Excel Robostar Pedal Steel Guitar

This is a new model pedal steel from Excel entitled ROBOSTAR. It has a some what industrial and perhap robotic appearance with so much of the innards exposed form the back. Mine has the changer mounted on the top deck. There is a least one version of this guitar that I've seen that has the changer mounted below the deck with the tuning adjustments accessed from the top.

I ordered this guitar on 09/19/23 and it was delivered to my house on 11/31/23. That's 42 calendar days from order to delivery so pretty fast! This is the second guitar that I've ordered from Excel and all bank transfers and shipping went smoothly. I've also ordered many parts for another Excel guitar I bought used and all inquiry emails and deliveries went well there.

Currently I own four pedal steels, this one, an MSA Legend D-10, an Excel S-12 with D13 tuning and a Sierra S-12 with D13 tuning. These are all premium top of the line steel guitars but with different advantages to each. The Sierra is perhaps the Cadillac of steels but who can argue with how cool the MSA LFrets and aura lights look and super light weight and advanced changer in the Excels not to mention that great vlaue. Keyed versus keyless and player preferences may sway you to one brandover the other. I am elated with all these guitars! Links to my other pedal steels :

MSA Legend D-10

Sierra S12 with D13 tuning

Excel S12 with D13 tuning

Like most Excels this guitar is TINY!!!! and light and an ideal travel guitar for those on the road. Of note the case is also very light and has nice zippered pockets in the iside top. The pedal action is extremely smooth with even pulls throughout the pedal travel and very positive stops. Like the MSA and Sierra, it is a mechanical marvel in terms of design and production quality. Mitsuo did manage to squeeze a handy pad onot the back/top of this guitar. Some specifications:

The scale is 24 1/4"
Guitar in the case weighs 32.2 pounds, case weighs 12.0 pounds and the guitar weights 20.2 pounds
String spacing is 0.268" at the nut.
Pickup resistance is 21.8 kohms.
The case has 4 wheels that can all rest on the floor if layed flat and a convenient 2 handles.
The tool kit is pictured below
There is a hand rest pad behind the neck
All strings offer split tuning which is accessed on the fretboard side of the changer
Guitar body measures 28.5" long x 7.25" wide.
Bottom of side apron to floor is 26"
Changer is 6 raise, 3 lower however 2 of the raise changer finger holes are located for left moving knee levers.
Guitar was shipped with a cutout in the carton to access the handle. Shipment was DHL.
Pedla rods are stamped with deep indents for excellent legibility.

Fuzzy/Excel Steel Guitar Web Page

These is currently no information for the ROBOSTAR on the Excel web site.

Copedant - subject to change!

Copedant in PDF format

Copedant in Excel format

Here's what it sounds like

Sound samples recorded with a foot volume (500 Kohm pot), ToneX pedal with Twin Reverb amp and plate reverb then into a Zoom R24 recorder. Zoom wav files then ported to Reaper for some light editing and conversion to 320 Kbps mp3 files. I had to forget that I wasn't on the D13 tuning! I used the SE9 and SP9 sweeteners with the StrobStomp HD tuner for the open strings, pedals and knee levers.

Review Summary With Original Tuner

The tone of this guitar is a bit brighter than my other Excels but still clear and warm with nice overtones and no harsh odd harmonics. I don't hear any string buzzing and the pedals work super smooth and even with positive stop just like my other Excels and as good as any guitar I've ever played. Sustain is very good and not far from an Emmons push pull. Cabinet drop is just not audible. This is noticable when you slide into the open strings an ending with the pedals down and there's nothing flat sounding! Overall this is totally a "pro" quality guitar and there isn't anything about it that screams economy in terms of looks or sound or playability. The compact body and light weight making transporting easy and it's an ideal size for smallstudios and cramped stages. The guitar's appearance is very contemporary and looks likes really sharp sitting next to modern stage equipment. One standouot feature is how visible the open tuning and changer end tuning adjustments are. You can see at a quick glance which tuning adjuster you need to put the tool on. On the changer side the area on top of the nylon tuners is cut way back exposing the tuners for great visibility.

Review Summary With Modified Tuner

I did experience some string breakage with the original tuner that was supplied with this guitar. The compact design of the tuner with it's limited tuning range left the 3rd string (and others) string wrap winding up against the string roller. This lead to frequent breakage of the 3rd string right at the roller end very close to where the string wrap ends at. Even with the original tuner I was able to solve this problem by tensioning the string as much as possible at the changer and then making sure that the tuner was turned to almost it's fully extended position. This was a tedious process and didn't leave much slack at the tuner for raising the string as it stretched. Using this procedure eliminated the string breakage at least for the two weeks of daily playing that I did with it.

Working with Excel's team in Japan we jointly agreed on a redesigned tuner concept that provided much more tuning range and enabled one to easily bring the string up to pitch and keep the string wrap far from the string roller. This redesigned tuner head is pictured below along with the original tuner head. It did require 4 new holes to be drilled in the guitar body and 2 new holes to be drilled and tapped in the blobk under the roller assembly. As you can see the new tuner head is attached with 8 screws, two into the neck, two into the roller block and 4 more through the guitar and into the tuner block. I agreed to do this work here so I wouldn't have to return the guitar to Japan. The old tuner provided only 0.37" of travel and the new one provides 0.68" of travel, an increase of 0.31". Note that the string now feeds through a hole in the tuner block instead of being rretained by a claw. This is a great refinement because the string no longer pops out of the tuner block while you're trying to attach it to the changer slot. Also the entire string wrap now sits on top of the block and there is a cutout for the string ball so that you don't lose tuner travel by having the string ball impact the back wall. It takes about 10 minutes to remove the old tuner, FAST! I dropped the new tuner and guitar off at a machinist friends house and got it back a day later for $40 (Thanks Alan)!

This guitar still sounds and plays great lust like my other Excels. The one minor complaint I would have is that the legs tend to come loose and allow the guitar to sldie around a bit on hardwood floors. This problem goes away if you set the guitar on carpeting.

Here's what it sounds like now (hint: same as before!)

Sound samples recorded with a foot volume (500 Kohm pot), ToneX pedal with Twin Reverb amp and plate reverb then into a Zoom R24 recorder.

New Tuner Sound Sample 1

New Tuner Sound Sample 2

Pictures below show the new tuner installed.

Factory pictures from Mitsuo.

My solution to store guitar cases and make more efficient use of my garage overhead space. I don't keep any of my guitars in cases! They are all out ready to play. I bought these racks from Costcoa and they are 8' wide amd 4' deep and hold up to 600 pounds. All items are covered with stretch wrap done by hand to keep them clean.

Some pictures of my guitars together so you can see the relative heights and sizes.

There are quite a few pictures below. Click on them to see them full size or at least sized to a browser window. Click on the picture again if needed to zoom in even more!

Comments? email webmaster Greg

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