Boy what a PBS concert Did anyone catch the Robert Randolph & The Family Band concert on PBS?????? WOW! what a group.. After watching this I went straight to my Casio WK-3500 to give it a shot... I was disappointed to find that the only Pedal Steel Guitar on the WK-3500 is under the GM set and not the preset voices. Does anyone have an MP3 demos to share of themselves playing the pedal steel on their keyboards? I'd love to hear them. I've been practicing on it all day

Squeak

I would be very surprised if you found a good sounding pedal steel guitar from a keyboard, but I'll tell you one thing for sure... it's not the voice that makes the authenticity of that sound, but the technique. I can create a darn good guitar, saxaphone, or pretty much anything EXCEPT PSG.

Listen carefully to a real PSG and you'll hear note bends up, down, but not always. Sometimes a delayed vibrato, but not always. Sometimes only one or 2 notes of a 3 note chord, but not always.

I love the sound of a real pedal steel guitar and played around with it, but came no closer than mediocre. I'd be interested if any forum members have suggestions on this subject. BTW, the best PSG MIDI I've heard must've been created by a MIDIed pedal steel guitar and it utilized a GM flute... so it's not the voice!

One thing I just thought of... you really must use a volume pedal (for right voice only). Again, listen to the real thing and you'll often hear a slight cresendo into a PSG note or chord.

Glen,
Thanks for the tips.. That's what I've been doing. I've got that Robert Randolph concert burned in my brain. This is one tricky instrument to play on the keys.

Squeak

The only way to do this is to sequence it on different midi channels. That way you can have one note do a hole step slide and another a half step, or maybe a hole step slide and no slide at all on the other note. I can play a bit of pedal steel so I know the technical issues, and it cannot be done live convincingly on a keyboard. Maybe you could do some interesting portomento stuff to make it work, but I doubt it.

The SD1 has a pedal steel guitar mode that does just that (don't know if other AK have that), but that just doesn't do it. It helps, but still quite a ways from the real thing. If you play PSG, you can at least create the real thing in an mp3 backing track.

DonM, chime in on this... have you had any success with keyboard pedal steel guitar? I'll have to go back and listen to your mp3s.

I try, but it's nowhere near perfect. You really new a kb with polyphonic aftertouch, so you can bend one note and leave the others alone. Ensoniq used to make a synth like that, but the steel sound wasn't there. I'm sure newer synths can do this, but I don't keep up with them.
As far as I know there aren't any arrangers with individual aftertouch key response.
DonM

You're right, Squeak, Robert Randolph is amaising. I imagine he's much better in person than on television. He has taken this very difficult instrument in a new and exciting direction.

Russ