Best pedals for slide guitar

[meadwill]

Hello everyone,

What are the best pedals for slide guitar? I have a Rat and a couple tubescreamer pedals. What do you use? Thicker gauge strings help with slide tone as well?

 

[Tommy Biggs]

Bonnie Raitt makes a rat and a compressor work pretty good!
(Get well soon)
I like a touch of delay, and not too much dirt.

 

[richiek65]

 

[Flaneur]

Hello everyone,

What are the best pedals for slide guitar? I have a Rat and a couple tubescreamer pedals. What do you use? Thicker gauge strings help with slide tone as well?

What amps are you using? Pickups? What kinds of music? My recommendations would be different, for Elmore James, than for '80s Ry Cooder.....

 

[Vfc13]

Hello everyone,

What are the best pedals for slide guitar? I have a Rat and a couple tubescreamer pedals. What do you use? Thicker gauge strings help with slide tone as well?

Imho a cheap chorus pedal with your favorite distortion/overdrive dialed in can be very nice. Ask Hound Dog Taylor.. Cheap and maxed volume can sound fantastic!

 

[G Stone496]

Hello everyone,

What are the best pedals for slide guitar? I have a Rat and a couple tubescreamer pedals. What do you use? Thicker gauge strings help with slide tone as well?

I like a touch of delay, and not too much dirt.

Yeah maybe a little delay or chorus but not both at the same time. If I'm using a amp with reverb like a blackface I'll use a little reverb instead a delay or chorus. Don't like to use dirt too much on slide because it muddies up the sound. Usually use edge of dirt from the amp. I guess my favorite amps for slide are Tweed type because they do both clean and edge of dirt so well.

 

[schmee]

Hello everyone,

What are the best pedals for slide guitar? I have a Rat and a couple tubescreamer pedals. What do you use? Thicker gauge strings help with slide tone as well?

A compressor before a nasty type OD like a Rat works well.

 

[wulfenganck]

I use a cheap beat-up resonator for lapsteel. I use a Fulltone OCD for overdrive and an EHX The Glove for boost/breakup plus a Keeley Verb-o-Trem for reverb and moduöation.
Amp is an old Peavey Express solif state. Works nice.

 

[HootOwlDude]

Compressor definitely, as a starting point. And probably at least a little reverb and/or delay. Then again, I cannot play slide at all!

 

[black_doug]

I’m also in the “Rat” camp. And I like the neck pup, with the tone rolled back about halfway on my Strat.

 

[BFcaster]

Best pedal? That's a broad question with many answers.

I only know this- Led Zeppelin I "You Shook Me" is a Telecaster and a Tonebender Mk II fuzz, and probably a EP-3 delay. I love that song.

 

[bottlenecker]

I like slide guitar clean. I like it dirty. I like it punchy. I like it compressed and squishy. I like the sound of a cheap plinky guitar for slide, and I like the sound of telecasters, hollowbodies, flattop acoustics with or without soundhole pickups. I like steel, brass, bronze and glass slides, and chrome sockets. I like little champy amps or big clean steel guitar amps, and of course I like Rat pedals.

I'm just trying to say I think it'd be easier to make a list of pedals that are not good for slide:
1. pitch vibrato
2. chorus

 

[meadwill]

What amps are you using? Pickups? What kinds of music? My recommendations would be different, for Elmore James, than for '80s Ry Cooder.....

I have an American Original 60’s tele - stock pickups. Amp is a Vox Ac 15 or Fender Custom Deluxe Reverb. I’m just learning slide so not really any specific music genres. I’m in an informal dad band with some of my daughter’s friend’s dads and we’re working out some songs and I was wanting to play slide to California Stars by Wilco.

 

[BFcaster]

Really it's hard to beat straight guitar/slide/amp. Reverb to taste, gain (distortion) to taste...
Then there's the slide itself...glass? metal? ceramic?
Then the delivery....plectrum? fingers?
Make a decision on each of the above and work it from there.

 

[guitar_paul1]

I found the right tone for myself with an old SD-1 (and a run down battery) and my Peavey Powerslide. The variable humbucker is a key element

 

[Flaneur]

I have an American Original 60’s tele - stock pickups. Amp is a Vox Ac 15 or Fender Custom Deluxe Reverb. I’m just learning slide so not really any specific music genres. I’m in an informal dad band with some of my daughter’s friend’s dads and we’re working out some songs and I was wanting to play slide to California Stars by Wilco.

I listened to a few versions of that tune. For slide accents, you will do fine, cycling between the channels on your (excellent) amps. Get a good glass slide, that fits snugly and wail at the 12th fret, in open G.

Good luck.

 

[41144]

Depends on the music /tunes...
Blues/Rock... None, just switch channels on the amp clean/dirt.
But, for more ambient stuff... Delay, Reverb, Envelope filter - sky's the limit I guess.

Something like a Red Panda Raster could be fun too.

 

[lowatter]

My vote is for a CryBaby. Here's an improvised sitting on the couch riff I did quite a few years ago...

 

[aux8]

How about volume pedal?

 

[SlideGuy123]

As a lap steeler, I use a little bit of compression to help with string balance, not for squash. I also like to stay mostly edge of breakup to light OD, although I’ve been experimenting with more drive lately. Occasionally I’ll use some short delay or even some phaser.

More than the effects though is that I’ve been working on how I slide into notes and my vibrato.