View Single Post
  #15  
Old 05-14-2019, 02:58 PM
RJVB RJVB is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Atheos Mons
Posts: 1,915
Default

I can relate even if I'm taking a slightly different inroad. I fell in love enough with delta blues and similar Americana that I wanted a resonator, but I also wanted it to be as versatile as possible. I knew I'd want to play certain classical repertoire as well and wouldn't want to do that with the typical resonator sound.

After reading that Chet Atkins used a nylon-stringed resonator I dug a little deeper, found some posts by others who had had their resonator converted, and decided to do the same but in such a way that it'd be easy to go back. It's a matter of swapping the nut and biscuit/saddle for the stock ones, operations I can do myself.

It worked out wonderfully, and I think I really prefer the instrument's voice with nylon than with steel strings. You can't really get the bell/chime like sound of the upper steel trebles with nylon, but you can get close enough to most other sounds you get get from steel. But you also get warmer and richer sounds that are hard if not impossible to get with steel.

Part of me is dying to know if other well (not over-) built acoustic guitars would take as well to the conversion because I'd definitely consider going down the same road with that jumbo (or mini-jumbo) I'm dreaming of. (And putting metal strings on a crossover is probably not a good idea.)
Reply With Quote