Steel guitarist Bobbe Seymour sent this advice for steel guitar players. He said “I keep getting questions from everybody on how to set the Boss Digital Delay unit. It’s very simple. You set them where they sound the best when you play. I like to set them different for different tones and different tempos.

A good standard setting that several great players use is to set the echo on the digital delay where the first echo sound that you hear when you strike the strings is a little less than half the volume of the string without the echo on it.

In other words, set your echo volume where it’s a little less than half. Set the repeats where you only hear about three. The second repeat will be about half the volume of the first repeat and the third repeat can be almost inaudible.

I’m not going to tell you what numbers every knob goes on because the knobs could be installed totally different on different units. Besides, the settings need to be pleasing to the ear, not the eye.

Reportedly, this is the setting that Buddy Emmons uses on his echo unit when he plays those big beautiful lush Ray Price fills and turnarounds. You know, the ones he did in the 1960s.

Most steel players have a remote reverb unit, usually Boss, and the setting here would be mostly a matter of taste. Set it where you can hear it clearly and not to where it gets in the way.

Now here’s the way to hook up your two units. Go from your guitar into the input side of the echo unit. From the echo unit, go into your volume pedal. From the volume pedal, go into your reverb unit. From the reverb unit, go to the amplifier.

So actually, your volume pedal is between your echo and your reverb unit. Of course, from your reverb unit, you can come out of the two outputs and go in to two different amplifiers and have a true stereo.

If you would rather have the echo in stereo, which most people don’t, but it does sound good, you can add the echo after the reverb unit and go into the amplifiers.

There are many ways you can hook up a lot of different effects. What I’m giving you is the most common way it’s done.”

You can visit Bobbe Seymour at www.steelguitar.net, or if you are in the Nashville area stop in at Steel Guitar Nashville, 123 Mid Town Court, Hendersonville, Tennessee, or call him at (615) 822-5555

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