Unfortunately, most of the early ones have been refinished or modified, with either knocking several hundred dollars off the value.

[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 25 November 2005 at 02:25 PM.]

I'm not real sure 6 pedals on a 400 is an advantage over 4 (unless you're Sneaky Pete), as you can only raise and lower any given string once.
For example, If you raise your high E to F, you can't also raise it from E to F# without modding the guitar.
I guess if I had two more pedals though, I would lower G#'s to G and B's to Bb.
Using two feet is the norm on these non-knee-lever axes, anyway.
On the other hand, you would be close to having a 4x2 setup (needing only to add 2 knee levers using existing cabling).

As it stands on my 4 pedal 400:
1-E's to F's
2-B's to C#'s (A pedal)
3-G#'s to A (B pedal)
4-E's to Eb's

I think $500 max is a fair price for any functional 400 fitting this description; "The body is a little on the rough side with several scuff's and/or bar ding's."

Final thought: Knowing what I know now about 400's, I wish I had bought a 1000!
Someday!

On my 400 I have it set up like Sneaky's first 6 pedals in a B6 tuning, and am in the process of adding 7, 8 and 2 knees. With the knees you can overcome the single raise/lower by setting the stops.

On my 1000 I use the top-8 of an E9 tuning on the front neck. The ABC pedals are normal; pedal 4 drops the second string for a 7th like a "D" knee lever; 5 and 6 drop and raise the "E"'s like the other usual knee levers. If you're not welded to your volume control it actually works rather well and seems actually easier to use than knee levers. Only leaves me with a couple pedals for the C6 neck, but that's all I need...rarely use the pedals there anyway.

4 pedals would be kind of limited to me, but not unusable - I do like having that 2nd string 7th available. But there's a lot you can play with Fender's A6 tuning without pedals at all.

[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 26 November 2005 at 07:01 PM.]

I never thought of that - you put a raise and lower with one pedal on the same string and tune the lower to split the raise in half? Nice.

So with 6 pedals you could get a decent 2-footin' E9.
Pedal 1 - High E to F
Pedal 2 - A pedal
Pedal 3 - B pedal
Pedal 4 - C pedal
Pedal 5 - Es to D#
Pedal 6 - Low E to F?

I wonder how hard it would be to splice in another cable loop for pedal 1 to also raise the low E and have pedal 6 for something else like D to C#?

Another question is which strings do you give up for E9 8 string? It seems people either ditch the top 2 chromatic strings or else lose the D and D#.

I would be interested in any advice on how to tune it and set up the pedals? My previous slide experience is with a dobro in low G tuning which I found useful for folk and blues. I am looking for a more traditional country sound out of the pedal steel. It looks like the previous owner might have used a modified E7 tuning.

Most of the pedal steel tunings I can find are for 10 strings. Should I use the 8 highest strings of an E9 tuning? Would I be better off using tunings from 8 string lap steels like a C6 or E7?

For strings, would I be better off with 8 string lap steel sets, or with the highest 8 from a 10 string pedal set? Or does that depend on how I handle the previous question?

Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

I really reccommend downloading the Fender 400 manual from the Fender website (it's in the support section with other manuals) and reading it thoroughly. then I would set it up exactly how they suggest - an A6 tuning (which repeats every 4 strings somewhat like dobro) and their suggested copedent for the first 4 pedals. It's a fun tuning and does a lot of the basic country stuff just fine - and it's great for country swing. Learn some scales and basic chords without the pedals first so you know your way around.

My main guitar is a 400, and I started on it that way - pretty much no pedals for a couple weeks. It really is a nice tuning - same one Herb Remington uses on a non-pedals guitar.

You can play basic stuff on it for years without changing a thing. It won't be fancy, but you'll have the best tone in town!

There are a bunch of Fender 400 fans on here, so ask away. Enjoy!

PS - for strings, look at different sets and buy singles in close gages to the tuning you use. There are no "sets" available anymore, so you have to make your own.

------------------
No chops, but great tone: Fender 400, 1000, '39 Ric 59 and 70's Dobro

[This message was edited by Jim Sliff on 29 November 2005 at 06:23 PM.]

    0--1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8
1--G#----------A-------------------G
2--E-------Eb----------F------------
3--B---------------C#------C#--Bb---
4--G#----------A-------------------G
5--F#------------------F------------
6--E-------Eb-----------------------
7--D---C#---------------------------
8--B---------------C#----------Bb---

First, I would look at the Fender as a way of getting your feet wet. You are interested in the traditional country sound, so I would set up E9. If you're really into it after a while, buy a good used S10 with at least 3 pedals and 3 knees.

I personally would use the highest 8 strings of the E9 tuning. Not necessarily because that's the best E9 setup, but because that would make the transition to a S10 easiest and you'll also get used to the idea of the chromatic strings on top.

I would set up the pedals as follows.
Pedal 1 - Raise Es to F
Pedal 2 - Raise B to C#
Pedal 3 - Raise G#s to A
Pedal 4 - Lower Es to D#

This gives you a very basic Emmons type setup. Pedal 1 would typically be your LKL, Pedal 2 is the 'A' pedal, Pedal 3 is the 'B' pedal, and Pedal 4 is typically the LKR though you'll see this often on the RKL.

To do a couple pedal combinations, you might need to use 2 feet, whereas on a S10 you could do it all with knee levers and keep your foot on the volume pedal. But for just getting started it would be fine, esp. because most beginning stuff you only raise your Es in combination with A pedal (pedals 1 and 2 in this setup) and lower your Es in combination with the B pedal (pedals 3 and 4 in this setup).

The other nice thing is if you eventually get a regular S10, it's easy to change the tunings on the Fender so it's a great vehicle for experimentation.

If you break a lot of strings you might need to drop everything down to D9, too.

Hope this helps.

[This message was edited by John Poston on 30 November 2005 at 09:29 AM.]