Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

[54stratlover]

I like to play slide occasionally, but get discouraged by some of the string noise. After watching the Derek Trucks vids on the other threads, It made me wonder about using flatwound strings.

http://www.pyramidstrings.com/st-guitar.html

Does anyone use them? What are the pros, and cons?

Craig

 

[thespricket]

Re: Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

i play a good bit of slide. i think, even more important than string type, higher action than u normally use is good. But heavier strings is good too. Im not sure about flatwound.

 

[Gunny47]

Re: Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

Nope, I play with plain old nickel 11 guages , but top wound. The action is pretty much as low as it possibly can get without buzzing, very very very low action, pretty perfect for playing normally. I just adapted the slide to that and worked on my right hand muting a lot. This way I can go from slide to normal playing without having to change guitars and stuff like that.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

i keep my action a little high but i play the same guitars both slide and regular. i like a 11/14/18/30/42/54 set but a 11-50 works.
never used flat wounds but i wouldnt think i would like it

pyramid makes great strings though

 

[doveman]

Re: Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

10-46 D'Addario strings ... round wounds with regular action and regular tuning ... so you can go back and forth. Works for me. flat wounds don't sing like the round wound. Several slide songs at site in my signature ... if interested.

 

[Bludave]

Re: Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

I use 2 electric guitars for slide A Telecaster equipped witha Strat pickup in the neck. This I use in open E and I have a 1956 Harmony H44 that I use in open A. The Harmony has 12's on it and it sounds great. It has some chessy single coil in it but for slide it smokes. The Tele currently has 11's but will probably get a set of 12's on it soon. I like to raise the action up a little for slide, but I play with higher action than what most people play with any way. I use D'Adarrio XL 115's on most of my guitars and I use the equivalint in 12's for slide.

I also play a lot of slide on acoustic and I use the D'Adarrio J17's which are 13 thru 56 on my acoustic guitars. Heavier strings = bigger tone. Higher action = cleaner slide tone. at least for me!

Flat wound strings tend to be a littlwe darker sounding to me, so I prefer the guitar to have more bite when playing slide. I think standard nickle is fine besides having the slide make a little noise as you move it over the strings is all partt of slide.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Slide players....do you use flatwound strings

I just use d'addario .11s . . . I don't get any string noise.