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From Gary Moore’s violin-like swells on “Parisienne Walkways” to Steve Morse’s wah pedal–mimicking technique, the electric guitar has long proven an ideal platform for players looking to synthesize new sounds.
Now blues guitar star Samantha Fish has revealed the hack that turns her Gibson SG into a lap steel. Interestingly, it came about as she looked for ways to curb one of her bad guitar-playing habits.
“If I’m being honest, I fiddle with the [tone] knobs a lot,” she tells Guitarist magazine. Although she’s just trying to get the best sound possible, “if I’m fiddling too much, it’s not helping the show,” she admits. “I try to rely on pickups, volume switches and then pedals, [because they] are easier to hit with your foot while you’re trying to play guitar.”
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That mindset led her to invest in an Ernie Ball VP JR volume pedal so her hands could focus on playing rather than manipulating the guitar itself. Then she realized its usefulness could stretch well beyond what it says on the box.
“I got into the volume pedal first [before the pedalboard], and I kinda cheat volume swells,” she says. “I’ve always liked pedal steel, so on softer songs I’ll use it a lot.”
“I kinda cheat volume swells. “I’ve always liked pedal steel, so on softer songs I’ll use it a lot.”
— Samantha Fish
She then demos the pedal, and the slow arcs of the expression treadle imitate the glide of a pedal steel surprisingly well.
“I’ll do that in solos,” she adds, “and I see a lot of guitar players do that with their volume control. But it’s kind of far away from me on most guitars. So I haven’t found a comfortable way to do that and pull it off effortlessly, so that’s a good way to cheat it… I’m a cheater.”
“The volume pedal is my main go-to,” she once said during a rig rundown with Premier Guitar. “I use that the most in a show, for slide guitar and solos.”
There’s also a faux pedal-steel trick that doesn’t require any extra gear.
Elsewhere, Fish — widely regarded as a generational torch carrier for electric blues — has named the five players she says are keeping the genre alive.
The guitarist is currently supporting her latest album, Paper Doll, and recently sat down with Guitar Player magazine to reflect on opening for the Rolling Stones and to recall the “comedy of errors” gig in “crazy weather” she’s still desperate to forget.
