If you want a different EQ for your low strings and your high strings, say more treble for the low strings to add definition and string separation, and less treble for the highs, to keep them from being too shrill, then you just adjust each individual string's EQ. Eventually you should also be able to model different pickup sounds. So you could have single coil dynamics, with humbucker silence. You could model a vintage 8K pickup, or a modern 18K. You could use different pickup winding emulations on the high and low strings. You could add some fuzz or overdrive to the high strings, but keep it off the low ones. You could sound like an acoustic guitar, a Dobro, a vintage lap steel, a flute or a violin - on different strings. The sky is the limit. Surely this is just around the corner.

But that's not all. With individual pitch shifting for each string, The pedals and knee levers could become electronic rather than mechanical. There would need to be a mechano-electronic way for them to be touch sensitive, but that has already been worked out for touch-sensitive keyboards. You could also have wrist and palm pedals. You could even have pitch shifting buttons in the bar, or mouth operated, or whatever. You could change the function of each pedal, lever or button for different songs and different styles of music. You wouldn't need two necks.

Basically, all of the needed technology is already available today. It is just a matter of someone designing it and building it. For tone control, all you would have to do is install the pickups. Everything else is already available in laptop software, except the traditional pickup emulations.

If I was a pedal steel manufacturer, or was young and computer savvy, I'd be approaching Line 6 or Digitech for a collaboration on an individual-string pickup pedal steel and appropriate software right now. Connecting up to the pedals and levers is a little more complicated, but all the needed technology is out there right now. The days of the 1940's technology used for today's pedal steels are numbered. The main real obstacle is the small market. On the other hand, software and electronics manufacturing is way cheaper than mechanical manufacturing - so there is hope.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 12 October 2005 at 09:43 AM.]

* Cabinet drop
* Pickup height
* Pickup brand
* Pickup type (humbucker vs. single coil)
* Steel height
* Pedal travel
* Knee lever travel
* Pedal stiffness
* Knee lever stiffness
* Just Intonation vs. Equal Temperament
* String guages
* String brands
* String windings (steel vs. nickel)
* Bar material
* Bar brands
* Seat height
* All pull vs. push pull changer
* Types of all pull changers
* Mica vs. Lacquer
* Gauged vs. non-gauged rollers
* Brand of steel
* Type of amp to use
* Types of cables to use
* Brand of volume pedal
* Type of volume pedal (pot vs. electronic)
* Analog vs. digital delay
* Analog vs. digital reverb
* Brand of effects pedals

And once you have solved all of the above problems (not before!!!) can you then actually start to actually sit behind the darn thing and...oh....I dunno.....PRACTICE!

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

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Darvin Willhoite
Riva Ridge Recording

The BEAST has two interchangeable/removeable pickups...so an individual string pickup can be slid right in to either slot. An individual string pickup is relatively simple; what you do with the signals afterwards is questionable at this point in time for me. Do we immediately digitize/quantize each string, and go from there...do we stay analog, apply individual gain, tone shaping per string and recombine in analog to make use of all the existing equipment...do we split it into string groups and treat each group?

I decided on using the Roland pickup (GP2?) because it already exists and is suitably interfaced. The GR box allows lots of MIDI controlled samples. This works with the existing pickups and the sounds can be combined.

For the "standard pickups" I use dual winding pickups with a three to one ratio between windings. The windings can be combined is enough ways to be confusing for a wide range of tone/attack/phase variations.

I use voltage follower op amps for active on board HiZ in/LoZ out impedance buffers.

It can be used with or without the on board op amps. The alternative is the FAST TRACK USB recording interface (instrument Zin is 500K, Zout is 32 ohms)...the power source is the USB, and the signals also go via USB if desired.

Pop an ASIO driver into the computer and get better than needed latency.

The GT PLAYER software gives 13 effects that may be used left, right, or both, plus another set after the combining. These are all presettable, and switch (click) selectable on my laptop that is on a photographic tripod right in front of the instrument (like a music stand, for which it also serves, plus recorder, etc.).

The output to the amp(s)/board is also digital = wireless via BLUETOOTH.

That arrangement is not a complete digital setup. The multichannel approach for individual string pickups used individually for pitch shifting etc. is probably best approached via a custom chip = needs a larger than 5000 pcs. a year for sure. Pressure sensitive resistors are common on keyboards...think pitch shift with existing pedal/lever hardware plus PSRs. Instrument can be used both ways for now to preserve the "feel". The same function can be achieved with mag, or light sensing applied to the pedals/levers.

Right now, I would like to have a sound card with two or more sets of inputs and a software mixer built in.

I have given up on an LCD neckboard (programable) for the BEAST...too expensive to make for a single user (me). Same reason for not making more Zirconia bars = small market.

DD, the digital world will come to the PSG one step at a time. The march to digital won't be led by cabinet makers, by machinists, or by stomp box/rack gear makers as it is not to their economic advantage to do so.

And then there is the problem of getting a "hero" to use/play it!...a requirement in making a market as in "if my hero uses it I have to have it, if not I don't need it".

The all digital PSG will come, but I expect to be dead by then. Implementing a vision takes a lot of time.

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Olli Haavisto,
Finland

I know people have fantasized before about electronic pitch bending replacing the mechanical pitch bending of today's pedal steel. But I didn't really get how easy that would be until I read about Frasca's setup. He uses his for tone shaping, not pitch bending; but I suddenly realized that once you have each string with a separate pickup, and run those into digital multitrack software, you have what you need for electronic pedals and levers. Essentially all of today's multitrack software lets you change the pitch of each track independently. All you have to do is wire that up with touch sensitive pedals and levers. That can't be too hard. Even cheap Casio keyboards have a pitch bending wheel, and they can change keys for you.

Of course, electronic pitch bending may not sound exactly the same as physically pulling and loosening the strings. Maybe you will loose some twang. I don't know. But it might be worth it if you can change tunings and pedal/knee changes just by switching to another preset channel.

Not only this, but as with the Variax guitar, you could have the sound of all sorts of instruments modeled for the steel. You could also model the different steel guitar models and have all of them at your disposal. Push a button and have the sound of a Zum or Emmons or Sho Bud or vintage Fender......amazing thought. Someone will do this.

Edit: Forgot another important result of all this. The weight of the guitar can be cut a HUGE amount.

[This message was edited by Bill Hatcher on 13 October 2005 at 04:58 PM.]

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johnny
GFI Ultra S-10 3&4, G&L ASAT, Jackson Dinky Hardtail, homemade solid body electric violin w/ Zeta pickup, homemade 100W amp w/ 12" Jensen. As Bill Monroe once told me: "Don't never give up"

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

The digital intrument thing reminds me of sci fi movies where they eat a turkey dinner in pill form.

Time is not digital.
Sound is not digital.
Music is not digital.

Digital can process sound but cannot BE sound.

It still takes a player and finally a speaker to move the air again.
IMHO

After spending the last 4 decades emulating acoustic piano and B-3/Leslie with digital synths, many influential players still use the old dinosaurs on stage. There's an artistry about the human element completely controlling an established instrument.

Having said that I forsee an instrument without strings, maybe a theremin-like MIDI controller using a MIDI standard not here yet. You won't have to be a Pedal Steel Guitarist to play it. The pedals & knees will be a programmable patch. You set up the sequence of changes for a song, save it in memory, and go. MIDI messages handle it all. (After all, we're doing this now with digital sequencers, changing instrument patches on-the-fly).

I like the ideas here, and the growth of Ed's beast, but if someone wants the PSG sound without the PSG, they can get it as a novelty, on another instrument. I've seen it. It's a little scary when you here the applause.

quote:

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Sophisticated as it is, the pedal steel still has limits. Maurice Anderson believes the steel is a sleeping giant. Maybe so, but until you can make an instrument as smart as the person who plays it, the player will always lack for expression. From the time I first heard a Moog synthesizer in the late 60's, I’ve dreamed of electronic pitch transposing through pedals. My experience with a Midi steel makes me believe you could have one neck with unlimited tunings capable of raises and lowers up to an octave or more. With that kind of freedom, there would be no boundaries. At present, the technology is still lacking, but what I’ve heard is enough to stir the giant.

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I don't think that the proccess of sending the information that a pedal steel sends , and how it accomplishes this, will make for an easy way of converting either pitch to midi, or under saddle hex pickups, or any other type of system to come up with a good alternative.....This is NOT as easy as it sounds.... As much technology as we have, you still have to deal with latency with all the conversions that need to be accomplished.... For the techies, I wish you well, and hope every day that someone will have a breakthru to accomplish the task .... I would do whatever I could do to help in my limitted capacity to see this come to reality .... I have also written to companies on a regular basis to see if they would cooperate .... It's a problem as they need people to buy into this venture if they are going to do anything to help ... Change is good..... don't let it scare you .......Jim

DD....I applaud you for getting out and realizing that age is just a number ....

[This message was edited by James Quackenbush on 18 October 2005 at 03:58 PM.]

1. Electronic pedals and levers with servo motors to work the changer - This will have the least effect on the traditional sound. The chief benifits might be a lighter instrument with easy reprogramming of the copedant. Whether it would ever be cheaper, I'm not sure.

2. Individual string pickups into multi-channel software - Each string can be pitch shifted independently by the software. This eliminates the changer, and allows easy switching between various preset tunings. Basically this would allow a 10- to 14-string lap steel to be programmed with various preset copedants. Excluding development, the instrument, including software, should eventually be cheaper than a mechanical pedal steel. But the required computer might bring the price back up. This is not going to sound exactly like pulling and relaxing the strings. But it's hard to say how much difference there would be.

3. To no. 2 above add simulation of different pickups, guitar bodies, and other tonal changes, such as simulation of different instruments and effects. This will only be as good as the simulations are. I expect they will get better and better. Probably eventually it will be about like the difference between digital CDs and analog LPs - yeah there is a difference, but it doesn't matter much to most people.

There were a lot of ideas thrown out in various posts above, maybe I missed something. But notice that, in all three of the above scenarios, your hands still have to control the bar and pick the strings, and you have to work the pedals and levers. So to me, it is still pretty much the same instrument, requiring the same skills to play. The main difference is the switchable copedants on the single neck, and the unlimited tone changing possibilities.