OK, I've been threatening to do it for a while...in about an hour or so, I'm going to the guitar shop....going to buy strings to put on a couple of guitars to "dedicate" (is that the right word?) to slide....
Picking an acoustic for slide was a pretty easy choice, going with the Yamaha....the Encore doesn't have a cut-away, and the "mystery guitar" I bought off Nick is my main guitar...no way am I going to fiddle about with different tunings on that....
Picking an electric was a bit tougher....recently bought an Epi LP, beautiful guitar, took it all the way to Texas on holiday....was thinking of the Squier Tele, but I love that guitar too much to keep it in an open tuning and just use it every now and then....so decided on the Squier Strat, it doesn't seem to get much of a look-in these days, and it shouldn't be too difficult to raise the action a touch....which is where the big question comes in...
Both these guitars have a fairly low action, both are currently wearing D'Addario 9's...obviously I'm going to need some heavier gauge strings for playing slide, thought I might get 11's...with a plain 3rd string....
Will the added tension on the neck - created by putting heavier strings on - negate the need to loosen the truss rod?
Should I take the guitars with me and get them professionally set up? I've been quoted £30 for both guitars....more like £50 when you take into account travelling costs, spare strings etc...
Or should I re-string the guitars myself, then take 'em back to be set up? Again, it means another trip out of town, which only adds to the cost, but seems to me to be the logical way to do it....give the strings 24 hours to settle down and then get the guitars set up....
AAAAAAAAAAAARGH....I don't know what to do for the best...and I now have about 48 mins to make my mind up before the bus comes....
Heeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!!!
: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.)
Hi Vic,
As far as set up goes you want approx. 1/4" space at the 12th fret give or take depending on how heavy a slide you use. Neck shouldn't need to be adjusted because if you set up in open G like I think you are the lessened string tension of the tuning will make up for heavier strings.
As far as strings themselves I use pretty heavy ones, 13, 17, 28, 36, 48, 56 flatwound for acoustic and the same gauges for electric but with unwound d string.
Now you may need to have your nuts cut to accomodate thicker strings (sorry, I know that didn't sound right, but it is what it is :lol: ) depending on how heavy you go.
Hope that helps a bit.
Immature? Of course I'm immature Einstein, I'm 50 and in a Rock and ROll band.
New Band site http://www.myspace.com/guidedbymonkeys
When i got my tele I had the action set up SLIGHTLY higher than i normaly would but not to much, its still pretty low so i can play it normaly.I use .9's, but if you use 11's you should have plenty of tensoin so you shouldent have to set the strings to high.-the dog
Yeah, I don't want one as high as 1/4" at the 12th fret! It's got to still be readily frettable and reasonably well intonated, because bottleneck playing involves a lot of fretwork.
Putting the Mk I calibrated eyeball on my Johnson, I'd say the strings are about 5/32" off the 12th fret.
Going from 9s to 11s without adjusting the trussrod should give you a good string height.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
The above advice about just going to heavier strings sounds right. Keep in mind that many people use a heavy metal slide (bronze is my favorite) for acoustic, but a much lighter glass slide for electric.
Electric is much more sensative to all finger and hand movement and takes a more delicate touch with a slide, as well. This means you don't need the same high action as on acoustic, though I wouldn't want a quarter inch at the twelth on my acoustic.
All this is personal taste, however.
If it ain't true, it ain't blues.
Well....I got the new strings, put them on, left 'em for a day or so to settle...managed to adjust the Squier Strat, just to the point where I don't bang the frets with the slide....
The Yamaha acoustic was a bit more trickky though, had to fiddle about with it a lot before I got it just right....
But so far, I'm pretty pleased with the results....going to try and record a couple of songs a bit later, I'll post a link, you can hear for yourselves...
Ricochet is WAAAAAAAAAAAY ahead of my league at the moment, when I'm playing slide, I don't even think about fretting notes....it's something I've never even thought about really, but I can see how it would be a big plus....especially if you can do some nice bends and vibrato as well...
I think, though, I've raised the action on both guitars too high to fret comfortably, especially higher up the neck....and with thicker strings, makes it doubly difficult...I suppose there's a happy medium somewhere, but if there is I've yet to find it.....
OK...going to get some practise....
: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.)
A suggestion for doing a slide conversion -- especially if one is unsure about the whole thing and doesn't wish to recut a nut or do too much bridge adjustment: Buy a nut extension for $4 and pop it in under the strings. Nut Extension
Quick and easy -- quickly reversible
-=tension & release=-
Yup, the extension nut works great (I have a '30s MayBell parlor guitar set up with one), just remember that what you end up with is basically a lap steel, not a "bottleneck slide guitar" since you lose the ability to combine fretted notes with slide (one of the very few advantages bottleneck playing has over lap steel, IMHO).
Steinar
I recommend against nut extensions or the other temporary expedients for raising strings like pencils, screwdrivers, etc., for the reasons I've already mentioned. They stop you from being able to do any fretted stuff (like a basic shuffle rhythm), and they also limit your playing to a guitar that's been specially set up. If you raise the strings, you will only be able to slide. That will work OK for a slide solo over a band, like Mr. Rossington was doing. It won't work well at all for playing solo blues. It was not done by the Delta or Chicago bluesmen. If you've got a drummer, bass player and rhythm guitarist behind you at all times, and you're not willing to put a little bit of effort into learning things like simple shuffle patterns on open strings and barre chords, or turnarounds and endings with walking down the frets on a single string while playing a double stop or alternating pattern with a neighboring open string, or use one finger to play a seventh chord or two fingers to play a ninth, go ahead and jack your strings up and play your slide solos. You'll never be able to play most of the stuff Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James or many others did, either. It's basic that bottleneck playing involves a bit of fretwork. Nut extensions are like training wheels on a bicycle. May make it seem easier when you first start, but they'll rapidly hinder you.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Conceded: A nut extension creates a lapsteel. I play both ways (lap and bottleneck in amateurish fashion), including fretting behind the slide for bottleneck, which is close to impossible with an extended nut.
That said, I encourage players to try lapsteel style, as it's another world.
Ric- I will take issue with the slide-only mode means "one can't do this or that." I've seen players that have taken an unsusual technique to new dimensions enough times, that I don't rule anything out.
-=tension & release=-
That said, I encourage players to try lapsteel style, as it's another world.
Absolutely,- it changed my (musical) life completely after playing regular and slide guitar for 30 years. These days I consider the lap steel to be my main instrument (not necessarily what I do best, but what I enjoy the most).
:)
Steinar
Ric- I will take issue with the slide-only mode means "one can't do this or that." I've seen players that have taken an unsusual technique to new dimensions enough times, that I don't rule anything out.Fair enough. I'm new to lap sliding, and I've been figuring out some alternative ways to do some things that way that I thought I couldn't do, too. But they are two different styles.
:D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
One of my favourite songs to play slide to is "No Expectations" by the Stones....unless you've got a guitar with a cutaway neck, it's almost impossible to play on an acoustic....so I learned to play it with the guitar on my lap facing upwards, slide on 1st finger....in open G...
: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.)
My impression has always been that, when done properly, lap style and bottleneck are two different instruments, not just different options for holding the instrument. Both have strong advantages, but there are things you can play with either one that you just can't do on the other.
Doing basic fretting with a bottleneck is really no big deal in most cases. Usually the fretting and the sliding don't happen at the same time, though there are exceptions and these require some pretty technical skills (which I certainly haven't mastered). Also, most fretting done in bottleneck style is low on the neck, where the string height is not such a problem. Open tunings also simplify things, as it seldom takes more than two fingers to get a chord.
If it ain't true, it ain't blues.
O.K., maybe I missed it somewhere, but-
What tuning(s) do you want to use, and what style/approach?
"Bottleneck" (with any kind of slide), where you can either fret or slide (or use both together in various ways)?
"Lap", with a steel, or upright, with a slide, either position but all slide, no fretting, ever?
If you're going to dedicate a guitar to a given tuning, it can be helpful to make up a mixed-set of different gauges selected for that tuning. I set-up a Les Paul with P-90s for Open-D (D-A-D-F#-A-D, low-to-high) with a custom-ordered set of strings from DR (I highly recommend their "Pure Blues" pure/solid nickel-wrap on round-cores). You can order a custom mixed-gauge set using any gauges that DR currently makes through any DR strings dealer at no additional cost, although the dealer may prefer that you pay in advance. (Order at least two sets in case you break a string.) I use gauges 12pl - 15pl - 24w - 28w - 38w - 52w on that Les Paul (in Open-D), and with a tad more relief dialed-in and an action on the low side of medium, it's very playable both with a slide or fretted. I prefer to set a Les Paul styled-axe's stop-bar tailpiece all the way down flush to the threaded-inserts in the body, and wrap the strings over its top to the Tune-o-Matic's bridge-saddles; the tailpiece is neatly out-of-the-way of your picking-hand, and I think that it improves bass-response and sustain while leaving just shallow enough of a breaking-angle over the bridge for comfortable string-tension when bending while putting just enough angled down-pressure for a good response. I also re-set the intonation just for these strings, gauges, and set-up. (You can hear a little of that guitar in that set-up and tuning- all fretted, though- if you clonk on my signature below. Two tracks, one clean, one overdriven, same axe and tuning and all.)
I had to tweak the pole-piece heights on the pickups, though, especially to accommodate that wound 3rd-string. I wound-up with a stagger-profile very similar to that of a '50s-vintage Strat's pickups.
As for slides, my overall favorite is my bell-brass Dunlop Harris-Slide, which has a concave-radius and a flared taper with one end larger and heavier than the other. The radius makes for easier clearance of the frets beneath the strings, and really lends itself to fretting-behind-the-slide techniques for minor, suspended, extended, and altered chords with the slide. Simpler in action than in words! I wear it on my 4th/little/pinky finger, with the bigger end on the bass-side. It feels better balanced to me that way, adds mass over the basses for a more solid and sustaining sound, and makes wide vibrato flourishes really swing like a pendulum with less effort. Why they haven't caught on better is beyond me!
I also love my Dunlop Pyrex glass slide- the same as Sonny Landreth uses- and my Dunlop blue ceramic Moonshine Slide; they all sound great, the ceramic one may be the best sounding on high, plain strings, but the radius and the solid wound-basses make the bell-brass Harris-Slide the one I use the most, by far. If they made Pyrex and ceramic ones like the Moonshine with a similar flared-taper, radiused profile, I'd HAVE to buy them!
