Assuming that some of you will have more than one guitar or will have owned more than one; what is your favourite guitar for playing slide on and why?
The one which cannot be set up and has high action regardless of what I do to it...Perfect for slides. :D
my favorite for playing slide is my National Model D squareneck resonator.
my second favorite is a 1930's Rickenbacher Model 59 lap steel. it has the horseshoe pickup. the tone is classic.
Hey kiwiblues - this is an interesting topic you've created, I hope we get many takers and explanations, whatever works.
You're allowing for past present and future, I guess, so I don't have a great number of guitars now, but have a long past.
I have moved somewhat recently, and have guitars in storage. I had to get a new Highway One blonde/maple Telecaster.
For slide work, I have been so predictable that it almost tells itself. I don't do alot of it - since I am in quieter company.
Yes so darned predictable - up to a few years ago, when I was going out to participate in a noisy venue of any kind, I could just about expect mud, and blood and beer, and once: flying fried zucchinis! I take Fender types, MIJ or MIK and they are all hotrods. Except for the early 90's Peavey Reactor, which claimed to be MIA, but I doubt it, though stamped.
It was my son's/eldest daughter's guitar, split between them. When they didn't want it I bought it and bashed and banged on it heavily, using other's rigs, racks and Marshall stacks. A metal slide and contact with the strings kept hum at bay, with a potent measure of distortion as well. I used the1993 MIM Sunburst Tele around the same time, outdoors and in barns - it's the one that got soaked the most! It has the 4-way, w/series to buck hum, a stacked bridge pup too, and an overwound Electrokraft neck. Twangs at will or roars like a rocket taking off. The Nashville Tele has 5 sounds, and 7 for awhile. I mention this because we can get single coils to be quiet together, with minimal 60 cycle hum at high volumes - and I associate high volume and overdrive for slide. I like Bonnie Raitt for example. Now the Squier/Fender Strats :roll:
I modded the '96 Squier with a USA neck pup, Seymour vintage middle and JB Jr. bridge on tap. It has a hint of twang and can do both clean and distorted slide. It led to a little more overall bite, snap and snarl with a return to the maple neck (as predictable as I am, told 'ya?) in a customized '98, purpose-built for the blues only; 2 overwound-to-spec Electrokrafts on board, with a Dimarzio stack and 10 tones due to mini-toggle, plus master tone. Though it is far away, I have my 10-tone Deaf-Eddie "Plum Crazy" Frankenstrat right here and it can do the job too. I can only show tiny pics. :oops: 
Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
All of my guitars except one are set up for both fretting and sliding. For pure solo slide thrills, my cheap Takamine 12-string blows my mind consistently. It's strung heavy (.012s) and tuned low (open C -- CGCEGC), it generates lots of harmonics, and it's loud.
On the electric side, I have a '68 Gibson SGJr -- one original P-90 at the bridge -- that has a very special snarling sound. Also a Kalamazoo KG2 solid body from the mid-'60s with Melody Maker pickups -- the neck pickup is the flip side/counterpart to the Junior's bridge pickup -- pure and sweet. (I keep fantasizing about getting those two pickups onto one guitar, although I know it wouldn't work -- couldn't possibly. You can't have it all.)
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
My favorite's the one I've got in my hands.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
I was trying to decide and I finally did it: I am with Ricochet. Each one of my guitars has something special: the tone, the smell, how they feel... I enjoy playing them.
My favorite's the one I've got in my hands.
I'll agree with that one.....
That's amazing images ....... so I like this very much......
I have a Squier Custom Tele set up for slide, kept in open G tuning; hardly ever touch it these days. I'd much rather play my MIM Tele in standard tuning! As far as acoustic goes, my main acoustic's kept in standard, but I have an old beater I keep in open G if I feel the need to play some acoustic blues.
With the MIM Tele, because the action's pretty low, I use a very light plexiglass slide; for the acoustic, a heavier brass slide.
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
