Excel 12 String D13 Keyless Pedal Steel Guitar

Here's some pictures and comments on my new Excel keyless 12 string pedal steel guitar with D13 tuning. All credit for this tuning goes to Johnny Cox! It has 8 floor pedals and 7 knee levers. I did add a 7th knee lever for experimentation and it's currently an E9th style change that lowers the 3rd string a half step (ala Ralph Mooney) and raises the 8th string a full tone.

This is the newest model EXSTAR Superb II and I'll post more about the latest features of this model as I discover them or someone tells me! One update I noticed right away is that the open string tuning is accomplished entirely at the changer end. The nut end only retains the string by the string ball and then feeds the string over the string roller.

I ordered this guitar on 11/07/22, it shipped from Japan via EMS on 01/06/23 and it was delivered to my house on 01/14/23. That's 68 calendar days from order to delivery so pretty fast! I paid $1000 down at time of order, guitar was $4,700, shipping was $430 and I paid $40 for each of two wire transfer fees from my bank to Mitsuo/Excel's bank.

Currently I own three pedal steels, this one, an MSA Legend D-10 and an Excel S-12 with a changeover lever to switch between E9th and C6 (not a universal tuning). Links to my other two pedal steels and a new Sierra S-10 that's in the works for me will added soon after it arrives (April - June 2023 timeframe):

MSA Legend D-10

Excel S12 with changeover lever

This guitar is TINY!!!! and light and an ideal travel guitar for those on the road. See some pics below comparing the size of the guitar and case to my MSA D-10 which itself is an extremely compact guitar. The pedal action is extremely smooth with even pulls throughout the pedal travel and very positive stops. Like the MSA, it is a mechanical marvel in terms of design and production quality. Some specifications:

The scale is 24 1/4"
Guitar in the case weighs 38.8 pounds, case weighs 12.2 pounds and the guitar weights 26.6 pounds
String spacing is 0.28" at the nut and 0.325" at the changer
Pickup resistance is 19.8 kohms
The case has a unique storage area under the top lid, 2 spring loaded handles and velcroed guitar retaining straps
The tool kit is complete and even included spare nylon tuners and pull rods
There is a hand rest pad behind the neck
All strings offer split tuning which is accessed on the fretboard side of the changer
Case dimensions are 14.25" x 8.5" x 34.5"
Guitar body measures 28 3/8" x 8 1/4" x 31 3/8"
Bottom of side apron to floor is 26 1/8"

I chose to retain the "Day" pedal setup although I am used to the "Emmons" setup to ensure that all the pedal combinations would be usable as designed by Johnny Cox.
While the guitar is very light it stays put on the carpet. The pedal rack has a unique leg attachment feature in that no rack thumb screws or retainer plate is needed. The rack is held in place by screwing the bottom part of the front legs tight against it.
I only use a 10 string bar on my 12 string steels. I've yet to find a need to cover all 12 strings at the same time. The 10 string bar is lighter, faster and has less drag and noise.

Fuzzy/Excel Steel Guitar Web Page

Here's a complete song with all the steel parts played on this D13 copedant. The steel was played through my Fender Steel King using the amp's reverb and at this point the amp decided to distort a bit. I could get a more lush and spacious sound by using mastering with Reaper's stereo reverb plug-in but I wanted to duplicate the amp's tone as I hear it sitting at the guitar.

No One Will Ever Know

No One Will Ever Know Rhythm Track

Copedant - subject to change!

Shown below is the copedant in the key of D as installed on the guitar and transposed to E and C. This will show you the capabilites in both the E9th and C6 arenas as used on the average D-10 guitar. I've also listed the string gauges that the guitar was supplied with. What is missing here is all the new possibilites and sounds that can be achieved if you think of the D-13 setup as a unified tuning and not as two separate tunings! The keyless Excel has a short compact body that makes it a bit easier to cover all the floor pedals with your left foot.

Copedant in PDF format

Here's what it sounds like

Sound samples recorded with a foot volume (500 Kohm pot), Fender Steel King amp with Mod reveb tank picked up with a Shure SM-57 mic into a neutral preamp then into a Zoom R24 recorder. Zoom wav files then ported to Reaper for some light editing and conversion to 320 Kbps mp3 files. These are just raw recordings of me learning the new grips and getting used to the guitar! My first attempt at tuning D13 with a Peterson tuner, in this case a StroboSTOMP HD. I used the 10 string SE9 and SP9 sweeteners for the open strings, pedals and knee levers. Everything not covered by those sweeteners I just tuned by ear. I also set the StroboSTOMP HD root change = -2 to offset the tuning to from the base key of E to the key of D.

Excel S-12 D13 with Axe Effects (Fender Super Reverb modeling)

Here's some sound samples of the Excel with the Fractal Axe FX3. I've got the FX3 set up with a Fractal floor pedal that allows me to select a variety of effects and settings instantly. For example I cna select reverb, flanger, chorus, enhancer, Lesie simulator, compressor, delay, EQ quickly. But I can also modify these quickly and change amp settings and speaker types on the fly. For these sounds I'm using the Fender Super reverb model with a 15" speaker instead of 4 x 10". To record I just simply patched the FX3 to the Zoom R24 with two cabels in stereo The nicest part of this setup is that the sound in the headphones and in the recording is unaffected by the room or location.

It usually takes me a few months to get a new guitar setup and sounding to my liking. I'll be changing the copedant, knee lever locations, amp settings and pickup heights for a while to get the sound and playability I want and until then I will go through a few disappointments and struggles with what I hear. One thing that improved what I am hearing is lowering the pickup on the low strings about 1/16" of an inch. It didn't change the volume of thsoe strings very much but it made them sound a lot tighter and less boomy and more matched to the upper strings.

D13 Axe FX3 Bottom Strings

D13 Axe Fx3 Stereo Reverb

D13 Axe Fx3 Effects

Split Franklin Pedal

More Low String Sounds 2

Excel S-12 D13 with Axe Effects (Fender '59 Bassman modeling)

Here's some sound samples of the Excel with the Fractal Axe FX3 witht eh Fender Bassman Model. The first sound sample is some riffs played by quickly swapping between pedals 1,2,5,6 and 7. You can see how extensive the parameter library is for Axe amp models in the pictures immediately below. I've also got a 15 band EQ in line that can be changed on the fly. The traditional Bassman tone settings are available and simple to access and change on the fly. The beauty of this setup for recording and monitoring is that you get the same sound no matter where you set up at !

D13 pedals 1,2,5,6,and 7 Axe FX3

More Bassman Sounds

LKV, RKL, Pedals 4,5,6 and 8, a few Chalker sounds

Repositioning the 4 Left Knee Levers

After a few more days of playing this guitar I realized that I could reach all the knee lever and pedal combinations but with a bit of stretching. Looking at the setup it seemed that using LKV with Pedal 6 was a common thing to do and it would be easier to do that if I moved all the knees over to the right the equivalent of one floor pedal spacing. That's also exactly equal to three holes over in the rear frame. Being a keyless with a small body I did have to grind down a few bushings and bell cranks to get everything to fit. Three of the knee levers just required shortening the pull rods but the LKR pulls off an inverted bell crank and then threads into a pivot/retainer that negates the need for an allen screw in the retainer. So those two pulls rods have to be shortened and then rethreaded with a 2 mm x 0.4 mm die. No ide available as McMaster-Carr but I found one right away on Amazon. On the changer end of these two pull rods, the nylon tuner is fused solid onto the pull rod. Turning the nylon tuner at the changer then threads the rod in and out of the retainer on the bell crank. The guitar setup seems perfect now with all combinations of pedals and knee levers being easily accessed. Hopefully the pictures below with show the before and after placement of the knee levers.

More Tips and Tricks

One thing you will notice about the 2nd string is that it is tuned to C and can be lowered or raised a half step via RKL and RKR. This works great for having the dominate 7th note handy and for licks that use the C# note or even need to raise the 2nd string to C# and then lower it a whole tone to B (ala Weldon Myrick). But you can also tune the 2nd string to C# and still raise and lower it a half tone! Lowering it then gives you the dominant 7th note and raising it gives you the unison 4th string D note, a nice riff in itself. The first sound sample below shows this in action along with an example of the extended lower register and another low string novelty riff that rocks the RVR on and off

2nd String Tuned To C Sharp

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!