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#16
05-01-2022, 08:19 AM
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As others have said, not sure nationals/resonators where even generally in style except for relatively specific uses. I bought a used national brass tricone maybe 8 years ago and the exaggerated dynamics and different sounds I could pull out of it really changed my playing for the better. I use it to play just about all styles of music, but I generally play slack key. It took me a few years to find a used model at a price I could afford / was willing to pay. Not sure why it was priced so low. It was as if the shop did not know what it had, or really didn’t think it would sell. I am constantly window shopping for another used national. Seems like the price of even used nationals has skyrocketed out of my price range…. Glad I was able to get one.
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Curtis Martin om21 Chris Carrington classical 
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#18
05-01-2022, 09:58 AM
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Oddly enough, I’ve been playing my Style O-knockoff much more often recently. Enough so that I replaced the Asian cone with a NRP Hot Rod, which went a long way to improving the sound. Still not a National, though.
__________________
2007 Martin OM-21 1950 Epiphone Devon 2019 SilverAngel mandolin (“Swazi” - it’s a long story) Eastman MDA-315 2021 Karsten Schnoor Custom B&D Style 5 tenor banjo 2019 Schnoor Weymann (orphaned pot) conversion 1958 Gibson ES-125T 1967 Emmons GS-10 1976 Fender Telecaster (“Ohmygodthisweighsaton”) Lots and lots of other stuff
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#19
05-01-2022, 10:51 AM
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Mike Dowling has long championed National resophonics, specifically the wood-body, single-cone El Trovador--he played a 1930s example and eventually encouraged the company to reissue that model. Mike would play pretty much the whole range of his repertory on his El Trovador.
Partly thanks to Mike's example and partly on the advice of Curtis Teague (of Twin Cities duo Curtis & Loretta), I bought a second-hand National M-1, the tricone cousin of the El Trovador. Curtis is a multi-instrumentalist, and he would bring to gigs an M-1 as his only guitar. He told me (and proceded to demonstrate) that it is a very adaptable instrument. I play mine every week at a jam where loudness counts, but it works fine in more forgiving environments, for pretty much any genre I play in--it's not just a blues machine.
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#20
05-01-2022, 03:51 PM
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It's a hard question, but I don't think Nationals have gone out of fashion. There's quite a busy subculture on social media of people who are mad about them.
Mule guitars getting some limelight and showing up in players' hands over the past few years helped make resonators more visible too. That said, new prices on National Resophonic guitars have gone up - like a lot of other guitars, sure, but when you get into three, four thousand dollars or euros for a guitar, that's way out of most people's budgets. I've had a few Nationals in the past, new ones and old, and after a while without one I was lucky to find a good-as-new condition five year old NRP recently and I'm really happy with it. It was local so I got to try it out first and it really spoke to me. A Radiotone Bendaway, the ugly runt of the litter or misunderstood jewel, depending on how you feel about their range. No way I would have been able to pay the new price though. Good to see Adam Franklin above in Mr Silly Moustache's post, he's a great player and teacher and a funny guy. He really shows how good a National can sound with his style of playing, and he's learnt a lot from people like Blind Boy Fuller and Tampa Red that used to play them back in the day.
__________________
Country Blues recordings : https://joepaulblues.bandcamp.com
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#21
05-01-2022, 07:24 PM
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The newer Nationals I have had are high quality, while some of the older ones....not much - eg. my old National Trojan!
What about some vids? National Reso factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWMbND5_Y3M National coverplate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr7VqAHcxr4 Getting the neck right! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwAyAObu3GA BluesKing777.
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#22
05-01-2022, 07:29 PM
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Just worth mentioning that must not forget Jerry Douglas when discussing resonator guitars. Jerry Douglas is to resonator guitars what Tommy Emmanuel is to acoustic guitars. And, since Jerry Douglas is the face of resonator guitars in this modern age, I think we can safely say that resonator guitars are clearly not out of fashion.
Disclaimer: I personally have and play both square neck and round neck resonators and sometimes play blues slide on my acoustic guitar…so my perspective is biased about resonator guitars. QM aka “Jazzman” Jeff
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#23
05-01-2022, 08:02 PM
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Quote:
My round-neck Rayco has a wood body and has a spider cone, while most Nations -wood or metal - have biscuits or tricones. I fingerpick it a lot just like I do my wood bodied non-resonators. It has a different, interesting and lovely voice. Very different from the standard sixers. Round neck resonators have always been a bit niche, particularly when it comes to more popular music. More common in forms like blues, county and old time music.
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#25
05-02-2022, 03:53 PM
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#26
05-02-2022, 04:39 PM
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I'd love to try a wood body National Resorocket - here is Steve James and his sig models:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvMTEdprfFs BluesKing777.
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#27
05-06-2022, 07:38 PM
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#28
05-06-2022, 08:20 PM
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   Just to throw in a comment from way out in left field the resonator is alive and well in the short scale 4 string world as well.  As others have mentioned the affordability of the National instruments is a challenge......though used ones can be had....
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#29
05-06-2022, 08:49 PM
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On a closely related matter, the button on the top of my absolute fave black National Reso hat broke years ago and I asked the Better Half to take it to some kind of repair person in the city where she worked.
She brought it home because nobody wanted to do it...but she put the bag with the hat in the lost clothes pile in the spare room.....lost! All lost. So earlier this year asked her to find it and I will fix it. I made a button out of foam with some black gaffa tape, impaled it on the little spike on top of the hat and..........it looks stupid! I may persist and get someone to fix it, or buy the only one left in the world currently......  (but I do think the various guitar logo hats I own in my little collection correlate with the guitar maker.....my National is a great fit, my Gibson is a bit little and blows off in light winds, my Maton is as good as a beanie in the wind almost.....and I don’t own a Martin hat or a Lowden hat though I own Martins and Lowdens......  .......though Grand Prix weekend in Miami demands I wear my Ferrari hat!)BluesKing777.
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#30
05-06-2022, 10:03 PM
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