The Steel Guitar Forum

I know there is a million of these threads where people talk about preferences etc.

I would like to get more sustain out of my carter starter. Hoping the tone can be improved electronically.

Any suggestions?

Look for a used Roland Cube 60 or a Peavey Bandit . You should be able to find one for $200 or less. I've been gigging with a Roland Cube 60 for years.

Sustain will be found in the guitar and not the amp unless you're talking about more power from the amp to allow a little more volume pedal travel.
More tone controls on the amp will aid in dialing in wanted tone, but is still limited by the guitar construction and pickup.

You might check into the Boss 'Katana' 50 watt 1x12". Priced at slightly under $200.00. If you perform a Forum search, there are some favorable reviews of this amp.

Dennis Detweiler wrote:Sustain will be found in the guitar and not the amp unless you're talking about more power from the amp to allow a little more volume pedal travel.
More tone controls on the amp will aid in dialing in wanted tone, but is still limited by the guitar construction and pickup.

The above is true. But, a matchbox, like the Goodrich 7A will help. I have an old, short-scale Sho~Bud that has poor sustain and adding the 7A really gave me a sense of more sustain and way better tone. It helps the volume pedal do it's job by giving you a higher gain, less loss, signal into the amp. They are not cheap, though.

The suggestions made are good, I'd also say keep an eye out for used cheap bass amps.
Steel amps require headroom, which costs more money.
Bass amps are also designed to stay rich and clean, but they don't have reverb in them.
Steel sounds great through bass amps.

Lane Gray wrote:The suggestions made are good, I'd also say keep an eye out for used cheap bass amps.
Steel amps require headroom, which costs more money.
Bass amps are also designed to stay rich and clean, but they don't have reverb in them.
Steel sounds great through bass amps.

I've recently started using a MarkBass Little Mark 250 head. I found that that the sound was very clean, great string separation, but lacked the character of a PSG amp. I added an EQ, and WHAM, it came to life. That and replacing my Hall Of Fame reverb pedal with my Zoom MS-50G, makes a whole lot of difference.

This is not in the price range you want, but if you find an inexpensive used bass amp, an EQ and verb pedal might help you out.

I don't think a new amp will help with sustain, but as for the cheap amp question, the old Yamaha G100 series solid state amps are cheap, reliable, and sound pretty good. There are single 12", two 12"'s and even a rare single 15" version, a reverb head you could use with a separate cab, possibly others.

I have a little Peavey KB/A 15 I got at a pawn shop several yrs, ago. Used it on lead guitar for practice hooked it up with my SD10 BMI, live steel strings , 705 pup and DD3 couldn't believe the sound I got out of it. The speaker is an 8" Blue Marvel 110hms lot's of volume. Gave $70 for it.

Bob Watson wrote:Look for a used Roland Cube 60 or a Peavey Bandit . You should be able to find one for $200 or less. I've been gigging with a Roland Cube 60 for years.

Any Peavey bandit out there will work?

John, I have a Peavey Special 150 which is similar to a Bandit but has about 2x the power. I have gigged with it and it sounds fine with both E9 and C6. I've never gigged with a Peavey Bandit, but I'm sure it would be fine in a small club or an American Legion/VFW type gig. I know of a few great guitar players who use Bandits. The early ones had 65 watts and the later ones got up to 80 watts. If you can find a Special 130 or 150, they would be a little louder, but not as much as you would think. I suggested the Bandit because you see more of them on the market. Of course, you would use the clean channel. The Roland Cube 60 amp modeling amplifier that they came out with around 10 years ago is also a great amp. I've seen those go for under $200 too. Bandits can go for as little as $100. Here's an old thread on the subject. http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=299945

The amp won't give you the sustain. That's more technique based. The trick is to get all hooked up and then set your volume pedal at about 20%, heel almost all the way down. Then set your amp for a good loudness at that 20% position. The remaining 80% of volume pedal is there for sustain, but your picking and playing should live between zero (muted) and say 20% to 30% of the travel. This leaves virtually endlessly available sustain. That really is where it comes from - basically just turn the amp way up and back way off the volume pedal when you play.

Also, many of us have found that a light, gentle pick attack gives better sustaining tone than a heavy pick attack does.


B

I'd second the suggestion of a bass amp. Todays bass players want a full frequency range and lots of clean headroom which makes them pretty good for steel. I played my steel through my Ampeg Rocket Bass through a 2 week vacation and it sounded great.

I'd suggest heading to your local guitar shop, setting up in the bass department and trying everything. There's a good chance that for $200 you may even be able to find something big/good enough for giging.

Fender rumble bass amps are pretty cheap and LIGHTweight. by a huge degree.
I had a used Bandit and put a 15" in it. It was very good sound.

Brad Sarno wrote:The amp won't give you the sustain. That's more technique based. The trick is to get all hooked up and then set your volume pedal at about 20%, heel almost all the way down. Then set your amp for a good loudness at that 20% position. The remaining 80% of volume pedal is there for sustain, but your picking and playing should live between zero (muted) and say 20% to 30% of the travel. This leaves virtually endlessly available sustain. That really is where it comes from - basically just turn the amp way up and back way off the volume pedal when you play.

Also, many of us have found that a light, gentle pick attack gives better sustaining tone than a heavy pick attack does.


B

Thanks for the info Brad! Now if someone could tell me how to get the bar off the strings for open string playing without buzzing or dropping the bar. I have yet to hear back from Franklin on that 100 page exercise thread he's had for 7 years.