Slide

[JB_From_Hell]

It seems like there aren't a lot of people into slide on here, but I'm hoping there are more of us than I think. Whenever I listen to Sonny Landreth, Derek Trucks, or obviously Duane Allman, it really gets me fired up. I especially love how Landreth combines slide and finger style.

I set up my guitars what Warren Haynes calls "too low for slide, too high for finger style," and have bounced around string gauges for years. I think I'm going to put 11s on one guitar and 12s on the other and see what works better. Landreth uses 13-56 on Strat, while Trucks uses 11-46 on an SG, so clearly there's no right way.

I've always hated thumb picks, but I'd like to try a Herco combo thumb/flat pick. It seems like a much better idea than the weirdo regular thumb picks.

For slides, I have a Dunlop 222 brass, and a Planet Waves Pyrex with thick walls that's a little shorter than the Dunlop. I plan on buying a bunch more.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Slide

I play a little slide. Started out as we were playing covers that needed it. Even crazier was that I was playing it on a Ibanez RG750 with the action on the lowish side. Its not shredder low but its definitely not slide action. I know its not the way its suppose to be done but a set up like that has worked well enough for me. For slides I have a generic no idea who made it silver metal slide and a Dunlop blues bottle. I usually use the blues bottle the metal slide being heavier I have more of a tendency to slam into the fret board accidentally.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: Slide

I suck.

 

[Jermo3178]

Re: Slide

Wish I could grasp it... I love slide and would effin love to play it.. I have a metal Dunlop a test tube from my dads work and 3 actual 50s medicine bottles. When I get off work tonight I may have to hunt one of them up to mess around with.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Slide

Wish I could grasp it... I love slide and would effin love to play it.. I have a metal Dunlop a test tube from my dads work and 3 actual 50s medicine bottles. When I get off work tonight I may have to hunt one of them up to mess around with.

I'm jealous as hell that you have real 50s bottles!

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Slide

I like fairly thin brass slides and use it on my little finger so i can fret minor chords etc behind the slide.
Fingerstyle for sure on the right hand. Its all bout damping the strings you are not playing when playing electric as well as doing the old skool thumb bass ala robert johnson acoustic style. I don't know how people play slide with a pick. too many random strings ringing out and causing dissonance.
I find a quick, easy and effective way of prepping a guitar for slide is to make it play regular style and set the height and neck relief for 10-46 gauge strings, then i just slap on a set of 12-56 (unwound 24 on the G) and the neck bends from the extra tension and i have a nice slide action.

Usually use open E tuning and slap on a capo for different keys. Saves having to carry multiple axes to gigs. It would be nice to have 4 axes and use open D, E, G and A but its not really feasible. I think derek trucks just plays everything in open E and uses a capo.

fwiw i posted a slide song on the tips and clips area this week if you want to have a listen:
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?287153-Long-Legs

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Slide

I like fairly thin brass slides and use it on my little finger so i can fret minor chords etc behind the slide.
Fingerstyle for sure on the right hand. Its all bout damping the strings you are not playing when playing electric as well as doing the old skool thumb bass ala robert johnson acoustic style. I don't know how people play slide with a pick. too many random strings ringing out and causing dissonance.
I find a quick, easy and effective way of prepping a guitar for slide is to make it play regular style and set the height and neck relief for 10-46 guage strings, then i just slap on a set of 12-56 and the neck bends from the extra tension and i have a nice slide action.

fwiw i posted a slide song on the tips and clips area this week if you want to have a listen:
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?287153-Long-Legs

You said most of what I would have said. Along with the fingers behind the slide, I like to mute with my picking fingers, laying the unused ones on the strings I'm not going to play until I need them. I have also found that instead of thinking of scales in a stacked fashion, like a normal scale shape, it helps me tremendously to think of the whole scale on two strings, then play up and down the neck. No note you need is farther than a few frets away this way, and you eliminate the plinky sound of the thinner strings if you go for the same high notes up the neck.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Slide

yes thinking linearly is a good approach. totally makes sense when you think about the fact that you are using a slide.

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Slide

yes thinking linearly is a good approach. totally makes sense when you think about the fact that you are using a slide.

Yup. You get much more of a singing thing that way.

I had an audition a couple of weeks ago, and practiced the parts with my glass slide for two weeks, then the night of the second audition, my daughter bought me a killer brass slide. It fits exactly on top of my wedding ring, and is so comfy. It makes the same notes sing twice as well. My little girl rocks.:headbang:

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Slide

I read an interview with ry cooder in guitar player mag back in the 80s. He always uses glass for its overtones and cos he reckons brass sounds like a truck horn and has no subtlety. I still prefer brass tho even if the maestro doesn't like it. I quite like the truck horn sound.

 

[ginormous]

Re: Slide

I tried to do slide a long time ago... pentatonic was as far as I got.

I had a glass medicine bottle (from my mom, back when they used glass bottles for pills). A little thin-walled, so of course it broke.

A thicker Gibson glass slide didn't quite have the same feel; besides, my fingers grew into sausages.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Slide

famous sausage fingers

 

[guitfiddle]

Re: Slide

I tried to do slide a long time ago... pentatonic was as far as I got.

Shoot, you could make a living with not much more than that. Thing about the pentatonic that is so cool, is that all the other stuff is right beside those pentatonic shapes, so you can take it anywhere you need...dorian, mixolydian, aolean, etc... while still moving around those comfortable shapes and using them as a roadmap of the key you're in.

 

[macki]

Re: Slide

I have been playing slide for about a year now. Really enjoy it.

A couple of things really helped me - trying all the different tunings (I really like open E) and taking a Truefire course (in the this case "Slide Power"). Going to the open tuning really opens up new note phrasing - playing the same notes in a standard tuning does (in my opinion) sound different from open tunings and generally better. I went from 10-46s (what I normally use) all the way up to 56s and lifted my B and E string a slight bit higher after that (I was still fretting out sometimes).

Just got some slides from Silica Sound- they have a nice taper on the end of the their slides that helps it stay on your finger. I really like that as I have a crooked pinky so its hard to find a slide that fits + usually shorter slides are not that long (say < 50mm) where I wanted something in the 55mm length

 

[Wattage]

Re: Slide

I mess with it from time to time

Mostly glass but I like trying different types. Anodized aluminum does some cool things for sure. I try to use nickel strings, 11's when I really get into it.

Rod Price/Foghat was a badass slide player.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Slide

derek trucks doesnt use a capo usually, only on a very few select songs and i havent seen him do it even on those in years. he just plays plays a guitar tuned to open E. fretted or slide regardless of what key.

i play lots of slide and dont suck too bad at it. i use 11-50 strings in standard tuning for the most part, once in a while ill do drop d for a specific song but thats about it. i dont wanna carry lots of guitars around for different tunings so standard it is. i use glass bottles (coricidin bottle style) most of the time but have plenty of others. the one i use most is a red medium thickness glass from the real bottlenecking company. i think they are out of business now though. i use my ring finger, only cause duane did, and this bottle fits perfectly and stays on well. i play slide with my fingers rather than a pick, once you get used to tucking it in your hand it becomes second nature.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Slide

Yeah capos are a compromise so i would prefer not to use it and im sure Derek sees it that way too, but i does come in handy on a few songs. I never actually thought of using it till i saw this video:

 

[jeremy]

Re: Slide

i do actually use a capo on one song now that i think about it so i can play open strings. especially in open tunings it makes a lot of sense

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Slide

It seems like a capo would screw up your action for slide.

I have an Amazon gift card burning a hole in my pocket, and think a new slide is in order. Can't decide between a bottle and ceramic, though.

 

[Jermo3178]

Re: Slide

I'm jealous as hell that you have real 50s bottles!

my grandma has never thrown anything away lol.