Yeah, lap steel is great. I started around Feb. of '06 after having played guitar for a loooooong time. I now consider myself a steel player first, guitarist 2nd. Re: lap steels and pedals: some great advice given on this already and I don't have much to add, but you'll probably want to steer clear of anything that's not true bp, as most lap steels only have 1 SC pickup. And they're (usually, esp. on beater steels) noisy as hell. Trial and error is more or less what I recommend. I use a roundnose bar, which our friend lapsteel calls a dildo bar, and often, I hold it upside down. I do this in the event that I'm doing lots of detailed single-note stuff where I have to bounce around from fret to fret/string-to-string a lot. That may be worth adding to your repertoire, too. Some of my go-to fuzzes for lap steel (and I play a 100.00 SX) are the Fuzzhugger Phantom Octave and the Devi Ever US fuzz. It's possible that you won't hear a lot of the octave down come through on your steel, depending on the pickup/s it comes with, but it's just got this hissing, serpentine kind of voice that sounds rad with slides n' slurs. The US, with the intensity dimed will get you nice, singing sustain that gates out before the noise comes in. A fun thing I always try and do is play all the things I've come up with on regular guitar on lap steel. You may find that you like the lap steel version better. Welcome to ILF!NOTE: bong rips and steel sessions go hand in hand
also - how absolutely necessary it is to have a volume pedal when playing lap steel?
