Slide Materials

gilles27

gilles27

New member
i am interested to find out about the sound charateristics of various different slide materials. and is thickness more/less important than material? i currently own a chrome slide that sounds quite sharp and shreiky. i play on an electric guitar with humbuckers and a reasonable amount of overdrive. i'd quite like a mellower sound but with more 'body' to it if you know what i mean...
cheers
 
Re: Slide Materials

try out different slides with your guitar.

ceramic or porcelin is warmer than metal but may be too unwieldy. i usually use a glass medicine bottle and i was under the impression that thicker heavier glass would yield a thicker sound. it did on some guitars but on others a thinner/ lighter slide by the same company sounded bigger and warmer. i have a variety of slides and having options is nice. what is great on one guitar may not be so great on the next. if you have a few laying around you can grab what suits the need best
 
Re: Slide Materials

I use a Dunlop - medium size, fat wall Pyrex (#215)

works for me
 
Re: Slide Materials

I love love love brass for everything guitar, and my slides are no different. It's heavier and harder to use, but I like the tapered shape that dunlop makes. It gets more of a swampy sound on the wound strings with great sustain on the upper strings. However, it can get bright if you're not careful.
 
Re: Slide Materials

Metal = Harsh

Brass = warmer, but still harsh

Glass = Warmer and smoother. I use the same slide Curly does (I keep this on in my pocket)

Porcelain = warmer and heavier (my personal favorite) Dunlop mudslides

Ceramic = not as warm as Porcelain, but close. A little more fragile than porcelain.

I just bought a Joe Perry slide and it is also very nice. I like the weight of it, but it is a tad tight on my finger (I wear my slide on the ring finger).

I have a box of slides at home on my coffee table. Some I made out of bottles, some are store bought. They all work. Jeremy is really pointing you in the right direction. What you really need to do is experiment with YOUR guitar and see what works for you. I would try a Porcelain slide (Dunlop muddslide) and go from there. They; IMHO are one of the best over the counter for the money slide you can get.

Rocky Mountain slides are making slides out of some "newer" materials and offer some new styles.

http://www.rockymountainslides.com/

Seeing that you are in the UK I would recommend you look at these. Lead Crystal slides. A little more $ than most, but these are some of the best sounding slides I have ever heard. One of my teachers uses them and he has some of the best slide tone I've heard.

http://www.diamondbottlenecks.com/DB08/index.asp

Enjoy the search its a lot of fun!
 
Re: Slide Materials

I happen across old ghost towns out here in the SW and I find old whiskey bottles---the necks work great for slide; very heavy glass. I gave some to Lil' Ed and Louisiana Red and they dug 'em...
 
Re: Slide Materials

ES350 said:
I happen across old ghost towns out here in the SW and I find old whiskey bottles---the necks work great for slide; very heavy glass. I gave some to Lil' Ed and Louisiana Red and they dug 'em...
Click to expand...

****, now that's mojo!
 
Re: Slide Materials

I use glass. Sometimes brass but almost always glass. A shrieking tone is probably not the fault of the material though. Good slide tone comes from learning how to damp the strings. A good slide player damps the strings behind the slide with his/her fretting hand and also at the bridge with his/her picking hand.

It takes a while to develop a touch.

Smallish tubes amps which overdrive easily at lower volumes sound best to me - although Duane Allman played through a 50 watt Marshall.
 
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Re: Slide Materials

Lewguitar said:
I use glass. Sometimes brass but almost always glass. A shrieking tone is probably not the fault of the material though. Good slide tone comes from learning how to damp the strings. A good slide player damps the strings behind the slide with his/her fretting hand and also at the bridge with his/her picking hand.

It takes a while to develop a touch.

Smallish tubes amps which overdrive easily at lower volumes sound best to me - although Duane Allman played through a 50 watt Marshall.
Click to expand...

Very true. I have to admit that I never looked at it that way ( I tend to put to much importance on the gear when it comes to tone...). I also found that small tubes amps do work best though, getting my best slide tones out of a 5w class A amp. I have this slide (dont know the company), that is made of glass, with a grip on the inside that makes it feel like ceramic. It's the best I have tried, with the tone of glass, but with more controle.
 
Re: Slide Materials

Lewguitar said:
Good slide tone comes from learning how to damp the strings. A good slide player damps the strings behind the slide with his/her fretting hand and also at the bridge with his/her picking hand.
Click to expand...

damping is the second most important thing you can learn when playing slide, absolutely essential, but there is a lot of subtle tricks too. once you have damping down cold, then you can play with selectively undamping notes or passages. if you watch derek trucks very closely youd be surprised how much he doesnt damp behind the slide.

the most important thing to learn is intonation.

Smallish tubes amps which overdrive easily at lower volumes sound best to me - although Duane Allman played through a 50 watt Marshall.
Click to expand...

on big stages when you can crank the 50w amp and not blow the rest of the band off the stage then high wattage amps work fine but not many of us can really do that. i dont think its overdrive or distortion but the compression that you need. if you had a great old ross compresser then i think you could play on a spanky clean amp and make it work fine. smallish tube amps tend to compress nicely which lends itself to being a great amp for slide. old funky cheap off brand tube amps can be fantastic slide amps for some things. old tv front fender amps are some of my favorite slide amps, they mush out just right. i used to use a '56 pro for some slide stuff and it was heaven.
 
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I too prefer the Dunlop pyrex #215. I also roll back the tone controls on the guitar just a bit from their normal settings. Love bridge Phat Cats for slide too.
 
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i have one of the joe perry ceramic slides which i like a lot but the default glass bottleneck is hard to beat.
 
Re: Slide Materials

jeremy said:
damping is the second most important thing you can learn when playing slide, absolutely essential, but there is a lot of subtle tricks too. once you have damping down cold, then you can play with selectively undamping notes or passages. if you watch derek trucks very closely youd be surprised how much he doesnt damp behind the slide.

the most important thing to learn is intonation.



on big stages when you can crank the 50w amp and not blow the rest of the band off the stage then high wattage amps work fine but not many of us can really do that. i dont think its overdrive or distortion but the compression that you need. if you had a great old ross compresser then i think you could play on a spanky clean amp and make it work fine. smallish tube amps tend to compress nicely which lends itself to being a great amp for slide. old funky cheap off brand tube amps can be fantastic slide amps for some things. old tv front fender amps are some of my favorite slide amps, they mush out just right. i used to use a '56 pro for some slide stuff and it was heaven.
Click to expand...

I often fret behind the slide - between the slide and the nut but close to the slide. If the action is high enough I can bar across with my slide and then press down a note behind the slide and it'll ring underneath the slide. Sonny Landreth does that a lot. Derek Trucks too I'd guess.

Intonation, for me, came pretty naturally. In the beginning, I know that my slide tone took a huge step forward when I simply learned to damp all the strings behind the slide. Then I got better and learned some tricks too!

But yeah: intonation and damping...and a beautiful singing vibrato.

But you know who's one of the greats and who to me always has the most metallic, harsh tone?

Muddy Waters. I love him. But his slide tone is nasty!
 
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Re: Slide Materials

Well, Muddy played a Tele on the bridge pu through a Super or a Twin...ouch. I heard that live in the 70's and it was kinda hard to take...but the slide tone on the early Chess stuff (archtop + Gibson amp) is great.
 
Re: Slide Materials

alright cool guys cheers for the info. i'm using a fender hot rod but not getting it loud enough to get any dirt, it's all clean clean clean. got a nice OD pedal though so i guess a compressor would be a good move. I'm definitely thinking glass slide now and cheers for the tips on damping! also, i'm using a nasty nasty old strat copy as the neck's too f**ked for it to be set up for anything other than slide. i'm thinking a Dano Pro might be a good option?
 
Re: Slide Materials

gilles27 said:
alright cool guys cheers for the info. i'm using a fender hot rod but not getting it loud enough to get any dirt, it's all clean clean clean. got a nice OD pedal though so i guess a compressor would be a good move. I'm definitely thinking glass slide now and cheers for the tips on damping! also, i'm using a nasty nasty old strat copy as the neck's too f**ked for it to be set up for anything other than slide. i'm thinking a Dano Pro might be a good option?
Click to expand...

Since you are using a gtr set up for slide, use heavier strings than you normally would. Along w/the suggestions above, it is helpful. I did some gigs recently, w/11s on my Strat (standard tuning), the gigs included a few slide parts. Even more recently, I went to 10s on my Fenders, and I can notice the difference in terms of slide; I have to lighten up my touch a bit more. I think the tone is a bit thicker w/heavy strings, also.

Now, I can see I need to work on that damping thing myself!
 
Re: Slide Materials

Diamond Bottlenecks are great. The one I have is a fairly chunky one... thick walls, with an open end. The sustain is huge! I used it a lot on my CD. You can hear it on 'Reverend Sunburst' if you like.

Dunlop's Metallic Mudslide and White Lightning are also really good. They used a metallic glaze over porcelain that gives a smoother, creamy type of tone & feel.
 
Re: Slide Materials

I saw Sonny Landreth a few weeks ago: strat with 13s thru a Twin with a Keeley compressor and a Zen drive --- AWESOME tone. He was not overly loud as you might think - he used the amp to get enough cleans, and the Zen to control the volume and warm up the tone

for intonation: keep the slide parallel to the frets

and yes, work on damping until you can easily play single note lines

----

darn!!!! I have a BUNCH of slides, but every time there's one of these threads, I get new ideas and want to try something different!!! :D
 
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