Setting up a guitar to play slide?

[Bjbny]

I have been learning to play in Open D lately and have been enjoying it, so i was thinking about also experimenting with playing slide. In doing some research, it seems that the consistent advice is to use a higher action with at least medium strings.

I have a cheap Yahama starter guitar that I started on 2.5 years ago before I got GAS and thought it would be a perfect vehicle to explore slide. So i took it to a local music store and asked if they could set it up to play slide. They sold me a Grover “perfect’ guitar nut, told me to change the strings and then put it on top of the existing nut.

This “Perfect” Guitar Nut, however, says that it is for converting any guitar to lap steel playing, which seems like it may be too high. Before I went through the trouble to set this up, I thought i would ask the Forum’s experts about what they thought was the best way to set up an acoustic to play slide.

Before anyone suggests that I just buy a resonator, that might be a possibility in the future if I enjoy slide, but wanted to cheaply experiment first for a while a cheap guitar to make sure i enjoy it enough to make a more significant investment.

Thanks for the advice.

[The Bard Rocks]

You do not need to raise the action much to play slide. You should still be able to fret reasonably comfortably. You will find that slide playing does not exclusively using a slide to make a note - it is a combination using fingers for some, slide for others.

[roylor4]

Originally Posted by Bjbny

I have been learning to play in Open D lately and have been enjoying it, so i was thinking about also experimenting with playing slide. In doing some research, it seems that the consistent advice is to use a higher action with at least medium strings.

I have a cheap Yahama starter guitar that I started on 2.5 years ago before I got GAS and thought it would be a perfect vehicle to explore slide. So i took it to a local music store and asked if they could set it up to play slide. They sold me a Grover “perfect’ guitar nut, told me to change the strings and then put it on top of the existing nut.

This “Perfect” Guitar Nut, however, says that it is for converting any guitar to lap steel playing, which seems like it may be too high. Before I went through the trouble to set this up, I thought i would ask the Forum’s experts about what they thought was the best way to set up an acoustic to play slide.

Before anyone suggests that I just buy a resonator, that might be a possibility in the future if I enjoy slide, but wanted to cheaply experiment first for a while a cheap guitar to make sure i enjoy it enough to make a more significant investment.

Thanks for the advice.

Don't raise the action - go to medium strings and sub out the high e with a heavier gauge. This will give you approximately the same string tension as light strings in E standard. Get a heavy glass slide and let the slides weight do most of the work. You may want to add some relief via truss rod adjustment too.

Resos are a lot of fun but great tone can be had with a wooden box with strings.

I play a lot of bottleneck in open G. It will make you smile.

[FrankHudson]

I'm a sloppy player, and on acoustic I tend to use heavier slides, so I prefer higher action when playing slide, but then I tolerate higher action in general. The main thing I would want to avoid would be too low in the cowboy chords area around the first three frets. I play some of my slide licks down there, and a guitar that is setup for the most comfortable fretting action there might be too low for my slide playing. But that's just me.

Up around the 12th fret I'm pretty much comfortable with same action I'd like for finger-fretting.

Those riser nuts are for playing lap-style, with a heavy metal bar. Different thing. My lap style guitar doesn't even have frets.

Slap on some mediums, tune to open G or D and give it a whirl. You may want to try at least two or three slides as you're starting out to see which ones you relate too.

[Mycroft]

When you say "slide," do you mean bottleneck or lap steel? Although they are different, and have different setup requirements, many people lump them both under the rubric of "slide guitar."

[Tony Done]

I play more slide and a lap steel than conventional fingerpicking these days. I use a regular low action and medium strings with a heavy brass bottleneck, but I have developed a light touch. It is easy to hammer notches in the frets with this set up if you get a bit carried away - as in my electric bari - so I would suggest raising the saddle a bit with a shim until you get used to it.


Slightly OT, but for anyone wanting to try lap stee,l a conversion capo, in my case an ordinary capo and a piece of brazing rod, is a more convenient option than a nut raiser

In my experience playing slide on an acoustic is a trickier affair than on electric. I have only gotten good results raising the action, using mediums and using a glass slide (metal slides sound harsh to me on acoustic). You don't have to raise the action a lot for it to work though. A lot of others have said about the same thing so I think we're all in fairly close agreement on what works best.

[Wolfram]

Hi Bjbny!

Firstly, I take it from your post that you're not looking at playing slide lap steel style.

It's a myth that you need high action and heavy strings to play slide. It's far more important that you pay attention to the slide itself - it's an integral, tone-generating part of your instrument, not just a means of playing the notes.

The two things to look for are weight and surface quality.

If a slide is too light, it will not make good contact with the string - the slide itself will vibrate a great deal - and you will need to apply a lot of pressure to achieve a clean note. This pushes the string down, and results in 'fetting out' (the string and slide clanking against the frets). A heavier slide will achieve a good string contact with far less pressure and therefore will sound good and clean with much lower action.

The surface quality (smoothness) of a slide is far more important in determining how a slide sounds than what it is made of. Metal slides are often said to sound harsh on acoustic guitar - this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they are made of metal and everything to do with the fact that very, very few metal slides are properly smoothed and polished. A rough metal surface literally rasps on the strings... not a sound that's for everyone!

Different materials do give different character to the tone, and this is down to the density and hardness of the slide, both of which affect how the string energy travels through and is reflected by the slide. In general, denser materials (metals) bring out more of the tone of the guitar itself, while less dense materials (class, ceramic) have more of a tonal character of their own.

My advice is to invest in a quality guitar slide before making changes to your setup or acquiring a new guitar. For a glass slide, consider a properly made crystal glass slide or even a genuine bottleneck rather than a mass-produced Pyrex one - the glass itself, as well as the metal additives that colour it, both affect the hardness and density, making it much heavier - the difference is immense! Look at Diamond Bottlenecks for, in my opinion, the best glass slides in the world.

My own specialty is metal slides, with a focus on the surface. About 1/3 of the production cost of my steel slides goes into achieving a perfectly smooth, mirror-polished surface to provide a rich tone with no rasping or string noise, and I offer two aerospace coatings that further focus the tone, decrease friction and increase durability.

Here's a quick comparison of a generic steel guitar slide with a polished Wolfram steel slide.



Most importantly, work on your technique. All of my slides come with a technique guide written by slide master Martin Simpson, but one of the most important things is to keep the guitar and slide vertical when playing (so that the slide's weight bears straight down, rather than towards or away from the fretboard).

If you use light strings, you may well find that the top E does not have enough tension to give the slide sufficient support, especially when tuned down, and you may continue to have some fretting out problems. In this case, I recommend replacing just the top string with one of thicker gauge. I always play slide with light (12s) gauge strings, but if I'm going to be playing a lot I will often replace the top string with a 13.5 gauge (available individually from D'Addario). This has roughly the same tension when tuned to D as a 12 gauge when tuned to E, so is a great compromise to help support the slide while retaining the playing feel of the guitar when fretting notes with your fingers. Another common substitute is a 15 gauge for the top string of a medium (13s) set.

Keep sliding and enjoy!

Cheers,
David

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, everything tat David (Wolfram) said plus one.
Most of my frinds (and I) "back in the day" thuogh we needed a high action to clear the frets ....because we had little technique and pressed to gard.

The secret as far as I'm concerned, is to lay as lightly as possible with the fretting hand and add the power with the picking hand.

Those little pyrex glass slides are (I suppose) OK on electrics, but you need some weight for a slide for acoustic, and I use a Diamond Slide .....but I'm waiting for David's steel slides to come back into stock in which case I'll order one ....David?

At present I'm waiting to have my National back after a neck reset.

[AndrewG]

Action depends on your playing style; if you're a light player then your normal action might be ok. If you like to really dig in and get aggressive a higher action will work much better in avoiding fret rattle.
Furthermore I again have to disagree that a perfectly smooth, polished slide is something to aspire to. A bit of friction from a hefty, slightly worn chromed brass slide like my preferred Dunlop #228 excites the string better, produces more harmonic content and is cheap. Johnny Winter, Lowell George, Ry Cooder and a host of others produced sublime slide tones using sockets, old bottles and bits of pipe. This isn't rocket science.

[Wolfram]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

.....but I'm waiting for David's steel slides to come back into stock in which case I'll order one ....David?

Hi Silly,

I got completely blindsided by demand over the last six weeks and have not been able to get another batch of slides finished yet - it takes a long time to make slides to this quality - and The North American Guitar in London took the last of my current stock...

I'll let you know when they're back in stock but can't promise I can replenish this side of Christmas...

Cheers,
David

[Bjbny]

Thank you for all of the advice. It has been very helpful and am glad that I asked. I DO NOT intend to play lap steel and do understand that I will also fingerpicking, which is why i was concerned that this lap steel nut extender would make the action be way to high.

Based on the advice received, i will leave the action alone for now, but I will change out the strings to a medium set and put a heavier gage on the high E string. I already have a quality Ernie Ball heavy glass slide that i bought on the recommendation of Tony P and also a brass slide that will allow me to experiment. Definitely interesting in the Wolfram slides as a possibility, especially if i ultimately make the jump to a resonator.

Thanks again.

[Mycroft]

Ok, so hybrid-slide: fretting and using the slide both. As already noted, you don't want the action too high. Not if you are going to fret to.

However, starting out your real issue will be learning to control the slide. How much pressure on the strings to get a good clear tone. (Hint, not as much as you might think)

So here are a couple more hints. First, keep in mind that your string height is changeable. You may have to experiment to find what YOU like, as opposed to what a bunch of nabobs on the interwebs like. (Even though some of those nabobs know quite a bit. More than me, anyways.) When starting out, you might want to go a little bit higher than makes for easy fretting while you start sorting out how to control the slide. As you learn, you can always bring it down, should you choose.

And along that line. Take a business card and cut it into narrow strips. Now, knock the nut out of the guitar that you have and put 2-3 of the strips underneath it, and put it back in and restring. Viola: higher action, but easy to adjust by taking a strip out. You can always add a proper shim later, once you decide what you like. If needed, you can do the same with the saddle, while you are learning.

Strings: mediums with a .015 high is is a good suggestion. Likely you will be exploring Open D and G anyway, so are going to be tuned down.

Have fun. Take the nut riser back and ask for your money back because the salesperson didn't know what they were talking about.

Unless you decide to get into lap steel...

TW

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

Action depends on your playing style; if you're a light player then your normal action might be ok. If you like to really dig in and get aggressive a higher action will work much better in avoiding fret rattle.
Furthermore I again have to disagree that a perfectly smooth, polished slide is something to aspire to. A bit of friction from a hefty, slightly worn chromed brass slide like my preferred Dunlop #228 excites the string better, produces more harmonic content and is cheap. Johnny Winter, Lowell George, Ry Cooder and a host of others produced sublime slide tones using sockets, old bottles and bits of pipe. This isn't rocket science.

Ry Cooder uses glass...

[Bjbny]

Thanks. I really like the business card shim idea. Will try it.