In 1989 I purchased an IVL pitch converter. These units are no longer made but a few of them are still around. Perhaps one can be found on the web. A pitch converter listens to a note played on an instrument or a vocal, and converts that note into a MIDI note which is sent to a synth allowing a steel guitar, in this example, sound like a piano or any other sound available on the synth. With lots of practice a steel guitar can play piano sounds very close to Floyd Cramer style. You must think Piano while playing the piano sound or it will not be convincing to the listener.
I took the guts out of the IVL foot pedal controller and put them in a Bud Box about 6 inches wide by 3 inches. I use a mic stand adapter to attach this box to the right front leg of my steel. I mounted push buttons on the box to do the same functions with my fingers instead. I also added a button to kill the steel audio so I could play the synth back to back or with the steel. Playing with a string accompaniment sounds very cool.
I built a 2 input mixer, one input for the steel and the other for the synth, in order to keep the impedance correct on the output of each device. If you have connected your steel with another instrument with a “Y” connector, you know the problems, a mixer solves the frequency and level loss created by the “Y” cable.
The steel output goes to input 1 of the mixer, and the synth to input 2 and the output of the mixer goes to the volume foot pedal. The output of the pedal goes to my Jazzkat amp. This way I have control of all audio through the foot volume pedal.
I have quite a snake running from the guitar to the amp and rack case, but I use very low capacitance cable and it sounds very good. This has really made playing fun again. Takes a lot of practice to make the steel sound like the style of a piano, or other instrument but it can be done.
You must get yourself a Jazzkat Amp. It is especially good for players that are having trouble carrying that heavy Peavy 400. This little amp weighs 23 pounds, has an 8 inch speaker and 110 watts. Don’t be fooled by the speaker or wattage, it does a very good job on the low strings too. Why carry a 200 watt amp around when the senior citizens in the club complain that the music is too loud. I find that aging fraternal club patrons have better hearing as they grow older. Playing that concert gig? You still don’t need 200 watts, the crew will mic your amp anyway and it keeps the stage audio level low. You need this amp, check out the Jazzkat web page.