]

Getting a pedal steel sound has more to do with technique than amp or setup.  There are a number of YouTube videos on the subject.  It's not hard, but it just takes practice.  There's nothing special about the tone other than a clean sound with reverb.  There are also some gimmick pieces you can add to a guitar to help get you there like a b-bender.

And don't use a guitar with a floating bridge, if that isn't obvious. 

The volume pedal is the only thing Helix can add to help achieve this with an electric guitar. I can't think of any effect that could do this, with the possible exception of some pitch bender that could only be used with Variax or other piezo electric guitar, and then only if Helix can receive the signal for each string independently rather than as one signal with all six strings combined. 

Out of curiosity, are there any actual pedal steel players who use Helix?

[jason7pierce]

I use Helix with an actual pedal steel (among other guitars). The Jazz rivet and Supro amps seem to sound best with my pedal steel. Simple patches. Just compression, clean headroom and a touch of plate reverb.

[olivierJez]

I remember watching a Steve Morse video where he explains how he does it, but i couldn't find it again.

this one seems not bad and showing the principle quiet well.

 

 

cheers

[PatMarrNC]

 

 

The ideal ready made patch would include a clean amp, swell, reverb with a long tail, and a bunch of snapshots that have expression pedal settings that use a pitch or harmony effect to create the various chordal bends that are the signature sound of a pedal steel.   If such a patch already exists, please direct me to it.  Til then, I'll keep experimenting.