Uploaded February 2011 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago

This is a pretty country song. The song is straight forward E9th pedal steel. I'm playing a Pro-I ShoBud through a Princeton Reverb tube amp. I'm using a Boss DD-3 digital delay pedal (set to 9 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 2-3 o'clock, and 800 ms). I hope you like it.

$WHEN HE WAS ON THE CROSS - SONG 1 The song is titled, When He Was On The Cross, I Was On His Mind. I use a staccato style of finger picking in here, which simply means to pick one note slighttly after the first. For example: to pick strings 4 and 5 with the A pedal down. I first pick the 4th string with my middle finger and then just a fraction of a second later I pick the 5th string with my forefinger. Repeat this picking pattern up and down your chord scales and youll create some amazing sounds. This is how Stu Basore gets those amazing sounds in his playing. Also, dont use too much delay or reverb or else you wont get the pure sound. I am using a long delay on my BOSS DD-3 but I have my level set to only about 3 oclock. I only use one repeat on the second knob. For slower pretty songs Ill turn up the level to about 5 oclock and use 2 to 3 repeats. I think the BOSS DD-3 delay is a very important piece of equipment for every pedal steel guitar player to own and use. My amps reverb is on about 4. Finally, adding a LITTLE chorus works well with this staccato technique, but Im not using it here. The trick to using chorus on a steel guitar is to use just enough that the listener cannot tell that you are using it; yet it shapes your tone nicely. To me effects are like make-up on a woman, that is, a little paint on the ole barn never hurt anything, but too much will make yourself look (or sound) like a clown. The song modulates from the key of A to Bb. I modulate by picking strings 10,6,5,4 open on fret 5, and then sliding up one fret while pressing the B pedal and lowering the Es.$

DaveB11th |