Scotty's Non-Pedal / Lap Steel Strings
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About Non-Pedal / Lap Steel Guitar Strings
Scotty's sets were developed with the late DeWitt "Scotty" Scott and his Missouri shop, Scotty's Music. Scotty founded the International Steel Guitar Convention and the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, and spent a lifetime around the instrument and the people who play it. These are the strings he used himself. They are not a set we named after him.
They are built around one idea: on a steel guitar, noise is the enemy. Every wound string in every set is a Silencer semi-flat, polished so the bar slides across it quietly. You keep the clarity and the sustain, and you lose the scrape a roundwound makes under a steel bar — which on this instrument is audible on every single move you make.
Lap steel has no standard tuning, so we make sets for the four that matter, in six and eight string.
Choosing a tuning
C6 is the most versatile and the usual starting point — the Hawaiian and swing tuning, and the one Jerry Byrd made the standard. A6 is the Western swing tuning, popular with the early West Coast players including Herb Remington. Both men are in the Hall of Fame Scotty founded. E13 is the bright, hard-edged country tuning heard on the records Speedy West and Don Helms played on. E7 is a straightforward major tuning used across Hawaiian and country playing, and it adapts to several alternate setups, which makes it the flexible one.
Six string or eight
Six string is the classic lap steel and the easier instrument to learn on. Eight string keeps the same six strings and adds two more below them, extending the bass range and opening up chord voicings you cannot reach on six — so the top of the neck feels identical if you move up. If you are buying for an instrument you already own, count the tuners.
Tunings and gauges
Lap steel tunings are built so the open strings already form a chord — that is the point of the instrument, and it is why a bar laid straight across gives you a full harmony. So the tuning matters more than the gauge here, and the note each string goes to is the thing most people write in to ask. Here is every set, string 1 first.
| Set | Gauge and note, string 1 down |
|---|---|
| C6 6-string — SC6C6TH | .015 (E) .018 (C) .022 (A) .024SL (G) .030SL (E) .036SL (C) |
| C6 8-string — SC8C6TH | .015 (E) .018 (C) .022 (A) .024SL (G) .030SL (E) .036SL (C) .042SL (A) .054SL (G) |
| A6 6-string — SC6A6TH | .015 (E) .017 (C#) .022 (A) .026SL (F#) .030SL (E) .034SL (C#) |
| A6 8-string — SC8A6TH | .015 (E) .017 (C#) .022 (A) .026SL (F#) .030SL (E) .034SL (C#) .042SL (A) .056SL (F#) |
| E13 6-string — SC6E13TH | .010 (G#) .014 (E) .017 (C#) .017 (B) .020 (G#) .030SL (E) |
| E13 8-string — SC8E13TH | .010 (G#) .014 (E) .017 (C#) .017 (B) .020 (G#) .030SL (E) .034SL (D) .036SL (B) |
| E7 6-string — SC6E7TH | .015 (E) .018 (B) .022 (G#) .030SL (E) .034SL (D) .038SL (B) |
| E7 8-string — SC8E7TH | .015 (E) .018 (B) .022 (G#) .030SL (E) .034SL (D) .038SL (B) .046SL (G#) .056SL (E) |
SL marks a Silencer semi-flat wound string — every wound string in every set. The E13 sets carry two strings of the same gauge tuned to different notes, which is correct for that tuning and not a misprint.
How Scotty's compares to our other specialty sets
Scotty's are our non-pedal and lap steel sets, and the only ones we make with a player's own name on them. For a pedal steel with a changer, see our Pedal Steel sets in E9, C6 and universal tuning. For resonator guitars played with a slide, see our Resonator sets. The Silencer semi-flat winding used here is the same one in our Semi-Flat Silencers sets for electric, acoustic and bass.
Made in the USA.