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Found this and wondered what y'all would think.Lap steel here

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"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

I play lap git only, but never tried one of these. I'm sure they have a crisp, cold, biting tone though. I would always take wood over metal, even in an elec. giter. Alan.

It is an interesting idea.

What gets me, however, is that the natural (resonant) frequency peaks at
above 800 Hz, which is above a 5th octave G, or the 15th fret on the high
e string of a guitar. Seems like if you want an even "spread" of tone you'd
want the resonant frequency in the middle? Secondly, the notes up in
that range can get to sounding fairly harsh, especially if you get good
harmonic response from their higher partials, which they claim to be
doing.   I agree with Alan that the sound is probably "crisp, cold" and
biting.

But then you take into account that perhaps that is the tone they want
from that guitar. So what may seem undesirable to me could be perfect
for someone else. Certainly they have some big names on their website,
so perhaps the discussion should be continued.

What kind of tone would one usually want from a lap steel? Would it be
similar to an electric guitar?

While I feel I can hear some subtle differences in the sound of acoustic instruments I have a hard time hearing anything other than the personality of the pickups and amp on electric instruments.

When I saw this I thought it was cool as in it was different than the norm and may have some use. when I read what they hoped to accomplish I thought they were trying to put a good spin on a sound to me that would be harsh and biting and lacking personality.

I did not like the lap steel much. I like a dark swampy sound. When I listened to the guitar with humbuckers I liked it much better and thought maybe it might work to give a dark but clear sound and being very light it might be very responsive to technique.

I did think it was interesting enough to share and hear what others thought.

_________________
"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

I love Robert Randolph's playing and I've seen him play his Harmos live (on tour with Clapton). His tone is great - as raunchy as any rock guitar player I've heard, although to my ears it's more single-coil than humbucker. Once you get into the Sacred Steel area you can forget about the traditional pedal steel sound you get in country music (although I like that too).

"I have a hard time hearing anything other than the personality of the pickups and amp on electric instruments" is as neat a summary on the subject as I've seen. With my gigging musician's hat on I agree with you 100% on that. I'm always amused when I read stuff about the subtle differences that different fingerboard woods will make to the sound of an electric guitar, as if people weren't going to just plug it in and crank it up to 11.

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Pete
http://www.petewoodmanguitars.com

I've seen a couple of his performances(taped) and man o man how do ya do that there is some serious pedal steel MOJO goin on.

_________________
"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...

The electric guitar is here

_________________
"It's a Tone Faerie thing"
"Da goal is to sharpen ur wit as well as ye Sgian Dubh"
"Sippin Loch Dhu @Black lake" ,Kirby O...