What a goofy idea! Buying a $30 Danelectro Fish and Chips 7 band EQ, hooking it up to your pedal steel, and expecting to get anything resembling a dobro sound.
Well I got it, hooked it inline with the following flow: Steel Guitar > Goodrich Foot Volume > Boss RV-5 > Fish And Chips > Steel King Amp. After a lot of
experimentation I did end up with something pretty close to a dobro sound! You can see my fish and chips EQ settings in the pics below. It does a good job
of getting you in the ballpark of a dobro sound but the type of bar you use is the key to getting an authentic sound. Using a conventional steel bar or a hollowed
out Dunlop bar resulted in complete failure. Going to a sawed off hardwood handle or a glass bar was a bit better. Then I tried the end of an empty 12 ounce Pepsi can
and got something very usable. My final attempt (I left out many other items) with a Skin So Soft metal container got me so close to a dobro sound that I stopped looking
any further! I did try various plastic items both solid and hollow to no avail. Depending on the strings I am picking either the Pepsi can or the Skin So Soft works
better. I found that setting the RV-5 on Room reverb helps to simulate the short reverberation of a real dobro body. Picking VERY hard helps in getting a
more metallic sound. I am using a plastic blue Herco thumbpick and two heavy metal National finger picks. My amp settings are what I normally use for playing - no special
settings to enhance this effect.
Link To Danelectro Fish And Chips At Musician's Friend
Song Recorded with the Fish and Chips Dobro Sim |
Pictures! Click on them to see full sized pics. (Sorry about the flash, I am working on improving my photo quality)
Comments? email webmaster Greg