About Wiz Feinberg's history in the music business, his musical equipment and gig schedule
Wiz's Steel Guitar Homepage
Wiztunes' Website Links:
Introducing Wiz Feinberg: Pedal Steel Guitarist
I'm the steel guitarist known in the Country Music business as "Wiz". I have been a professional pedal steel guitarist since 1974 and have played all over the US and Canada with numerous bands. My home base is now Flint, Michigan, where I play with various Country Music groups in night clubs, outdoor events, private parties and recording studios.
My style of playing is typically described as "Commercial." Having worked with recording artists and doing dozens of recording sessions, I tend to play Nashville Style pedal steel. People who hire me for shows and studio jobs usually prefer this style.
Once I settle into a regular gig, my style broadens out to what that band is playing, whether it's Old, New, Alternate, or Outlaw Country, or Classic Rock, originals, or Reggae (Listen to my audio samples below). When a band asks me to play instrumentals, I may do something done by steel players of the 1940s through the 1990s. I still play Steel Guitar Rag, Remington Ride, Panhandle Rag and Red Wing, all of which are well liked by dancers over the age of 50. I also play ballads, like: "No One Will Ever Know," "The Waltz You Saved For Me," "Last Date" and "SleepWalk" - for the slow dancers.
Click here to see my current gig schedule. If you are in my area, come out to where I'm playing and we'll have a cool one and talk shop! I invite you to read about my history in the Country Music business. It encapsules my development as a professional musician and names the people who have helped me get to where I am right now as a steel player.
About My Musical Equipment (Guitars, Amplifiers, Effects)
After having been a Sho~Bud man for the first 29 years of playing steel guitar, I made the switch to a different brand in 2003. My current steel guitar is a 1983, Rosewood, Emmons Push-Pull, with 8 pedals and 9 knee levers. I have equipped it with Bill Lawrence LXR-16 humbucking pickups that are totally quiet in otherwise electrically noisy clubs. In my opinion, nothing beats the tone of an Emmons pedal steel guitar!
One thing that hasn't changed over all these years is the brand of amplifiers I use. My first amplifier, in 1974, was a Peavey Session 400, which was the first amplifier Peavey built specifically for steel guitarists. Fast forward almost 4 decades and I am still playing through Peavey amplifiers. I now alternate between Peavey Nashville 112 and Nashville 400 amplifiers, depending of the required sound levels of the gigs. The Nashville 112 puts out just 80 watts into a 12" speaker, while the Nashville 400 produces 210 watts output into a 15" speaker.
Despite the Nashville 400 having much higher output level, it has no XLR output for a mixer, which the Nashville 112 does provide. Thus, if I know I am going to be running through a sound system, controlled by a sound man, I usually bring the Nashville 112 and let them take a direct XLR connection from it to the mixer board. Otherwise, the amp would have to be miked, which gets tricky on some loud gigs.
I use a variety of effects pedals, which include the following:
some include my affiliate links to buy them on Amazon
- Goodrich active volume pedal, with external AC adapter
- A home-built buffer / compressor / fuzztone (similar to the original Sho~Sound Bosstone, which I also have as a backup device)
- A Bobro Dobro Simulator pedal, with a graphite tone-bar, from the late Bobbe Seymour's "Steel Guitar Nashville" custom shop. May he rest in peace. FYI: a Boss 7 band equalizer pedal can be set to get the same effect.
- A Boss Digital Delay, with three delay time modes and an adjustable delay time between 12.5ms to 800ms, plus endless repeats in Hold mode. This is a must-have effect!
- A Boss DD-8 long digital delay with sound effects.
- A Boss Chorus CH-1 to Fatten my sound.
- Boss Tremolo TR-2 - makes me sound like Duane Eddy! A tremolo is an overlooked effect for steel guitarists and adds a lot if you play rhythm, or fills in the background.
- Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb, with a "spring reverb" setting that sounds like a 3 spring Accutronics reverb can on steroids! This digital reverb is far superior to any mechanical spring reverb I have used before, especially on less than solid stages, where spring reverbs tend to go crazy when the stage flexes under an amplifier.
- One new style Boss PSA-120S Adapter for all Boss stomp pedals. This model only uses one AC socket space.
- Two - Truetone 1 SPOT Space-Saving 9V AC Adapters with 5 plug power cables, for 1 SPOT and Boss AC Adapters, to power 5 effects pedals from one adapter.
- A Tripplite Isobar Ultra
- 6 outlet surge suppressor, which limits the input AC voltage to around 140 volts, to protect my equipment from over-voltage burnouts or overheating.
- Peavey Nashville 112 (80 Watts) and Nashville 400 (200 Watts) Amplifiers. Both have front panel effects loop jacks, which I use on all my gigs.
- An EBow electromagnetic string driver that keeps a string resonating forever. I use this effect to approximate a smooth soprano voice in the background, holding it midway between my bar and the bridge, with digital delays and reverb. Or it can sound like an oboe or cello on the bass strings, held right over the pickup to overdrive it.
- A professional Sitar bar with a flatted edge
- A 3 1/2" long x 7/8" diameter end off a wooden broom stick, for banjo effects
I run from my steel, thru the plug-in buffer /compressor /fuzztone, to the Boss Tremolo, which plugs into the Bobro Dobro Simulator (it really sounds like a Dobro, but without the feedback problems), the ouput of which feeds into the volume pedal input. I send the output of the volume pedal directly to the amplifier's input jack. This pre-volume pedal group is at a high signal level, direct from the pickup. I have found that very few effect pedals can take that input level, without clipping (with the exception of the Bobro and Boss Tremolo).
Since the Peavey 112 and 400 amplifiers have a front panel effects loop, I take the signal output from the amp's "pre-eq" patch to the input of Boss Delay, which feeds into the Boss Chorus or Tremolo (depending on the nature of the gig) pedal, which feeds into the Boss Reverb. The output of the Boss Reverb feeds back to the effects input jack on the front of the amp. These patch cables, all Belden 1/8" low capacity cabling, are tied together in a 15' long bundle. I use Bill Lawrence and George L Quick Connector jacks on all of my cables. The placement of the AC adapter powered digital effects into the effects loop reduces the AC hum and electronic circuitry noise from them to almost inaudible levels needed in recording studios or practicing.
Listen to some of my sample sound waves
Click the button to hear Wiz playing "The Boiler", in its entirety. (347kb)
This is an original instrumental, written by The Pedal Steel Guitarist known as Wiz, and recorded, live, in 1980.
Click the sound button to download a low-quality wave file (298kb), of me playing Leather Britches, recorded live in 1983.
Click the sound button to download a better quality wave file (745kb), of me playing Leather Britches, recorded live in 1983.
Click the sound button to download a sample wave file (351kb), of me playing Leather Britches, recorded live in 1987.
Click this button to play Wiz's original instrumental - Opryland Ride, in mp3 format (2.1Mb).
Listen to a Reggae session I played steel guitar on, around 1980.
Published Works
Over a period of a few years, during the late 1970's through the early 1980's, I was a staff writer for Al Brisco's "Steel Guitar Club", with a quarterly circulated newsletter, containing my series called "Wiz's Workshop". These were technical articles, for steel players, to help them to repair their instruments, while on the road, and also on how to hook up effect devices properly, and on my own special tuning techniques. One of my most famous Wiz's Workshop articles is called "The Adventures Of Steelman." (Excerpt: "LOOK, UP IN THE AIR, IT'S A PIANIST; IT'S AN ORGANIST; NO, IT'S STEELMAN!") I have reprinted it, with Al Brisco's permission. If you would like some brief amusement, with a combined, embedded repair article, click here, to read a reprint of The Adventures Of Steelman.
Read my bio and history in the music business. I believe all musicians will find the path I've followed interesting. 
Navigation links for Wiztunes:
Wiztunes Home |
My Bookings |
Adventures of Steelman |
My Biography |
My Copedent |
Stuff For Sale |
Contact Form |
Links