Good ears, guitarhacker, the first song is a steel guitar back there in the mix. The giveaway is in the type of sustain and overtones, the pedal steel guitar is so stiff that all you hear are the strings themselves.

Attempts to duplicate those parts with a plank and a slide, well, you couldn't really nail what's going on there since you don't have pedals to change string breaks, but if I had to cover this song I would simply come up with some tasty embellishments in those places, and not necessarily use the slide at all. Volume Pedal? Naw, I prefer wrappin' my little finger around the Volume knob on the guitar and using it to create the swells, Envelope changing by picking first with vol down and then using the knob as the Attack, stuff like that. Use of pre-bends, picking with two fingers instead of the flat plectrum (yes, I often use a thunmbpick and fingers, you can grab that thumbpick and play it just like the regular plectrum when called upon to do so yet still have those three fingers for picking double stop notes on the inside and high strings).

The 2nd song is a pedal steel as well. Here, however, it is coupled with a standard guitar, they are workin' it together and there is plenty of crossfade going on between the two as well, likely a "hands on" Producer at mix time here.

Again, for live performance, it is only important that you create that sustained "mood" more than trying to suddenly become a steel guitar player without a steel guitar.

Clean tones, but put the Compressor at the beginning of your signal chain, adjust it for that clean sustain. Then work up some single note and double note licks to suit, the second song does not feature that "pre-bend" sound, which makes it a bit easier to work up.

There is also plenty of PAD hiding in this second song, keyboard most likely, but could be a guitar synth. If you have a MIDI pickup, you might tty doubling both the MIDI Pad and the p/u output to amp, such that you are doubling those sustains but with the one instrument controlling two different sounds. As with any trick like that, avoid the urge to over-do it. A little goes a long way, a lot is a kill.


--Mac

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