Slide... Glass or Metal?

I tend to prefer a metal slide on acoustic. Gives it that rough, blues sound. What about the rest of y'all? Glass or brass? Pinky or ring finger?

Best slide I've found is a piece of copper plumbing pipe - has a nice drag on the strings, and gives you that nasty growl on both acoustic and electric. May turn your finger green though...

Oh yeah - ring finger.

I've always liked the lowell george/sears socket wrench approach, really nice tone. Pyrex is really nice too though. I think the biggest issue is finding the right size that you can control properly.

[Similar thread also running]

Chrome steel. (That Joe Perry ceramic is OK. Kinda liked it til it broke) For some reason, I don't get as much sound out of glass. Don't know why. Ceramic and glass should sound same, but for me they don't.

Pinky all the way ala Johnny Winter - I can play lead and also chord while wearing slide. Have lately started to fret single notes behind slide in (a very feeble) attempt to mimic Kirk Lorange. (One of the cleanest players I've ever heard.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN5M7YoEMm4

I've always liked the Lowell George/sears socket wrench approach, really nice tone. Pyrex is really nice too though. I think the biggest issue is finding the right size that you can control properly.

Yeah, proper control is the key issue with slide. I tried the socket wrench thing too, but the weight of the thing made it unwieldy. Tone was nice but I kept fretting out. Of course, the action on my #1 isn't set any higher than normal, and I'm not willing to sacrifice a guitar to keep one set up high for slide.

I like glass, but I've dropped three in the last four months. On to brass for me!

yeah, ceramic/porcelain is another nice option.

I tend to prefer a metal slide on acoustic. Gives it that rough, blues sound. What about the rest of y'all? Glass or brass? Pinky or ring finger?

i agree. i prefer steel, its even a little meaner to my ears than brass and with more volume. but brass is ok too. glass always sounded to "friendly" to me.
oh, and ring finger...

I play resonator, acoustic and electric slide and my preference is steel for the resonator, brass for the acoustic and glass for the electric. When playing a purely acoustic gig I take either the steel or brass (whichever's closer when I leave) and for electric/acoustic gigs I take the brass (happy medium).
I tried the ceramic style but they feel too light for me.

I play slide on my steel, single cone resonator. I use a steel slide on my ring finger. I sometimes use a glass or copper one just to tinker, but have always used the steel for gigs. The glass one is my least favorite as it seems to produce a less well-defined, textured sound to me than the metal ones.

For slide I got a 1931/32 National Duolian, mid-1930s Kay Kraft (a wicked slide guitar) and a 1950s Oahu Tonemaster lap steel with the Supro Strings Through Pickup.

I prefer glass - the neck off of a bottle of Fighting **** Kentucky Bourbon on my pinky so, as someone else noted, it leaves my other fingers free for chords.

On the lap steel I put a bottleneck on my first finger and a Will Ray Stealth on my ring finger and sometime a just a bar.

I usually tend to use glass. I like it on the thinner side for electric (Coricidin bottle) and thicker for acoustic (bottleneck) - to bring out more volume/fullness.

Other materials all have their benefits; the musical texture created by rougher brass/chrome is fine I just prefer the clean, "glassy" (purposeful use) tone created by.. glass. I suppose I like the transparency. Also I'm heavily influenced by Duane Allman, who used glass for electric; don't know what he did for acoustic, like in "Mean Old World", it could've been chrome, I'd have to listen again.

The blue one is from Diamond Bottlenecks. The clear one is a Dunlop. Both fit perfectly on my little finger. I use these on my Dobro and wooden acoustics; sometimes use a brass or chromed steel Dunlop on the National, when i'm in full-on trashcan mode...........

I never understood buying glass or metal slides when they are so simple to make. I feel like I am surrounded by Yankees.

I never understood buying glass or metal slides when they are so simple to make. I feel like I am surrounded by Yankees.

I have made my own in the past, I still have my favourite bottleneck from nearly 20 years ago (which is now cracked and on its last legs :sad:). I tried to make some new ones but got nowhere, the glass would always break or it wouldn't feel right. I got fed up trying in the end and got Diamond to make me one to the same spec as my old favourite (I get paid more than I did 20 years ago, prerhaps it was too easy to buy one and I should have kept trying).

Speak for me, SackvilleDan regarding type of slide.
I prefer to wear it on the "wedding ring" finger.

I prefer glass, but don't play a whole lot of slide.

Brass on acoustic

Glass on Electric

I never understood buying glass or metal slides when they are so simple to make. I feel like I am surrounded by Yankees.

I'm more of a Brummie than a Yankee............

I've used sockets, cut lengths of aluminium, copper and steel, broken the necks off dozens of bottles and played using complete beer bottles and glasses........

If I didn't prefer the feel, weight, fit and tone of the Diamond and the Dunlop, i wouldn't have paid money for them.

OK, here is how I was taught to make a bottleneck slide any years ago.

Get an approrpriate bottle - nice and thick, with a diameter big enough for your finger to slip into and with as few seams as possible.

Gather together a shoelace or heavy string, some kerosene/gasoline, a bucket of ice water, and a match.

Soak the shoelace in kerosene and tie it around the neck of the bottle. Light it. Let it burn a bit and then douse the bottle in the bucket of ice water. You will hear the snap, crackle and pop of the neck breaking. If done right you will get a nice clean break.

The neck should pop right off and just sand down the edge.

How do you keep from smackin the bottom of the neck with the slide if its on your pinky but you are playin lead? I wear it on my middle finger cus its easier to keep out of the way and i can play lead with my other fingers without the slide smackin the neck. I have a weak pinky i suppose.

Have to say that I prefer glass on acoustic guitars. Also prefer glass slides on electric as well but copper, brass and stainless steel socket wrenches all have their place in the arsenal!!

I like my Joe perry ceramic slide. Best of both worlds IMO.

Glass with a Tele. I have 2 that I switch between. One is an old medicine bottle, short and stubby and brown and one is a fancy blue one.

I sound too sloppy and noisy with metal on a Tele.

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

Brass > Acoustic
Glass > Electric

DIY homemade slides for "extra" mojo.

I tend to prefer a metal slide on acoustic. Gives it that rough, blues sound. What about the rest of y'all? Glass or brass? Pinky or ring finger?

For me it's ceramic, I use a Bigheart, heart shaped and find it works on acoustic, electris and even my resonator. I keep trying various glass and metal but keep coming back to the ceramic. I use it on my pinky to give me three fingers for fretting notes.

BM

Dunlop 220 steel or Dunlop 215 pyrex (glass) for me, though I have a ceramic Mudslide which I don't use because it hardly fits my third finger (would probably be fine for my pinky if I played slide that way).

The best sounding "slide" I ever had was an empty hugo boss after shave bottle that I got from my brother when I was 16. Its what I learned to play slide with. It got broke eventually but iv never found a slide since that sounded as good.

Of the slides iv bought my favorite is the Joe Perry porcelain slide, sounds very full and smooth to me. Iv tried it on acoustics, electrics, resonators and dobros and pedal steels and I liked it on all of them, love it on electric and resonator.

Brass, on acoustic only- I don't (can't?) play electric slide, since I play solo guitar, and pounding on open tunings make just the right amount of racket.

My good slides are all VERY heavy, much thicker than the short, thin Dunlops I see around. The diameter is thick at the base, slightly smaller through the middle, and flares out just a little at the "fingertip", but the fingertip end isn't as thick as the base end. At 2-1/2" long, they're slightly longer than my pinky finger and will easily span all 6 strings on my acoustics. I don't remember the brand, but they came packaged in a soft string pouch and cost somewhere between $12-18 a couple decades ago.

My favorite of these became so after taking a round file to the inside of the base and filing brass out of the inside so my pinky is comfortable, then filing a notch in the base so I can bend my finger 90 degrees to my palm, then applying tape ~ 1/2" below the tip on the inside, so my fingertip has a purchase and can "grab" the tape. This setup provides great control, especially for sliding the tip on the inside strings without upsetting ringing tones from the other strings.

I like having the slide on my pinky so that I can bar the (most commonly) IV and V chords with my index finger and use the slide on the frets above the bar.

The heavy brass sound is clean and full with great sustain. It's interesting to read all your interpretations of the sounds the different materials make, and why you all like the different materials. IMHO, the glass slides sound thin and scratchy, but not to many of you, and how some think the brass dull and lifeless, but not to me.

BTW, I only play slide on silk & steel strings as I find the slide grinds less on them. I guess flatwounds would work but I think they sound dead when they're new, and then they go downhill from there.

Just sayin...