Just an interest i've found after reading up about guitars - resonators ! What are they like to play ? how do they sound ? does anyone here use one regularly ?
Cheers
Yeah, my favorite acoustic is a Johnson Style 1 Tricone, a copy of an old National. Love that thing! I play mostly open tuning slide on it. The Tricones IMO are the most versatile of the three types of resonators, which in order of their invention (but not patenting) by John Dopyera are: The Tricone, the "biscuit bridge" single cone National style, and the "spider bridge" Dobro. They each have distinctive tones, further modified by body construction and material. The tonal extremes are: The biscuit, which has a sound I affectionately refer to as "a banjo in a well." Loud, raspy, harsh, short, sharp barking sound, terrific for nasty Son House style blues. (Somebody'll take offense at my terminology, but that's OK. I'm a Tricone partisan.) The spider is the most civilized of the bunch. You've heard lap style ones played a great deal in country and bluegrass music. Sweet, smooth, lots of sustain and rich harmonics. Rarely used in blues, but also quite a versatile instrument. The Tricone, while being the original reso, sort of sounds in between the other two.
You can find TONS of lengthy discussions of resonator guitars, the merits of different types, and suggested modifications (like the famous "Mushroom Mod" for Tricones) in the archived discussions of the forum at: http://www.bigroadblues.com/cgi/dcforum/dcboard.cgi
Something like a year and a half ago I promised Nick an article on resonators. Got to get on that one of these days!
:D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
