glass slide

[tubenit]

I borrowed a friend's glass slide and liked it so much, I made 3 for myself in differing lengths. They turned out great and have a super tone to them. I used a tile saw and sand paper which made short work of the job.  My friend's slide is 2nd from the left.

Having said that, my friend's slide has very slightly thicker glass and does sound different. Not better, but different with maybe a tad more sustain.  As an FYI, almost all my slide playing is with a normal tuning so a shorter slide works fine for me as I am typically only hitting a couple of strings at a time.

I'm not much of a drinker and perhaps have maybe 2 glasses a wine in a year. I don't know anything about wine bottles.


Do any of you know a wine that comes with a thicker glass bottle?  I'd like to cut one out of a thicker bottle also.


With respect, Jeff

[Willabe]

So the slide bug bit'cha Jeff?  Uh-Oh!   
 
I've played slide for years, tried MANY different slides. Now a days, they make slides in many different materials, combination of materials, colors, and styles. I probably own at least 30+ different slides. 
 
Most serious slide players, round neck acoustic/lectric, lap steel, square neck Dobro, Weissenborn, console steel, pedal steel are the same. They all end up trying/buying/gathering many different slides, it just happens. 
 
They can also get very expensive depending on the material their made from. There's a slide maker in England that sells a solid titanium slide for $400 US.    Does it sound $399 better than a $10 slide?     Well, give me $400 and I'll let you know. 

They now make both glass and metal slides with an internal tapper, fits your finger better, easier to keep the slide in place on your finger. Works   --  very well --   when using slide on you pinky on acoustic.
 
Our Selection of Guitar Slides | Silica Sound Handcrafted Glass Guitar Accessories

They also make both glass and metal slides with a notch cut out on the bottom to wear at the ring/middle finger knuckle so the fingers knuckle can bend without interference. If you put this same slide on your pinky, then you wear the slide all the way down to the hands body. So you now turn that bottm cut towards your ring finger, sung's right in now. both ways, they feel very comfortable on your finger. They also make that same slide with a flat spot at the top (they call it a 'finger rest') that goes up against the next finger over next to the slide, it feels pretty good too. (You lay your slide finger next to the finger next to it to control the slide.) The top flat spot, meh, I can take or leave it. Now the bottom cut, it has a really nice feel to it. (You can live without it, but it's nice.) I haven't found any of this type, in glass, that was heavy enough to use on an acoustic. But their great on electric.

The Rock Slide | The World's Greatest Guitar Slide

With glass you want real silica glass,  --  NOT  --  Pyrex glass. The Pyrex sounds artificial, kinda plastic sounding when A/B'd next to the same slide, size/inside-outside diameter/length, made from silica glass. Very noticeable. Those wine bottles are made from real silica glass and will sound very good.
 
Rock Slide (and I think a couple others) make hand blown glass silica slides (along with brass/metal slides) with a domed top/ball tip/marble tip and a flattop. But closed top slides, just like coricidin bottles, get a sweat build up inside, bothers some guys. So some makers drill a small hole in the top so the slide doesn't get a sweat build up inside, it does help. These closed top slides do get you a little more weight, but, they are top heavy, so harder to control. When you move the slide to lay it on the strings, if you go to fast, the slides momentum, because it's top heavy, will slam into the strings.   
 
Metal seems to me to have more of the fundamental of the note, glass seems to me to have more of the overtones. I do have a porcelain slide, Mudslide, that I like on both acoustic and electric. It's a heavy slide, very fat sounding. It's too heavy to play fast, but fast is not always needed with slide. I don't like the ceramic slides, don't like their sound, much prefer the porcelain sound. I definitely prefer glass over a metal slide. Metal is sharper sounding, glass softer/rounder.   

NEW - Dunlop No. 266 Mudslide Large Porcelain Guitar Slide | eBay

I like the 266, not the 263 Mudslide, 266 is slightly longer, so a little heavier, a little fatter sounding.
 

   Brad

[Willabe]

As an FYI, almost all my slide playing is with a normal tuning so a shorter slide works fine for me as I am typically only hitting a couple of strings at a time.

Do any of you know a wine that comes with a thicker glass bottle?  I'd like to cut one out of a thicker bottle also.

You can use a shorter slide, but, you lose mass/weight the shorter you go. Less mass/weight = thinner/brighter sound. Yes, Duane Allman and others had a great sound on electric with a coricidin bottle that was fairly light in weight. But the amp and guitar/pups can and do make up for that.

Sounds like you want a thicker slide to get a fatter sound from a short slide? But, you'll probably be better off going with a longer slide than a shorter fatter slide. Because......

The other thing is balance. Short slides are harder to control, it has to do with the balance of your hand against the neck. It's the hands movement up and down the neck, has to flow smoothly. Add, getting a smooth vibrato with a really short slide might be a problem.

I've never seen any good slide player play a short a slide, all the greats play a slide that's at least as long as a coricidian bottle. Has to be a reason why.

  Brad

[Willabe]

Most slide players go to a little heavier string and a little higher action. You have several guitars, you might want to think about setting 1 up as your slide guitar?

I think Derick Trucks uses a set of .010's on his SG, but changes the 1st string E from .010 to .011 and the 2nd string B from .013 to .014. I don't know about his action height.

I string my electrics with a set of .010's and set the action at the 12th fret to 1/16" on the high E/1st string for regular finger style playing.

For my slide guitar, tuned to open E, I change the 1st string E from .010 to .011 and the 2nd string B from .013 to .014. (The rest of the strings I leave alone.) I didn't copy Derick, I found this on my own through the years trying different gauge strings. A bonus to a heaver string will be, it has more tension on it when tuned up to correct pitch, that helps keep the slide from hitting the frets. 

And I raise the action at the 12th fret at least another 32", so 3/32". But I've been playing for years and have developed a lighter touch. you might need to go to 1/8" for a while?

You know if the actions to low when you slide and it sounds like your going over rail road tracks, click, click, click, click. 

Lee Roy Parnel, a great slide player, play's in several different tunings on stage to change song keys. He keeps 5 or 6 Les Paul on stage set up for slide in different tunings. Here's whats interesting, he goes as high as .018 for the 1st string depending on the tuning to keep the string tension the same. The lower lower the tuning, the less tension on the string. So to keep the 'feel' the same, which is how hard he presses the slide against the strings, he ups the string gauge.

There are guys who post on line when giving advice to new slide players that they use the same action and string action for slide as for regular playing. "You just need to learn/develop a lighter touch."

But I don't believe them. 

  Brad.       

[tubenit]

Hey Brad,


Great to hear from you!  I've actually gone thru quite a selection of slides over the years. Glass, metals, porcelain of various types and styles. I've been playing slide since maybe mid to late 70's but I'm just not very good at it. I've not played slide much for the last 15 yrs or so.

I don't play very smooth and maybe am closer to JB Hutto or Hound Dog Taylor in sloppiness.  On a good day, maybe a little like Muddy Waters towards the end when he quit using open tunings and opted for standard tunings?

I appreciate the info and comments. All great stuff. I never got very far with open tunings unfortunately. Although all the greats I admire the most like Johnny Winter and Sonny Landreth, Damon Fowler & Joey Landreth sure use open tunings.

Hope you are doing well!  Thanks for the thoughts and direction, it's appreciated. 


Best regards. My respect, Jeff

[ShoemanGB]

Great discourse on slides.  Mine have been gathering dust for too long.  I know what I'l be doing this weekend

[Willabe]

On slide guitar string gauge and string action, I should have added that....

You need enough tension and height off the fret board on a string so you can put enough downward pressure on the string so it doesn't rattle against the slide.

That's why when guys say they play slide on a guitar that's set up for standard playing, light strings/low action, by just using a 'lighter touch', I don't believe them. 

[RadioComm]

Thanks so much Brad.

I got very frustrated with slide back in the last 70's. With all this detail, you've brought back to life my curiosity about slide. Dusting off my old slides, and maybe buying some new ones.

ttfn, Paul

[alerich]

I still have and play the same Dunlop 215 heavy wall medium glass guitar slide I bought in 1978. I bought three to have two as spares. Those two are still sitting in a box of guitar parts I have. A few years ago I purchased a Furious Slides titanium slide after I saw a video of Lance Keltner raving about them. I like it but not as much as Old Faithful. How I have managed to keep and play and gig with a glass guitar slide for over 45 years without breaking it is a mystery to me.

[brewdude]

I don’t know much about slides. 
However, I do know a little about wine and the glass bottles it is packaged in.  As a rule of thumb, it is relatively safe to assume that the higher quality (more expensive) wine is where you will find thicker glass bottles.

[Platefire]

Just to throw my two cents in. I started off using metal slide by Ernie Ball in the 70's. Latter in years I pickup up a glass slide called the blues bottle produced by Dunlop that is supposed to be a copy of the medicine bottle Duane used. I definitely prefer the glass.

I play with the slide on my little finger so I can do regular fingering/cording between slide parts.

I play slide with standard guitar tuning and with action set for non-slide playing. On my amp set up, I always play slide through a tube screamer into a clean amp. In other words, when I switch to slide I don't need to change guitars or amp, just turn on the tube screamer:>) Here is a sample:

https://soundcloud.com/connie-and-bob-scott/01-this-is-my-desire

[jjasilli]

I truly suck at cutting glass.  Back in the 70's I bought a bottle cutting jig hoping to make drinking glasses & mugs out of beer & wine bottles; and slides out of wine bottle necks.  In those days for some reason I had an endless supply of bottles.   Wound up with 1 good slide that I still have, but rarely use.  It looks just like the one at the start of the video.  I can use it on either my pinky or ring finger.  This is the only slide that I could ever use on both fingers.  I play a lot of slide acoustic & electric and tend to favor the Dunlop brass slide with outside taper on my pinky. 


Never thought of using a wet tile cutter.

[shooter]

I truly suck at cutting glass.

one of the random kids of the 90's asked if he could use my wood shop, he needed a drill press, which he was qualified to use.
I asked what he was drilling, "Um ...I wanna drill a couple holes in this glass bottle..."


I "played dumb" asked if he had any diamond tipped bits, since I didn't.  he didn't, showed me the wood-bit he brought. 
Gave him a few chores to do, told him to come back in a couple hours.   I went to the hardware, bought a diamond tip bit in his diameter.


he showed up, I explained the basics and left him to it.  later that night as I was closing up, I checked the shop, there were 5 shattered bottles laying below the drill press.  Kid came back a couple days later with more glass.  "NOT until you CLEAN EVERY piece of glass from before, AND you KEEP this area clean.
he moved on to other money making endeavors shortly after 

[jjasilli]

Damn, I thought that story was our secret!

[shooter]

those "kids" are now 40 with there own "kids"  they don't leave me alone with their kids 

[jjasilli]

This has been haunting me.  I can't play it so sparsely.

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