Pedal Steel
Multi-string rarities
The pedal steel guitar was designed in the United States in the mid fifties and it’s a further development of the small Hawaiian guitar; levers and pedals allow for a change in the basic tuning of the strings in order to facilitate the execution of more complex harmonies. The two available Framus Professional Pedal Steel guitars, the FS 1000 and the FS 2000 with Nashville-sound pickups, differed in their one-neck and twin-neck construction as well as the outfitting with selectors, volume and tone controls for the pickups.
Frank Baum, pedal steel virtuoso and successful performer and studio musician, wrote as an introduction in his instructional book: “This modern method will allow any seriously interested player to easily learn this versatile instrument. Maybe it was the high price that gave him so little competition: the FS-2000 cost 3580 DM and the FS-1000 2670 DM. Both instruments were available from about 1967 till the mid seventies.
