IF YOU'VE EVER THOUGHT about learning to play the pedal steel, one look at the average instrument's price tag may have stopped you cold. Professional-level steels are expensive, and the so-called student models are often so stripped-down as to be of dubious value. Finding a decent instrument at a reasonable price has been a dicey proposition — until now.
The well-made Carter-Starter functions much like a professional steel yet is priced more like a student model. Although it's a no-frills instrument, it sounds good, is easy to play, and — unlike student models — could definitely be taken out on a gig.
The Starter comes with a soft-shell gig bag (a $65 hard-shell case is optional), an owner's manual, a wrench kit, and a quick-start instructional video. (Tech support is provided through www.carterstarter.com and www.steelguitarinfo.com, a site from Carter that offers general steel guitar information.) Unlike most steels, the Starter is mass-produced, not custom-built — one reason Carter is able to keep the price down.
STEEL FACTS
The Starter is a single-neck, 10-string pedal steel. It's set up to accommodate E9th tuning, the tuning of choice for country, country-rock, and even rock. (The majority of pro players use double-neck steels, which have one neck for E9th tuning and another for the more swing-oriented C6th tuning. Others use single-neck, 12-string steels that are tuned to E9th/B6th Universal tuning, which is designed to give you the sounds of both E9th and C6th. Nevertheless, most of the steel playing you hear is played on E9th.)
The Starter has three pedals and four knee levers (see Fig. 1). As on any pedal steel, the pedals and the knee levers are used to bend the pitch of selected strings or pairs of strings; the pedals raise selected strings by a half or whole step, and the knee levers raise or lower strings by a half or whole step. Although there is no absolute standard for the pedal and knee-lever setups on a steel (many players adopt slight variations), Carter designed the Starter with what's pretty close to the most commonly used E9th configuration. Carter points out that the setup works with virtually all of the teaching materials on the market, which is important.
The Starter, like every pedal steel, requires dexterity to play. The left hand holds the bar, the right hand plucks and dampens the strings, the left foot presses the pedals, the right foot controls a volume pedal (which, as with any steel, must be bought separately), and the knees operate the knee levers. Pedal steels are wonderful-sounding and incredibly versatile instruments, but they do require a lot of practice.
LET'S GET STARTED
At 20 pounds, the Starter is quite light for a steel. As someone who's carted around a 70-pound double-neck steel for years (and nearly broken my back in the process), I was thrilled that I could comfortably carry the Starter around in its gig bag.
Because of their size and shape, pedal steels never go into the case (or bag) fully assembled. Before taking one out, you must screw in the legs, attach the pedal rack, and connect the pedals to the changer mechanism underneath the steel, using long rods called pedal rods. You then lift it up and flip it over (pedal steels always go into their cases upside down), and voilà, there's the instrument.
GOOD-LOOKING BODY
Carter has done a nice job with the Starter's look. The body is made of laminate-covered hard-rock maple and has a good-looking glossy, dark gray bird's-eye finish (the company calls the color Black Birdseye Mica).
The neck is made of all-maple plywood. (Wood-necked steels are generally a bit rounder in tone and sustain a little less than pro steels, the majority of which feature metal necks.) The Starter is outfitted with a custom-designed Bill Lawrence pickup and has a single ¼-inch output jack on the underside of the body. The tuning machines are inexpensive, Korean-made models that don't feel particularly smooth, but they do a good job of holding the instrument in tune, which is what's most important.
MONEY-SAVING DESIGN
To keep the Starter's price down, Carter had to economize in some areas. I first noticed the cost-cutting measures during my initial setup: the bag containing the legs and pedal rods (often referred to as a “leg bag” in steel parlance) was made of thin cloth rather than the customary faux-leather or vinyl, and was fraying at the edges. Because the instrument is an entry-level model that most people won't use for gigs, a cloth leg bag isn't really a big concern. But if you end up playing out with the Starter, you might want to get a more durable bag.
Carter also saved money from the pedal rack's design; specifically, how it connects to the instrument's legs. Bolts on the pedal rack slide through holes in the legs and are fastened with ordinary wing nuts. Functionally that works fine, but it's a cruder method than most steels employ. Again, that isn't a big deal if you're not going to be setting up and taking down the instrument frequently. If you take it to gigs, however, get some spare 10-32 wing nuts, because it would be easy to lose one if you dropped it during setup or takedown (especially on a dark club stage).
Most pro steels have length adjustments on the legs, which help compensate for uneven stages and long-legged players. Carter took a different approach with the Starter. Three of the four legs are of fixed length, and the fourth can be adjusted slightly to help level the instrument. For tall players, the company offers an optional overheight adjustment kit ($49) that adds an extra inch to the leg- and pedal-rod height. An underheight kit ($49), which has legs and pedal rods that are an inch shorter, is also available.
AT PLAY
After setting up the Starter, I plugged it into my amp and sat down to play. Because it's an entry-level model, my expectations weren't too high. I was pleasantly surprised. The Starter produced a smooth and pleasing tone, and it even held its own — from a tonal standpoint — when compared with my ZumSteel, a much more expensive, custom-built, professional instrument.
I was also pleased with the Starter's feel. The pedals and knee levers worked smoothly and efficiently (the Starter uses an all-pull mechanism, which is the standard on pro-model steels), and overall the instrument was easy to play and stayed in tune.
STEEL AWAY
For the money, the Carter-Starter is an impressive pedal steel. Although most players will eventually want to move up to a pro model, the Starter is definitely good enough to get you up and running, and would suffice as an initial gigging instrument. Kudos to Carter for breaking tradition and producing a good-quality, affordable entry-level steel guitar.
