looking to buy new guitar but im not sure wat to get for slide playing. i dont have lots of money but i was lookin at electric archtops. i think they r versatile for different styles and slide sounds pretty good on it. i heard ooold stellas r good for slide as well; however, i read that certain ones r good while others r not?
My personal favorite electric guitar for sliding is an Agile AS-820 with P-90 pickups. It's a semihollowbody, more or less a cheap copy of a Gibson ES-335 except for the pickups. Semihollowbodies are a bit more versatile than hollowbody archtops in that they are less sensitive to feedback, so you can use them with higher volume and gain when you want to.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
i played an ibanez artcore and it felt and sounded good. what do you think is good in acoustics? right now im playing off of a seagull s6 spruce. i think it sounds good, but im afraid to tune to anything but open d b/c i dont want to mess it up, as i think it has an awesome sound.
The Ibanez Artcores are nice guitars. My boy has one and sounds mighty good playing it.
There are so many acoustics (and electrics) that work well, I'd hate to try to pick 'em out. Really, most guitars work well for bottleneck slide, and the only mods needed are a set of heavier strings to make it easier to slide on without knocking into the fretboard so much. You don't even have to have that if you've practiced a lot and developed the muscle memory for where the slide needs to stop without having to rely on the resistance of the string tension to do it. My teacher always grabbed random new guitars off the store rack to play with me.
My personal favorite for acoustic slide work is a Johnson copy of an old National Tricone.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
ok, just bought this SUPER old stella for $45, its definitely a fixer upper. Im not sure what to do about the cracks, i dont even think that's fixable. But i want to set it up for slide playing. I was thinking of getting a nut extension or replace the nut, as well if you can the bridge saddle on the bass e string is messssed up. if you click on the second picture you may be able to see what im talking about. someone strung the sucker up backwards, so the big string enlarged the saddle spot of the high e. That's all i can think of/know of what to do. What do you guys think i should get done? also i want to try to keep this cost effective, cuz i dont know if its gonna sound good so i dont want to put tooo much money into it. I hope these pictures turned out alright!
Are you going to use it as a bottleneck slider or more like a dobro/lay it flat on your lap and play sort of thing? You mentioned the nut extension which makes it more into a dobro type thing. Sorta. If you were going to convert it into a bottleneck thing you could have it setup almost like a regular guitar (new nut in this case instead of the extension) because there's a certain amount of fret rattle that goes with the style in my opinion.
On the other hand if you're going for the complete dobro/lap steel type thing, the extender will lift the strings on that end pretty far up so nothing will touch or rattle. Makes all the strings more or less flat across too, to match the flatness of the bar or slide you use. That's the thing though - with a dobro/lap steel/steel setup, the 'tops' of the strings have to be dead level; with regular guitar setup, the 'bottoms' of the strings have to be the same height above the frets.
Either way, you might work on that bridge. Maybe some wood dust from similar color wood could be mixed with glue and built up to fill that chipped area, and then worked with files and sandpaper to smooth it out. Then recut the slot. That bridge doesn't come off, right?
Sweet looking instrument though- congrats!
Not only is a certain amount of fret/fretboard knocking a normal part of the bottleneck sound, fretting is a big part of bottleneck playing. Don't raise the nut.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Not only is a certain amount of fret/fretboard knocking a normal part of the bottleneck sound, fretting is a big part of bottleneck playing. Don't raise the nut.
Couldn't agree more. Normal nut is for bottleneck sliding and additional fretting, raised nut is for lap style playing.
Steinar
I just want to use it for bottleneck style, not lap style. I think i read somewhere about raising the nut for slide which is why i mentioned it. I guess other than that theres nothing else to do? The bridge definitely needs work, among other cracks here and there on the guitar. I am really looking to getting this thing fixed up and crankin some RJ sound out of it. The guy i bought it from told me to grease the tuning gears with wd-40 or something like it. Does anyone have any other suggestions to get it in good playing condition; it is a really old guitar, apparently from the 1940's.
thanks for the replies, i really appreciate the input!
dan
WD-40's not a very good lubricant. I'd use gun or sewing machine oil in the tuners.
R.J. didn't have a raised nut, and couldn't have played what he did with a slide alone. He fretted more than he slid.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
