Go to: http://www.b0b.com/ to find out all you need to know about pedal steels. 🙂

[quote=”lee_UK”]I recently watched the making of ‘Dark side of the moon’ DVD and wondered about the pedal steel that Gilmour was using, what do the pedals actualy do? do they set the stings for paticular tunings? or different keys? why a twin neck? whats the other one used for? and are any of the strings wound? anyone know? and do they still make them?….Just wondered.[/quote]

Don’t know that much about pedal steels but… yes to all the above!

There was once a shop in Denmark Street called Sho-Bud and they only did Pedal Steels. I think they still exist somewhere.. I’m sure I saw their name on Google.

The pedals shift the pitch of individual strings (some of which ARE wound).

I use to think that it was a real weed’s instrument until I saw a guy playing an astounding virtuoso rock solo with heavy distortion.. I was blown away by the power and sheer brilliance of his playing… never knew it could be played like that.

I once saw Hank Wangford in the back room of a pub in Barnes (Hank was actually my friend’s consultant gynocologist.. true!) and he had a pedal steel player by the name of B.J. Cole who is a ledgend around these parts. A brilliant player and, by all accounts, a jolly decent chap. They all had psudonyms… all I can remember was the female singer “Erma Sitas” and the bass player “Amos Averchick-Dailey)