All The Things You Are

[Dale Rottacker]

First off I want to thank my friend Ron Forest for his help getting me up and running with a new method of getting the Steel into my DAW. Pretty happy with how the Steel sounds in this. Aside from my playing.

All The Things You Are was a squirrel that popped up in front of me the other, so something that took me off another path, but now I don’t remember what that was LOL … The beginning of this was inspired by a version of this I heard Beegie Adair do and really liked how the intro modulated into this.

Still trying to get comfortable creating single note lines that make some kind of sense, but the journey is long

https://youtu.be/XexLl-6KbqA

[Rick Bernauer]

Dale - that sounded great! Nice voicings and tone.

[Dale Rottacker]

Dale - that sounded great! Nice voicings and tone.

Thank you Rick

[Jack Stanton]

Dale, great as always. Can you please elaborate about your new recording method?
Thanks!

[Slim Heilpern]

Sounds great Dale!

[Dale Rottacker]

Dale, great as always. Can you please elaborate about your new recording method?
Thanks!

Thank you Jack ... I've used several methods over the years, but my main method the last couple of years was out of my 2nd out of my Telonics VP and then into my DAW to give me a dry track. I'd been overall happy but wanted to be happier.

So before Bill Ferguson was gonna run out of those LTD pedals I got one wanting to try one out. I play through a Quilter 202 with both 12" and 15" cabinets and love what I'm hearing out of them, but that sound doesn't always quite translate into the DAW. So I had my friend Ron Forest help me hook the LTD up correctly. I'd been using the Input/Send/Return/Sig Out of the 202... He had me coming out of my VP into the LTD>Flashback>Return and then the SIG OUT into the DAW in the Pre position of the 202. I still found that Signal just a tad thin and a bit harsh, but straight from my VP in was too round in tone. So Ron had me use a Cab Sim from Ampire which is in Studio One (DAW). I picked a 2-12 Blackface for the cabinet. That made a BIG difference, now the recorded steel was sounding VERY close to what I'm hearing out of the cabinets in the room. That 2-12 Blackface (Fender Twin?) fattened it up, rounded off the harshness and made me happy.

I usually tweak the Eq and add a touch of compression in post, with the Eq generally getting a bit of a boost above 3K+ ... I did NONE of that with this, as I felt the Highs rang without being overly jabby with the bottom full and rich without any mud.

You may hear something different with your ears, but thats what I was hearing ... Ron told me he thought it was "super smooth, but still had the upper mid growl when I needed it". I've always strived for Rich with Bite tone, and think I get that in the room, but getting that in the recording not always. Maybe now??

Sounds great Dale!

Thanks Slim

[Jack Stanton]

Dale, I'm going to have to read that at least three times, but thanks!

[Dale Rottacker]

Dale, I'm going to have to read that at least three times, but thanks!

I apologize for that Jack … communication skills are yet another of my shortcomings

[Detlef Webert]

Dale,
perhaps a little sketch would make it but more obvious what you are doing.

[Dale Rottacker]

Dale,
perhaps a little sketch would make it but more obvious what you are doing.

As per your suggestion Detlef, and WHY didn't I think of that ... This is the "chain" that Ron Forest sent me, (he's really good at this ) and his preferred method.

The only difference being that although the 202 Sig Out has a Cab Sim, when I recorded "exactly" like this and the steel was really clean, the steel was also a tad thin and harsh. Ron suggested using a Cab Sim that comes with my recording software, PreSonus Studio One 6.6. The plugins called Ampire, which I put directly on the Steel Buss Insert, (and I suspect most recording software has plugins similar to this). It has many to choose from and having little experience with cab sims I chose something that seemed familiar at least in name, the 2-12 Blackface, which I guess is a Fender Twin emulation.

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[Larry Jamieson]

Very nice, Dale, well played, tasty... I enjoyed your music.

[Detlef Webert]

Thanks a lot, Dale!
Easy to understand, now.

Nice track recorded !!!

[Jim Mckay]

That's great listening as usual Dale. Love the chords.

[Detlef Webert]

Dale,
Here comes another question :
Why do you feed in the signal of the steel 2 times into the DAW and how you process them ?( I have absolutely no experience with it).

[Dale Rottacker]

Very nice, Dale, well played, tasty... I enjoyed your music.

Glad you liked it Larry ... pretty fun song to do.

That's great listening as usual Dale. Love the chords.

Thanks Jim ... I do love chords

Dale,
Here comes another question :
Why do you feed in the signal of the steel 2 times into the DAW and how you process them ?( I have absolutely no experience with it).

Thats a good question Detlef ... here goes ... Many do this, some FAMOUS ones ... I actually don't do that, though I did years ago and may yet again, in fact I've recorded up to 4 Steel tracks at a time, (don't ask LOL) I have no desire to do that these days. The idea behind it though (at least for me) was to record a Dry track and a wet track and then blend the two. Many options, like record one track direct and one with a mic or two mics or two different amps. Sky's the limit. That said this was only done with one track, and it was wet going in. I had wanted to record just one dry track, but hate hearing a dry amp when I play, so what I had started doing a couple years ago, was to record the dry track but have a wet track to listen too. And then I'd take the dry recorded track and add reverb and delay afterwards. Generally I believe the recommended method of recording. But like I mentioned on this one I didn't record the dry track though it was still there, but recorded the wet track and STILL added some additional Reverb and Delay on top of it. Confused??? Me too!!!

[Detlef Webert]

Thanks a lot Dale for the info.
Perhaps I have to dive deeper in the DAW business and start myself recordings (It's probably a mess, a sign to stop and to give up).

[Dale Rottacker]

Thanks a lot Dale for the info.
Perhaps I have to dive deeper in the DAW business and start myself recordings (It's probably a mess, a sign to stop and to give up).

The learning curve isn’t terribly steep, YouTube is your friend. Once you’ve recorded one thing the second thing is easy. If you get stuck reach out and I can get you stuck deeper

[Jerry Overstreet]

Nice job Dale. It's a good exercise in chord theory/changes. Most all of the single note work can be found within the changes.

I learned it several years back from a Jernigan LP with help from some chord sheets.

It's a beast. I've heard the song referred to as "all the chords you know". I've been able to play it out exactly one time at our now defunct steel club but only because the old timer musicians we had then could play it. Nobody else I know, knows the changes.

It was good to hear your delivery of the song. It's one of my favorite tunes to listen to also.

[Dale Rottacker]

Nice job Dale. It's a good exercise in chord theory/changes. Most all of the single note work can be found within the changes.

I learned it several years back from a Jernigan LP with help from some chord sheets.

It's a beast. I've heard the song referred to as "all the chords you know". I've been able to play it out exactly one time at our now defunct steel club but only because the old timer musicians we had then could play it. Nobody else I know, knows the changes.

It was good to hear your delivery of the song. It's one of my favorite tunes to listen to also.

Jerry thanks so much for this. You're one of the guys whose comments, when I run across them I always read with great interest.

I wish I could come at music more theoretically than strictly by ear, as I may then be quicker at figuring out what I'm hearing and looking for. Scales and modes allude me, so single note lines are a huge challenge for me. I easily lose the melody in my head, and have to kinda accidentally hit a couple notes that make sense in my flailing around, and then extrapolate that into something longer heading to a destination. I have to have some sort of pattern, and fortunately there were some nice patterns in this song that helped me out. My process should NEVER be copied and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. A 55 year old struggle.

[Larry Dering]

I've always loved this song from the Jazz cats like Johnny Smith, Joe Pass and many others. Hearing it played on pedal steel is a big plus and you handled it nicely. The tone and chords are mesmerising. Love it Dale.

[Dale Rottacker]

I've always loved this song from the Jazz cats like Johnny Smith, Joe Pass and many others. Hearing it played on pedal steel is a big plus and you handled it nicely. The tone and chords are mesmerising. Love it Dale.

Thanks so much for your kind words Larry. It was a piano re-harmonization ad on FB that put this song back in front of me. Surely is a great song, and seems to fit on steel really well, with nice patterns in it’s structure to follow.