Stage Setup

My Steels
I am using and endorsing pedal steel guitars made by GFI Musical Products in Arlington, Texas. My usual road guitar is a single-neck ten-string keyless Ultra model, with four pedals and six knee levers. I also own and regularly use a double-neck ten-string standard keyhead Ultra model, with eight pedals and seven knee levers. It can be seen (sort of) in my webpage wallpaper. The pedal setup on my single-neck is shown below (the front neck of my double-neck is the same)..

I believe GFI makes the best road guitar I've ever owned - it's rugged, lightweight, stable, and very easy to work on. Besides all that, it plays and sounds great! Gene Fields has done a fine job, both in its design and its manufacture. I'm glad to see they're catching on with an ever-growing number of pros.

My Rack
Most of what I hear onstage is through my in-ear monitors, the rest is what bleeds through from outside my earpieces (that would be the house PA and a really loud audience). Since I wouldn't be able to really hear an instrument amplifier anyway, and to cut down the stage volume, I've opted to use a Line 6 Pod Pro amplifier modeler direct to the PA. This is set up in a rack case along with a Lexicon MPX100 multi-effects processor, a JoeMeek 3Q channel strip (used when miking an amp), and a Shure wireless receiver for guitar. This setup is giving me more flexibility, portability, and consistency than I've gotten using amplifiers, and I still get plenty of compliments on my sound. I do miss the acoustic presence and moving air from a speaker cabinet a little bit, but to me (and the soundmen and roadies) the tradeoff is worth it.

The Other Stuff
I'm currently using the awesome Keith Hilton active volume pedals - they're lightyears ahead of the old passive volume pedals. With the low-profile GFI's, I use their low profile pedal, which sits slightly lower for better leg clearance. . My bar is a BJS standard ten-string bullet bar, and I like Kyser fingerpicks and Zookie M-20 thumbpicks. Let's see...I'm now also using the Peterson VSII programmable strobe tuner... George L cable rates among the highest for sound quality and lowest in cost - hard to beat that. My Easy Rider pack-a-seat is great but about on its "last legs"...