I set out to record "The Christmas Song" on the pedal steel with one E9th and one C6th verse all on one recording. It was just too much steel all in one place so
I split it into two recordings, one with E9th pedal steel and standard guitar and one with C6th pedal steel and some standard guitar and fiddle. Everywhere I looked there
were chord charts for this song and it became impossible for me to accept the simpler versions and just as hard to duplicate the original. I combined a bunch of chord ideas
while trying hard to stay close to the original feel and melody. I've included below both versions of the song along with my chord charts, steel tab for the E9th and C6th solos,
standard guitar chord fingering exactly
as used on my backing track, solo tracks with just the steel parts, and the backing track that I used on both versions. I picked the key of F for this song because it makes use of
a huge range of frets on both tunings.
All recordings were made in my home studio with real bass direct to console (tube preamp into Zoom R24), guitar (lead and rhythm) and fiddle through a Princeton Reverb and steel through a Fneder Steel King both mic'd
with a Shure SM-57. Originally I had an EZDrummer drum track for timing that I later erased because the drums ruined the feel of the track. The R24 tracks were then ported to Reaper for final editing and mixing and
mastering as 320kbps mp3 files. As a side note, I accidentally bumped the Hall Of Fame Reverb mode knob from CHURCH to MOD and out came this REALLY fat sustaining sound on the 6 string guitar so I left it that way.
Check it out!
The Christmas Song Backing Track |
Comments? email webmaster Greg