Re-phrased question about pedal steel guitar

fender3 · Post by **fender3** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:20 am

Does anyone know, using mach 5, how to get a sound like a pedal steel giutar? I already have some good MIDI licks. I am just trying to find a way to make a pedal steel guitar sound.

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:23 am

I can't tell you specifically about Mach 5 (which instrument) but I can offer the possible insight that a pedal steel gets a lot of it's characteristic sound because you can bend notes within a chord.

Some solutions I've seen include using the same patch on say 3 different MIDI channels of a VI / module.

Channel 1: top note of chord
Channel 2: middle note and "bendable" via pitch wheel
Channel 3: bottom note of chord.

With this, the pitch bend only affects the note you want to slide and leaves the other 2 notes alone.

Or if you wanted to slide, say, from a G to a C chord within a measure...

Channel 1: G (whole note)
Channel 2: D pitch bend up a whole step to E (to sound like 2 half notes)
Channel 3: B pitch bend up a half step to C (to sound like 2 half notes)

...etc.

Hope this helps!

=bz=

(I've actually found it a lot more time efficient to hire a steel guitarist!)