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Post by Pickers Ditch on May 11, 2024 7:49:40 GMT
Zo! Having seen and heard Snakehips video re German Glass slides last month I was hit by SAS again. Mr.McWee, with his infinite patience, produced this for me: It is perfect in all respects - size, fit, length and the bonus is The Sound which gives a warmth and clarity not experienced by me and my playing before. Oh, and it is a work of art in it's own right, too! Thank you Ian (and Snakehips for pointing me in the right direction) - I'm a happy old man!
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Post by bod on May 11, 2024 9:32:00 GMT
Hi, I’ve looked on the DB website for German glass slides in the past (and again before posting) but am not finding them - am I missing them somehow or are they ‘by special request’?
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Post by bonzo on May 11, 2024 9:54:06 GMT
Got mine a couple of weeks ago. Excellent! I was expecting some sort of industrial looking piece of kit but it is stunning 😍 Bod, get in touch with Ian directly. Have your measurements ready of course!
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Post by Michael Messer on May 11, 2024 9:54:48 GMT
Hmmmm....I think I should try one of these.
Shine On Michael
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Post by Pickers Ditch on May 11, 2024 9:57:35 GMT
Hi, I’ve looked on the DB website for German glass slides in the past (and again before posting) but am not finding them - am I missing them somehow or are they ‘by special request’? Have a quiet chat with Ian direct.
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Post by snakehips on May 11, 2024 11:30:04 GMT
Got mine a couple of weeks ago. Excellent! I was expecting some sort of industrial looking piece of kit but it is stunning 😍 Bod, get in touch with Ian directly. I got the impression this might be a limited run! Hi there ! Far from it, if I remember correctly, Ian McWee told me that some of the leaded glass tubes are becoming less available and that this German/Swiss glass will be his main glass material in future (apart from the "standard" glass bottle bottlenecks etc). (I agree though, the website could do with an update, on how to order a Swiss/German glass slide). If I remember correctly, the glass material is obtained by a Swiss company, from German manufacturers of the raw glass, then sent to Ian's glass blowers, in England. It is my personal opinion, that a good/fat slide tone comes from a slide with large external diameter - essentially, I think more surface of the slide contacts the string. A metal slide with the same external diameter would be far too heavy, unless the glass wall was not too thick - and if so, the internal diameter would be far too big for most fingers. The German glass is super-hard - so none of mine have broken/s,ashed when dropping onto my garage concrete floor, or tiled floors, on the number of occasions I have dropped them - they just bounce lots, which is horrifying to watch though, as you are just waiting for it to smash on one of the bounces, ...... yet it doesn't/hasn't yet !). They are not as heavy leaded glass of the same dimensions, apparently, so you can have a nice thick-walled glass slide, with large external diameter, and nice internal diameter to fit your finger, giving the slide decent weight but not too heavy. The glass is that hard, that attempts to polish the surface is not that easy - so Ian sticks the "finished" slide back in the surface to melt the surface - and this produces it's ultra-smooth, silky surface. Oh yeah, and they come in lots of cool colour combinations. What's NOT to like !!!!! And yes, Michael, you just GOTTA try Ian's German/Swiss glass slides. They are fab ! Again, I'll strongly suggest anyone try these slides in a length not much more than the width of your fretboard. It means you can get really thick glass without adding any unnecessary weight on the end of your finger, that you just don't need ! (especially if you put a slide on your pinky. And, IF you decided against using a slide on your pinky in the past, WAS it because the slide you tried was too long to control, on your pinky ???
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Post by tomgiemza on May 11, 2024 11:59:08 GMT
I do my own bottleneck slides, I always keep empty primitivo vine bottles (thick glass).
I'm happy with my slides, but everytime you mention Diamond Bottleneck Slides, I feel tempted to give it a try. I put slide on my pinky, I guess I could gain more control with narrower inner diamater. I never tried a tight fitting slide...
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Post by snakehips on May 11, 2024 21:01:56 GMT
I do my own bottleneck slides, I always keep empty primitivo vine bottles (thick glass). I'm happy with my slides, but everytime you mention Diamond Bottleneck Slides, I feel tempted to give it a try. I put slide on my pinky, I guess I could gain more control with narrower inner diameter. I never tried a tight fitting slide... Hi again. Contrary to that, I recommend you have a loose-fitting slide, so that you can bend your pinky, and that the slide is not "all the way up to the hilt". I actually think that the movement/bending of your other fingers are significantly restricted if ANY of your fingers are kept from bending, in a slide that is tight/snug fit.
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Post by bonzo on May 11, 2024 21:16:08 GMT
Wot Snakey sez. I put a strip of self adhesive fabric inside the slide. Allows movement while holding the slide in place. Some people use a strip of leather or velcro type stuff.
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Post by snakehips on May 11, 2024 22:15:57 GMT
Hi again !
Whatever works for you ! After I broke my left wrist 31st March 2020 (1 week into the first Covid lockdown, here in the UK), the healing process and starting to try to play guitar again made things clear in my mind a few things about holding a slide and how it can affect the other fingers. With the slide on my pinky, (not all the way up, not as far as it goes), I can easily bend my other fingers AND I can have the whole length of the slide, easily touch all of the skin of the palm of my hand.
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Post by tomgiemza on May 12, 2024 8:50:05 GMT
I do my own bottleneck slides, I always keep empty primitivo vine bottles (thick glass). I'm happy with my slides, but everytime you mention Diamond Bottleneck Slides, I feel tempted to give it a try. I put slide on my pinky, I guess I could gain more control with narrower inner diameter. I never tried a tight fitting slide... Hi again. Contrary to that, I recommend you have a loose-fitting slide, so that you can bend your pinky, and that the slide is not "all the way up to the hilt". I actually think that the movement/bending of your other fingers are significantly restricted if ANY of your fingers are kept from bending, in a slide that is tight/snug fit. I never thought about it, but yes, my pinky is always bent when I'm playing with slide, I do it intuitively to hold slide in place. Slide is wiggling on my pinky only when I extensively use my other 3 fingers for fretted notes. I just thought that ordering a custom slide is mainly about a better fit.
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Post by Michael Messer on May 12, 2024 9:05:25 GMT
While there are no rules about what material or size a slide should be, or about which finger it should be worn on, there are a few logical "rules" that make sense. So my use of "should" is to put across what I believe and what I have taught to many hundreds of students over the years.
A slide should not be tight because as Snakehips says, it restricts the other fingers. Your hand should look like you are holding a ball that is maybe 8cm diameter.
The slide does not really need to go past the 2nd joint in your finger because when it does it starts to affect how the other fingers move and tightens your hand.
There are no rules about which finger it should be worn on, and Bonnie Raitt is testament to that belief, but I do think it should be the 3rd or 4th finger. I wear it on my 3rd finger and so do many other slide players. Wearing a loose slide on the 3rd or 4th fingers does not limit the use of the other fingers at all. Wearing it on the 2nd finger like Bonnie Raitt, does somewhat limit the other fingers, but as Bonnie is a master musician and rarely uses her other fingers while wearing a slide, it is not a problem. (The last few times I have watched Bonnie playing slide she reminds me of her friend, Lowell George).
I do believe the slide should be loose because as well as being able to bend one's finger inside the slide, it also should not be fixed into position because rather than twisting and contorting your hand and arm around, sometimes it might need to be slid up the finger to reach high notes.
I wear large heavy German silver or steel slides because I like the feel of the weight and the tone I get. The internal diameter I like is 22mm, or thereabouts, with a 3mm wall thickness. With glass slides I tend to like a slightly thicker wall to get better tone, Length, I like 69 to 70mm. Weight of my German silver slides is approximately 135g. I also use glass slides and go for pretty much the same dimensions. Ian has made me some beautiful glass slides over the years and a couple in particular are my go-to glass slides.
I have spent much of my adult life wearing slides and have tried almost every possible configuration of materials, size, shape etc, and as I always say, while there are no rules as such, there are some logical approaches to getting comfort and great tone, but the tools are only a part of the equation and it doesn't come without dedication, perseverance and a lot of playing. For me, now a couple of years short of my sixth decade of playing slide, I can really see and understand why and how learning to play a musical instrument is a lifelong journey that goes through various stages of completion.
Must be those coloured night skies that have sent me into a philosophical Sunday morning state of mind.
Shine On Michael
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Post by Michael Messer on May 13, 2024 7:30:47 GMT
....and returning two the first post of this thread - I must try one of Ian's German glass slides.
Shine On Michael
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Post by bonzo on May 13, 2024 8:12:03 GMT
Munchies all gone Michael? 😋
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Post by Ian McWee on May 13, 2024 12:00:45 GMT
You're all too kind ~ and many thanks for the lovely words about the new(ish) German glass!
If it's okay I'll give a little resumé about the 'bits 'n bobs' of the new glass, the old glass, and where we go forward from here 👍
This German glass is from a company called Reichenbach and doesn't contain lead in its make-up. Most glass-blowing studios nowadays are using non-leaded glass due to the spiralling costs of setting up studios to work with leaded glass (to obtain the necessary certification to work with leaded glass, a large extraction/ filtration system is required - non of this is necessary with non-leaded glass).....it's also cleaner and less expensive to run the furnaces at the lower required 'melt' temperatures.
We do have a couple of glitches in regards to offering these German non-leaded glass slides on our website - the German glass slides are only available when our glass-blower has a spare couple of days in the studio. Our onsite glass-blowing studio is regularly block-booked by outside glass-makers, so we could be waiting many weeks (months!) for new tubes to be blown.
The other issue is working on the darn things!! This non-leaded glass is so tough it takes the lad (that's me) four times longer to process over the usual stock leaded crystal slides...and I'm getting old!!! 🤭🤫
Hope this explains the situation chaps ~ and thanks for the support as always 👍🎸
The Flaschenmeister.
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