In this review, I look at an instrument from outside my regular knowledge base, the Gretsch G5700 Lap Steel. I like the sound in rock music of the lap steel where my first serious listener experience was from Larkin Poe’s Megan Lovell. If you like blues rock and don’t know of Larkin Poe, get to your music service and have a listen. I think that they are awesome.

So with the help of Shane at The Arts Music Store, I arranged a review unit. Upon bringing the instrument home, I had a lot to learn.

The Lap Steel Story

The lap steel guitar is a stringed instrument known for its distinctive sound, which is achieved by playing it horizontally on the lap with a steel bar rather than pressing down on frets. Its origins trace back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, primarily in Hawaii, where local musicians adapted traditional guitars to be played flat, using a metal or glass slide. This technique gave rise to the characteristic gliding tones of Hawaiian music, which became globally popular by the early 20th century. This was about the same time that the Hawaiian Ukulele first became a very popular instrument with big makers like Martin building a number of very high quality ukeleles.

The lap steel guitar gained widespread attention in the 1920s and 1930s when Hawaiian music influenced Western genres like country, and blues. During this time, manufacturers like Rickenbacker (then Ro-Pat-In) developed the first electric lap steel guitar in 1931, which amplified the instrument’s sound and made it a staple in various musical styles.

Throughout the mid-20th century, the lap steel found a prominent place in country and Western swing music, often used to add a smooth, emotive quality to recordings. Famous players like Sol Hoʻopiʻi, Jerry Byrd, and later, David Lindley, contributed to its legacy across genres.

Country players took the concept further by seeking more strings, for a wider tonal range, and even went to instruments with multiple necks to allow for maintaining each neck in its own unique tuning. These were larger and heavier instruments and became known as pedal steel guitars. Pedal steels added foot or knee levels to create pitch changes on select strings to make it easy to achieve the “crying” tone, without having to move the steel.

While lap steel popularity waned somewhat with the advent of pedal steel guitars in some genres, the lap steel continues to be celebrated for its evocative, singing tones and is still used in modern genres ranging from blues to rock. You can find lap steel used on music by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Black Keys, Kings of Leon and Jason Isbell.

Tuning

A lap steel is played using a bar, referred to as a steel. You can use a regular slide, but placement is important and for me, the slide was too big making the fret markers hard to see so off to Amazon I went to buy a steel as well as some metal fingerpicks to complement my usual heavy picks. There are lots of open tunings that you can use with C6 being the standard for Hawaiian music and Open D and Open G being more common for blues rock. So I picked Open D which is low to high D A D F# A D to be going on with.

Playing a Lap Steel

As you can imagine from the name, the instrument is designed to be played in your lap and does not have strap buttons by default. You can see from the photo above, that Ms. Lovell plays a Beard Lap Steel fitted to take a strap. If I choose to purchase the G5700, I will be figuring out the best position for strap buttons as I am uncomfortable playing any guitar or bass without a strap, even when seated.

The guitar sits pretty flat and your right hand (presuming you are right handed of course) strums or picks the strings, while your left hand holds the steel and presses it to the strings. As I am a big fan of Shubb products and recommend them highly, I went to the Shubb site for images. You will find an image of the Shubb Steel SP2 and the Shubb steel being used by a musician below.

On a lap steel the strings are raised very high off the fretboard so there is no noise from the steel colliding with the frets. This is a challenge for me when playing my resonator unless I use a Grover nut raising device.

Initial Impressions

The Gretsch G5700 is a pretty simple instrument, marked Fabricated in China, which for the rest of us means made in China. It has a plastic fretboard with painted on fret lines and markers. Since you never actually touch the fretboard, who really cares. The body is solid mahogany and in my instrument is painted with a bright red poly finish called Tahiti Red. There are other colours available including Tobacco Sunburst, Jade Green, Vintage White and Black Sparkle.

There is a volume pot and a tone pot. I have said many times that country of manufacture doesn’t matter. What does matter are the materials used and the time allocated to the people making the instrument to focus on quality. Allow me to be clear. The parts used are low end and it is apparent that these instruments are measured in units per hour, not by the quality. With that caveat, the G5700 did everything I could ask for it, but please consider my complete lack of experience with lap steels.

I mentioned that I had to order a steel on Amazon, because what you get for your money is a guitar in a cardboard box, wrapped in thin foam. That box is inside a larger box. Total value of the packing material might reach 50 cents on a particularly expensive day. There are no strap buttons, there is no case (that costs extra man…), no steel, no instructions, no documentation. Nothing. Considering that this is an FMIC company build, I would hope for better, but expect the reality to be what it is.

The cable jack does not hold the cable securely. The maker should use the jacks that Epiphone’s China factory uses as they hold the cable really tightly, requiring a lot of strength to unplug it. Or maybe not. As you don’t touch the strings with your fingers unless you finger pick without picks, you don’t really care about feel. They are nickel plated steel strings from .012 to .052. Not particularly bright sounding but that may be just fine for you or me. The pots feel cheap but don’t crackle or feel gritty. The pickup is a single coil and when used into a clean amp without being overdriven is very quiet. As my first playing session was into a Spark 40 using the Roland Jazz Chorus emulation with no effects at all, it sounded decent and even pleasing but you have to consider my level of inexperience in that adjective.

At $479 MAP you are definitely paying for the Gretsch decal and if price is a major consideration, you might be inclined to take your chances with one of the myriad China made options from your favourite online big box retailer. I always make the effort to support my local guitar shop. You do you.

Playing Experience

This was absolutely my first time playing a lap steel guitar. I have tried playing my resonator while it was on a strap and held horizontally. I used a regular slide. It did not go well.

For this, I put the guitar on my lap and had to find a stool with no arms as they would get in the way. I also wanted to play through a clean amp for my first pass because I was and still am trying to build some nominal skill. Nominal is really important here. I have no real lap steel skill. To do this, I used a PRS Dallas set of profiles in my Kemper Stage. I purchased these profiles from Tone Junkie as I find their Kemper profiles to be superbly done. At the time of writing, you can get their Kemper Everything Pack (3000+ profiles) for $99USD, which is one hell of bargain if you have a Kemper Profiler, Kemper Stage or Kemper Player.

I like the PRS Dallas set because there are many specific profiles offering different levels of gain from super clean, to more crunch than I would like. Plus I own a rare PRS Dallas in the paisley gold fabric covering and while it is built like a Fender Twin Reverb, you can push it into overdrive without making your ears bleed.

Example Tones

I ran the Kemper direct to a UA Apollo X Twin and from there into UA’s LUNA DAW. I like LUNA because there is negligible delay in it when recording live and it’s really simple. I recorded completely raw audio (nothing in the UNISON slot) and applied a preamp to the track after recording. In the mixing phase , I added a UA 1176 channel strip to the track and in mastering a Capitol Mastering Compressor. I have inserted screen shots of the setting below the audio sample. I mixed the example audio down to MP3 at 256kbps using CBR. The guitar was tuned to Open D and played with a steel and a regular pick, as while I do have steel fingerpicks now, I have a long ways to go to get a decent tone with them. Right now they sound like a bunch of tin cans rolling down an oak stairway.

Other Options

If you want a warmer sound, you could look at the Epiphone Electar that comes with a humbucking pickup which is about $20 more. For less, the Recording King LG 32 is available with either a humbucker or P90 pickup. If you are really committed to a serious lap steel and money isn’t a problem, there is the Beard Electro Liege as built for Megan Lovell at about $4500 CAD. Another option between the Gretsch and the Beard that I have seen but not played are the Duesenbergs starting at $3499 CAD to $3799 CAD. If you are looking for an acoustic lap steel type guitar that can be equipped from the factory with your choice of pickups, look at the Emerald Guitars Solace which is a Weissenborn style lap steel. As an Emerald Ambassador, I would do the serious lap steel buyer a disservice by not mentioning this one. You build your own on the website and the price will vary depending your pickup choice(s) and the finish and veneer top if selected.

Wrapping Up

I’m surprised at how much I like this instrument. It’s a very simple build and the parts are not top of the line. However, for someone like myself just getting started in lap steel, it’s a pretty decent choice. Were I to buy a lap steel, I would probably buy this one, not for the decal, which is frankly meaningless but because I would rather support a real guitar store. Personal choice. And who knows? When you conduct business in person, there is an opportunity to have a friendly negotiation.

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