Just curious. I'm not a theory wiz so looking at the copedant doesn't tell me much. I have this crazy idea of setting up either my 1000 or 400 with his tuning, just for fun. I love his style.

When I saw him this summer I noticed that he used the RKR knee lever quite a bit.

DZ

[This message was edited by Dave Zirbel on 30 September 2005 at 10:58 AM.]

True - but there's still some uniqueness to his sound that I've never heard an E9 player do, especially some of the lowers that he uses. There's also a certain "feel" to a 400 that makes the pull or lower have a different musicality to it - like the difference between long-throw and short-throw B-string benders on Teles. It makes a huge difference in the "movement" of notes.

Plus his tone is completely unique, although a lot of it is standard 400 sound.

FWIW I'm having my 400 set up pretty close, but transposed to A6. It should be fun, and since I'm not an E9 player I won't know what I'm missing (which to me is nothing, since I've never spent much time on one - haven't tried one yet I liked the feel of).

I'll add - trying to duplicate (on an E9 steel) Sneaky playing his "abnormal" 400 would be like trying to duplicate Clarence White's playing on his original Stringbender Tele with a Strat using a Palm Pedal.

In other words - you can't get there from here.

[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 30 September 2005 at 12:51 PM.]

quote:

---

...I've also never heard him do anything that couldn't be duplicated on a standard E9th.

---

http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/009240.html

Maybe he's changed it recently.

quote:

---

It would have to be a pretty elaborate E9th tuning to get all his voicings.

---

[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 01 October 2005 at 10:18 PM.]

Mike

I sat 3 feet from him at a show and he used a thumbpick and two fingerpicks.

His tuning is also a B6, not a B9 - F#, G#, B, D# from low to high and repeated. There's a thread on here with his copedent - 9 pedals and 2 knees, although I've seen pictures of him with 10 pedals. The first two pedals are a sort of a take on an Emmons setup...the rest I'm not knwledgeable enough to give any chord info on yet until I map it out and think about it (I'm sort of theory-disadvantaged)

Pedals 5 and 6 are similar to standard C6th changes. U-12 players have them, but most E9th players don't. I suppose that, in theory, any songs where he used those changes would be awkward on E9th.

To me, there are two things distinctive about Sneaky Pete's playing: his tone and his melodies. The tone is the product of a master's touch on a very specific piece of hardware. The melodies come from his deep rooted understanding of how music works. That same musical understanding produced his copedent.

My point here is that it isn't the copedent that makes Sneaky Pete sound like Sneaky Pete. It's his knowledge of music. He invented his B6th copedent as an expression of musical knowledge. That same universal knowledge is present in the standard E9th.

------------------
Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6)   My Blog

[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 02 October 2005 at 03:07 PM.]

The point is the he has a universal tuning. When he can play B6 and E9 on 8 strings you can't over look that he invented a universal tuning. This is why he is so special. If you see it only as things that can be duplicated on E9 you miss the genius of Sneaky. Take your C6 and play E9 licks. It would take a while but you could do it. He plays a commercial style...that’s all.

"He plays a commercial style...that’s all."

Get hold of boots of early Burritos - Winterland, Avalon, Ash Grove (with Clarence White sitting in) - On everything but the Ash Grove he is the only lead instrument and plays everywhere, sometimes sounding like a Tele, sometimes a steel, sometimes a Les Paul through a Marshall. Lots of wierd (at least to a "normal" steel player) , swirling and swooping low notes It's impossible stuff, and completely different from any of the commercial releases. I've seen the same thing most times when he played live in the 70's - completely over the top. Nothing "commercial" about it..in the rock circles we immediately started looking for steel recordings and found nothing even close, except a few things by Speedy West. Buddy Cage played fairly normally, but with Fuzz; Rusty Young was a monster player, but VERY country except for his "organ" sounds.

He got so good at filling space, since Gram and Chris played very sporadic rhythm, that he filled space like no other. There's a story around that Buddy Emmons has said that when he and Pete recorded "Yesterday" for the Suite Steel album the recordding was going great with Buddy playing lad and Pete backing, but when Pete took over the lead the rhythm collapsed - Emmons couldn't come close. But he'd never had to cover as much territory in a song as Pete had.

A scary player and a very, very nice man. One of the most humble ever. Pretty goood at his day job as well - if you've seen Terminator 2 you've seen a good example of his stop motion animation work.

Can someone give a brief explanation of the # 3 and 4 pedals? I can find things to do with them playing...but have no idea what the changes actually do in context.

[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 02 October 2005 at 07:10 PM.]

That was one of the first songs I learned as well. My band played both songs in the mid 70's and I got a good sound with my Sho-Bud and a small stone phase shifter. I now have a 400 and it sounds even better!

I believe that one is just Pete. Sneaky and Ed played on the Michael Dinner album together and also on some songs together. I don't think Ed played on "For Everyman." The solo was Pete and David Lindley.

Russ

[This message was edited by Russ Tkac on 07 October 2005 at 01:15 PM.]