For those unfamiliar with MIDI I will give a short explanation of the terms and devices. For those of you who are familiar with MIDI but not steel guitar, you are on the right home page. For those of you who are familiar with neither, you are also in the right place.
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The pedal steel guitar is a unique and beautiful instrument. Its chordal capability combined with its timbre and sustain are hard to equal in the world of "natural"(wood and metal) instruments, and difficult to emulate even with high tech digital devices. Mike Perlowin's excellent description can be found on the Quasar Steel Guitar home page.
In the mid 1980's a workable agreement on the MIDI standard was approved, and a new paradigm for music production took hold. A single person in a garage studio could, with the right MIDI equipment and a modicum of talent, emulate an entire band's worth of musicians; programming a drum machine, recording the bass and keyboard parts into a sequencer for playback on a synthesizer or sampler and playing along with the result on whatever 'natural" instrument they were adept at.. Many synthesizers are multitimbral, so that one synthesizer can simultaneously play both strings and piano, or possibly more "instruments" if set up correctly. Many pop (and you'd better believe "hot new country") recordings are made in this way, and many performers enhance their live presentations with MIDI sequences.
In the late 1980's several companies tried to make MIDI controllers available to players other than keyboardists. One company in particular, IVL of Canada, produced several "pitch-to-MIDI" converter devices under the "Pitchrider" brand name. They made Pitchriders for guitar, woodwinds and horns, microphone input, and miracle of surprises, even for pedal steel - a unit called the Steelrider!
The ability to bend notes in opposite directions in real time, or to slide from one chord into another give the pedal steel unparalleled possibilities as a MIDI controller. Buddy Emmons was a proponent of the Steelrider, and his Christmas Sounds of the Steel Guitar album is a stellar example of the use of the then new technology. Unfortunately the demand for such devices never materialized, possibly due to IVL being ahead of their time or the relatively small numbers of steel players who might take advantage of the opportunity or just plain prohibitive expense (although most steel guitars are prohibitively expensive) and the company went on to other more lucrative endeavors.
The Steelrider consists of a pickup/preamp unit with a separate output for each string that connects via multi-pin DIN cables to a 2-space rack mount unit which converts the incoming signals to MIDI data and sends them out a MIDI cable to any attached MIDI device. It is capable of handling up to a 12 string guitar with the correct pickup. It has several parameters that may be controlled from the front panel, such as sending any string's signal on any given MIDI channel, transposing the signal up or down in half-step increments by as much as two octaves, or controlling the amount of pitch bend data transmitted.
Pitch-to-MIDI devices are subject to some basic laws of physics that make them less than perfect if one's desire is to accurately transmute an intricate instrumental performance into MIDI data: It takes at least 1.5 cycles of a played note for the device to accurately determine the pitch of the note. This creates a noticeable delay between the plucking of a string and the sounding of a note from the synthesizer. This delay decreases as the pitch of the note played rises (more cycles per second for a higher pitch = faster response); If the note is not in tune it may trigger the next note up or down from the note intended, or not trigger a note at all if a second note comes too quickly.
These qualities of "tracking" are the bane of companies trying to create alternative MIDI controllers, particularly guitar controllers. From years of hearing the note IMMEDIATELY upon playing it, and expecting that IMMEDIATE auditory feedback to the brain, many guitarists seem to be thrown for a loop when trying to play riffs they are used to through a MIDI device, and generally abandon the attempt.
Now it gets personal. My feeling is, yes there is a delay, but that the advantages outweigh the problems. It is almost like learning another instrument, and with patience and ingenuity one can manipulate the device to one's will. There will be things that the device is just not capable of- accurately tracking a 96 MPH speed picking riff for instance; but having the ability to play almost any sound imaginable will allow one to explore different approaches to creating MUSIC, not just riffs, and open new realms of expression. I find the delay can be musically useful- when playing with an organ patch it can give the classic "B3 player on nembutal" feel when playing with an in-the-pocket R and B groove. One can also play slightly ahead of the beat (a technique many steelers use for volume pedal swells) in order to compensate for the miniscule delay.
My experience with the Steelrider has opened my ears to nuances of technique and voicings of instrumentalists of many kinds. In order to emulate a piano player convincingly one should play piano-like things. The steel is capable of some very horn section-like chord voicings, and when coupled with a "brass" patch on the synth can be very convincing.
Another technique I am fond of is blending the output of the steel with the synthesizer output via a small mixer. The combination of the attack of a steel with the sustain of a string section is really angelic. Or a harpsichord patch transposed up a fourth from the actual steel note can emulate Jimmy Bryant's "Stratosphere" guitar.
It took time to learn these things, but I was able to make effective use of the Steelrider relatively quickly because I already had a knowledge of MIDI and sequencing from recording projects. Playing "live" with MIDI was a new challenge though.
When I first brought my Steelrider and synth rack to a gig the rest of my band was skeptical; by the following week's rehearsal it was "ok Dave, you cover the string part on this tune" or "can you cop that piano riff for the intro?" as well as trying to duplicate the latest Paul Franklin, Hal Rugg or Bruce Bouton steel parts. Does the name "Sybil" ring a bell?
The uses can of course be far more exotic than I have
indicated; going beyond pop-combo instrumental emulations into
the realm of true electronic music, or newage (rhymes with sewage)
soundscapes is entirely feasible. While giving a demonstration
of my rig at a college course lecture on synthesis I was asked
by one of the students "what's the ugliest
sound you can make with that thing?" I was initially
taken aback, but it did set me to thinking about the corners we
can paint ourselves into while thinking we are exploring the wild
blue yonder. (Sheesh - no more mixed metaphor philosophy Dave,
it's getting deep in here.)
My MIDI setup is not particularly elaborate by modern rig standards. Obsolescence is my friend: the hot new toy of last year or the year before still does whatever amazing thing it was designed to do, but can be found at dramatically reduced price on the used market (as with all electronics nowadays). I have built my system a piece at a time over several years: Kawai K1r multitimbral rack-mount synthesizer circa 1989; 360 Systems MIDIBass, a dedicated bass sample-player circa 1988; Alesis D4 rack-mount drum sound module circa 1993; Cakewalk Pro sequencing software; Band in a Box software; an 80286 Laptop circa 1988. Not the latest and greatest, but emminently functional. I can play gigs where I am the only live musician on stage. Maybe visually unexciting, but musically as full as I can plan it to be. I joke that the only musician I have to worry about showing up to the gig sober is myself.
Band in a Box is a software package I would recommend for anyone who has a computer with sound card or MIDI ability. One can type in a chord progression on a spreadsheet style screen, choose a tempo and STYLE from swing to pop to R and B shuffle to many more...press play and the program generates a drum part, bass line, and piano accompaniment along with which one can play. It's like the old "music minus one" records or many steel guitar lesson tapes with the band isolated on one track to practice along with, and is very cool- not sounding "canned" or artificial. There are other software packages that do similar things- "Jammer!" for one; there are also self contained hardware devices that perform similarly from Korg, Kawai or Yamaha but the computer based program is more flexible, and work can be saved.
Even if you are not interested in having your steel guitar control a synthesizer, the multimedia capabilities of today's consumer level computers, coupled with software such as Band in a Box, or an inexpensive sequencer, can be a valuable learning and practice tool.
Steelriders are available previously owned, but are rare, and are not manufactured anymore. Repair of pickups, or availability of replacement parts is iffy. If you find one and become as dependent on it as I have, treat it gently!
Reverend Al Petty used to attend the Scotty's Convention each year and perform with a setup he called the "GuitOrchestra." He said it was NOT an IVL, although it was extremely similar in appearance. Who am I to argue?