Playing slide on a bender?

I have a lapsteel with a DUESENBERG MULTIBENDER on it and I love it. I'm wanting to get one for a tele to play with out a slide. Here is my question I intend to play a little slide with it. I'm going between a palm style bender or a strap style bender in my head here. Does any body play slide using a strap style bender? Or is it hard because your pushing the neck down for the bends?

Is it doable? Yes. Is it easy? No. You'll have to get the hang of holding the slide in place while hooking your thumb around the neck to push it down.

it's MUCH easier to do slides with a Hipshot bender than a strap bender. Bigsby palm pedals would be easier than a strap activated bender. i would think a Duesenberg bender would work fairly well, also.

not saying it can't be done with a strap bender, but i found out which works the best for me, but then you should be aware that i am probably the world's WORST slide player on regular electric guitar.......ever!!. on a lap steel or dobro, i can hold my own.

Go Palm Pedal!! ....:lol:

..unless you can mentally separate your thumb from everything else that you're doing....:shock:

Cheers from wintery Oz!

I use a Hipshot B-bender with my slide playing. I would imagine one of the typical strap-based systems would be more difficult to use compared to the Hipshot, where all you need to do is maintain a grip on the rear of the bridge. Here's a video I did a year or so ago noodling around with the B-bender:

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The strap is a no-go with a slide. I am putting together a guitar right now that will use a hipshot B&G with the D drop. I want to be able to mimic the AB pedals on a pedal steel.

There use to be a guy in Sheryl Crow's band that did wonderful things with a slide and a guitar equipped with palm pedals. Seems like it had 3-palm pedals, but I can't remember.

I think the concensus around here has been Hipshot for slide playing. Watch some Will Ray videos, he uses a Hipshot and plays with slide rings and does some crazy stuff.

The strap is a no-go with a slide.

Unless you do it. It's not a great idea to make proclamations unless you are omniscient.

I play slide regularly and with or without a bender. I found the right spring-tension on my Pullstring and PW that makes the bends easy (without accidental bends) and slide playing works fine. You do have to make some adjustments in your posture more than anything else.

I had a Hipshot for many years and finally sold it - I had held onto it primarily because of the general thinking that it was better for slide playing, but found the forward-push of the neck with a Hipshot actually made slide playing more difficult than the downward pull of a strap bender The downward pull has little effect on the pressure of the slide on the strings;pushing forward works directly in opposition to the slide pressure - and I found it resulted in far more buzzes and fret "hits".

Vibratro with a slide I find FAR easier with a strap bender than a Hipshot - the downward pull is almost a non-factor. But the forward push IS a factor, and maintaining that forward move while keeping the slide on the right string(s) and adding vibrato creates a lot of opposing actions to balance against each other. With the strap-type bender (set up properly - a very stiff setup would certainly be a problem) there's little downward pressure to worry about and it's easier, at least for me, to maintain or pull and release a bend that way while playing slide since the physical part of slide playing isn't working against the bend.

There are plenty of players in both camps - you just have to find out which one works for you. It would help a fledgling bender player to have a setup done by an experienced player though - a stock PG, for example, would be very hard to work with because of the stiffness and changing tension through the bend. In fact I wouldn't recommend slide playing with a PG at all - the pull has a change in tension (sort of a "hitch" in the middle of the pull) that I have never seen overcome - but a Pullstring, PW, Glaser et al (preferably one with adjustable spring tension...or set up by someone who knows how to set the spring in a fixed-place unit) will work fine.

This is the business end of mine...and it IS a slide guitar...
...Palm Pedals work for me...:grin:

all really suck for slide and anyone who says they don't doesn't know anything about slide guitar playing. To play good slide you need the freedom of movement with your left hand that the "push down" strap activated benders just don't allow!

A HipShot bender if fine as you can activate it without having your thumb over the top of the neck. Also when you have the B string bender activated you can brace the bender by just holding it against your hip a little with your right forearm and do some slide moves with that string bent.

However, my favorite bender for slide playing is still the Bigsby Palm Pedal. Someone mentioned the player with Sheryl Crow. That would be Peter Stroud. In live shows he plays the pedal steel parts that were on some of Shery's recordings plus other things.

Imagine if you had a strap bender and you had your B string bent (playing with a slide) and you wanted to make a complete octave slide from the 3rd to the 15th fret while keeping the note bent. How do you do that with the thumb on top of the neck with any precision? Face it, P/W's are wonderful benders but they suck for slide.......JMHO.....JH in Va.:lol::lol:

Imagine if you had a strap bender and you had your B string bent (playing with a slide) and you wanted to make a complete octave slide from the 3rd to the 15th fret while keeping the note bent.

Well, normally I slide from the 3rd to the 15th fret. But I'm lousy at math, so I try not to count out loud. ;-)

I really think problems with strap-benders and slide playing were regularly reported *before* many players started experimenting with spring tension. With a dead-stock, Gene's-spec Parsons-White installation or a Parsons-Green/Fender-Bender (and similar units with fixed-tension) it IS hard - but not impossible. Reducing friction is the key thing, and like some players douse their left hands in baby powder for any kind of playing the same thing helps with stock bender setups. Still, I don't advise it. I recommend lightening up on the bender tension and finding the "sweet spot" balance point where minimal pressure is needed to "bend". Some players, though, find themselves accidentally bending notes at a light tension - that's something that can be overcome with practice. Heck, I've played a few guy's benders that were intentionally set so loose they had to apply a light amount of *lift* at all times to avoid accidental bends - that would make slide playing difficult as well. You need to find "balance".

But those problems are significantly reduced with the introduction of adjustable spring tension - it became a hot item when Dave Evans reintroduced and updated the Pullstring, and since then others have created aftermarket tension-adjusters for Parsons-White units. Many of the Glaser-type benders also have adjustable tension.

This means you need very little pressure to maintain the bend - and unless your neck is finished in ultra-stick (sTick - not sLick) polyester (I don't play guitars with those finishes and one reason is the weird stickiness created by even a small amount of perspiration) it's not an issue - at least it isn't for me. And light amounts of pressure being equal, for me the downward pressure of a strap bender is easier to maintain than the forward-pressure on a Hipshot.

A palm-type bender takes all left hand issues completely out of the slide-playing equation but creates a whole snakepit of new ones - they're useless to me as my right hand is constantly changing position - close to/far from the bridge, different pick angles, hybrid picking and right hand damping. I played a Bigsby Palm Pedal for many years and kept it only because I liked the particular guitar it was bolted to for certain things - none of which required anything other than the required static right hand position.

They work great for some players, but if you have an active/dynamic right hand approach they get in the way (and the shortened-arm versions some players have created have the same problems, just in a different place - if you plan on using the palm levers to bend you MUST have your hand in a specific position without much leeway).

Like I said before, they ALL work for slide - which one to choose just depends on your guitar setup and personal style.

The best slide guitar is, of course, one with no bender at all. But if you want to incorporate a bender with your slide playing (or visa-versa) you have a few choices available. Unfortunately most guitar stores don't have instruments sitting around with benders on them, and those that do generally have Fender Teles with PG benders without tension adjustment - so it IS tough to "test-drive" anything at all.

I agree with Silver here; my only problem playing slide on both my Parsons and Glaser bender guitars are my light strings: 9.11.14.22.30.38. An ultralight touch is required, but it's well worth it for the ease of multi-bending and they never go out of tune.

I do it all the time.
Look up my bender. It's a telecaster custom with a double Bender on the b and high e.
I play naturally with my thumb over the neck and have came up with some sweet slide licks with the b bender and throw the e in there when I remember that I have an e bender, lol. Mine set up with just the right spring tension and plays like butter.

I use a Hipshot B-bender with my slide playing. I would imagine one of the typical strap-based systems would b


Nice!


Come on you guys doing this, more vids. :cool: