The Steel Guitar Forum

My newest Carter has BCT and it definitely makes a difference. Sustain is unbelievable and this Carter has "that tone" and the much sought after "growl". Records beautifully. Sound sample can be heard on the Carter web site.

John Buffington

Thanks for all of your responses and advice. I may consider the BCT or trade for one that has it. I have decided that I am going to try the E66 on the E9 neck and see what happens. Thanks again guys and gals!
Back to the shed!
Kirk

BCT? Does that stand for Best Carter Tone?

I always like the sound samples I hear on my webtv and son's computer. I'm thinking about taking the computer to a gig and plug my guitar into it. I suppose I could tote my tv to the club and try that too? Maybe not...BooWah might fry the picture tube. Persuing tone is a never ending battle Yeah! Yeah!...some of you found it. Even BE is always experimenting for the better tone

Mark:

I understand BCT stands for Body Contact (something).
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Erv Niehaus on 30 March 2002 at 08:50 AM.]</p></FONT>

I have owned two Carters, one with the BCT upgrade, already installed when I bought it, and my current guitar on which it was original. Both guitars sounded excellent. There was a slight difference, because of the pickups, the upgraded guitar had a George L pickup, the later one has a Lawrence. Although I'm not an expert on what's involved in installing the upgrade, by simply looking at the two guitars, this is what it looks like to me: The BCT allows the changer arms to be in direct contact with the body of the guitar. I could see that the upgraded guitar had extra wood added to the area just behind the changer arms. Probably a larger peice was installed, then routed out to the correct size. Now the arms are in direct contact with the wood. I also think the the entire changer on the BCT guitars is different. I believe it's also been mentioned in a past Forum topic, that there is an extra crosshaft and bellcranks added, the "geardown", on the A pedal. It looks like there is actualy quite a lot involved in installing the upgrade, what with glueing the wood in place, routing it out, installing the changer and the pulling system. Anyway, the BCT seems to work great, and I really like how my guitar sounds. However, I don't think this could be installed in a few minutes at a steel show.

"there is an inherent 'buzzy' decay to the note played". Richard, I believe the buzziness refers to just about any of the all-pull guitars. A friend of mine described it as a "brassy tail-off to the note". We were comparing P/P Emmons to a mid-eighties Legrande. It should be conquered by proper technique.