About Wiz Feinberg's history in the music business, his musical equipment and gig schedule

Wiz's D-10 Steel Guitar Copedent

What is a Copedent?

The word "Copedent" is pedal steel guitar terminology meaning "chord /pedal /arrangement"

Pedal steel guitars are operated by a combination of floor pedals, mounted onto a crossbar between the front legs, with adjustable height rods connecting them to crossbars on the undercarriage, and knee levers that hang down from the undercarriage of the instrument. The floor pedals are pushed down until they are stopped by adjustable pedal stop screws. The knee levers are pushed either to the left, the right, or up, until they hit their stop screws. The pitch of the changes is fine-tuned on the right end of the casing.

In the case of the more popular "all-pull" mechanisms, the open pitch is adjusted with the tuning keys on the left top ends. The pedal and knee lever raises and lowers are tuned on the right end, by turning threaded hex shaped (3/16") nylon tuners, on threaded rods. the tuners contact the "split-finger" mechanism that raises or lowers the "fingers" in the bridge. All of my steel guitars, from 1974 through 2004, were made by Sho~Bud, featuring all pull mechanisms. The last one was a Super~Pro, that I bought brand new in 1981.

However, there is another class of pedal steel guitars that is tuned differently than the all-pull system. Known as the "Push-Pull" - developed and optimized by the Emmons Guitar Company, the bridge fingers are either pulled to the left, to raise the pitch, or pushed to the right, to lower the pitch. The raises are tuned first with the tuning keys on the top-left end, with the appropriate raising pedals or knee levers engaged. Then, the pedals and knee levers that lower (push) strings are engaged and the lowering stop screws are adjusted in the top row of Allen screws along the right end-plates. Finally, the open pitch is set with the bottom row of Allen screws on each right end-plate. Admittedly, tuning a push pull can be frustrating for some players who have only played all-pull steel guitars for many years.

After playing the same all pull Sho~Bud Super~Pro steel guitar for 23 years, I finally traded it in for an Emmons push pull double neck steel guitar, in January, 2004. Not being a fan of the hum produced by even the best single coil pickups, I bought and installed a pair of Lawrence LXR-16 humbucking pickups, which were his most recent offering for pedal steel guitars. Although those pickups were quiet and sounded very good, they lacked the sparkle that single coils pickups reproduced. So, in December of 2022, I bought a new pair of Emmons single coil pickups and installed them. After one year, in December 2023, I replaced the single coils with a brand new pair of Lawrence L-710 pickups. Now, my Emmons push pull steel guitar produces "that sound," which is so sought-after by professional steel players around the World, but without the hum and feedback of the single coils. They are brighter and more authentic sounding than the LXR-16s that I put on it in 2004. They are close to the single coil sound as I can get in a humbucking pickup.

Wiz's Copedent

The following charts show the open pitches and pedal/knee lever raises and lowers of every string on the two 10 string necks of my double neck pedal steel guitar (currently, a 1983 Emmons "Push Pull", with 8 pedals and 9 knee levers. My single neck guitar's copedent is on this page.

The first chart represents the front E9 tuning neck, affectionately known as "the money neck." It is the most frequently used tuning in recorded steel guitar parts on most of the sessions that have hit the radio waves since the early 1960s.

The second chart is for my bottom, C6 tuning neck. I use this neck for jazz, blues, old-time Classic Country and several instrumentals. The C6 neck produces heavy altered chords, with deep bass notes. Due to the weight of this guitar, I use it much less often since I bought a single neck, double frame Emmons Legrande III, in May, of 2021. Since most of my gigs are mostly modern Country music, where the bottom neck isn't used, I'd probably sell the double neck push pull if somebody offers me enough money and pays cash and carry! Contact me if you're interested.

The E9th Neck

Terms used and definitions:

The table below lists the strings, vertically, with #1 = F# (the front string) and #10 = B (the back string), on the E9 neck (front neck). The floor-pedals are listed from left to right, with P-1 as the outside, left pedal. The knee levers are also left to right, where LKL = "Left Knee Left", LKR = "Left Knee Right", RKL = "Right Knee Left" and RKR = "Right Knee Right". "Back" means the knee lever to the back of the body; "front" means to the front of the body and "up" means push the lever up. The term + means raise (sharp) one fret; ++ means raise two frets; - means lower (flat) one fret; and - - means lower two frets.

Volume pedals for pedal steel guitars.

High profile passive Goodrich volume pedal. This pedal has a higher profile that's best suited to people with short legs, like me.

Low profile active and passive Goodrich volume pedal. This pedal has a lower profile that's better suited to taller players.

The C6 Neck

Terms used and definitions:

The pedal numbering is from the left to the right (P4 thru P8), with P8 being the last one on the right end of the guitar. The knee levers for use on the C6th neck only are labeled as (LKL, not yet installed), LKR and LKup. One activates to the right, the other moves up. The right side knee levers are shared with both necks. I am still trying different arrangements for these knee levers.

As was explained in the E9th section, the pluses (+) and minuses (-) mean sharp and flat, one per fret (semi-tone).

You can use my Comments Form to contact me about my copedent.

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This page was last updated on: Thursday, 04-Apr-2024 10:25:38 CDT

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