Good Resonator for a Light touch?

[D. Churchland]

Hi all, well I'm looking to maybe get a resonator when I get to Guam and I was wondering if you all have some suggestions for a nice reso that would work well with my style. Most of the resonators I've played which include a few nationals (by a few I mean 3) and each one IMO needed to be played with either fingerpicks or a heck of a heavy hand to get any decent sound and volume out of them.

So are there any resonators out there that are lighter and more responsive to a flesh and nail approach and don't need to be played hard to get good volume?

any suggestions appreciated, I would be using it mostly for slide.

[JoeCharter]

Originally Posted by Will Kirk

IMO needed to be played with either fingerpicks or a heck of a heavy hand to get any decent sound and volume out of them.

I'm not a major reference when it comes to resonators but IMO they're all like you describe. Lots of headroom but requires more attack to sound decent.

[ResoN]

I have at least six resonator guitars, including tricones. I usually use a thumb pick and no finger picks, and get plenty of volume. Probably the loudest resonator that I have is a wood bodied Nat'l Resophonic Radiotone model. You wouldn't think it would be as loud as a metal body, but it is.

Alvin Youngblood Hart does not use picks and gets plenty of volume from his wood bodied reso, but he is a BIG guy. Paul Rishel plays a tricone without finger picks. I think he uses a thumb pick. He also uses light gauge strings.

[darylcrisp]

based on the sound you are wanting, you might want to consider a weissenborn-check the site of LazyRiver(Rance White), he makes some awesome weissenborns and the price is very reasonable.

dkc

[J Patrick]

.a national vintage steel tricone is worth checking out...you don't need a heavy hand to drive it...

[birkenweg42]

I just sold my National Radiotone Bendaway and would think it would work great with your style, at least from what I can tell from your Youtube clips. The Radiotone has a very sweet and mellow sound you usually don't associate with resonators. It's also very responsive. I played it fingerstyle without nails and had no problem with volume. There are two things about that guitar (and I guess about most Nationals) that I found a little bit of an annoyance:
Baseball neck (it's a handfull) and the bridge cover (makes right hand damping difficult).
I don't know how familiar you are with resonators, but check out Mike Dowling on Youtube, to see how versatile resonator guitars can be.

[ResoN]

National Resophonic changed their neck profile to one that is slimmer when they started using a CNC machine to make their necks. I don't know the date of the change, but you could call Nat'l Reso'.

My Radiotone is an '97 with a fat neck. A friend told me that the Estralita's that he had played were slimmer. I called Nat'l and they told me the later necks are slimmer after the CNC change.

[Neal]

National, I play mine with fingers only.

[Archbacker]

Del Vecchio Dinamico if you can find one.

-Arch

[birkenweg42]

Originally Posted by ResoN

National Resophonic changed their neck profile to one that is slimmer when they started using a CNC machine to make their necks. I don't know the date of the change, but you could call Nat'l Reso'.

My Radiotone is an '97 with a fat neck. A friend told me that the Estralita's that he had played were slimmer. I called Nat'l and they told me the later necks are slimmer after the CNC change.

Thanks for the information. I am sure that the Radiotone wasn't my last National. Next time around I will look for a newer model wood body.