strings for slide (non-reso guitar)

[bod]

Hi all
Some context:
I'm just getting underway with trying to learn blues slide guitar, and am hoping for some guidance about strings. I don't (yet) have a resonator and I know that I don't (yet) have much of an idea about what makes for a good slide instrument and what doesn't, so, if I'm asking the wrong sorts of questions do feel free to advise at that level....

Here is the thing:

I have the impression that thicker strings tend to be better for slide work, I understand that thicker strings often tend to exert more force on an instrument, I really would like to see whether a particular guitar is any good for slide but I really don't want to hurt the instrument in question.

The instrument in question is Martin 00015S - a lovely little instrument in my view, but it is decidedly low-end for a Martin and feels kind of light / possibly vulnerable to my (hulking great) hands. So,
1) Is it just silly to try to use this for slide?
2) If not, what kinds of strings might I reasonably use (given that not hurting the guitar is a major priority)?

Martin recommend nothing more than light / medium for this guitar, I usually keep Elixir 12-53s on it
(further guitar specs at , if that helps).

Apologies for the length of the post...

[SoloBill]

Hi bod,
I am a beginner, so keep that in mind.

I have a 00015S, it's beautiful. I wouldn't fit heavier guage strings except as discussed below.

I just tried playing it with a slide and I found it pretty difficult. It was hard not to touch down on the frets when playing the top strings. It also sounded a bit thin. I am using the standard light/medium strings, normal set up (string height) and I tuned it to open G. However, if you learned with it like that you would become a very good player I think, because you would need to be quite precise and delicate.

If you always tuned it down to open G or open D, then the tension will be less and you can presumably fit heavier guage strings. I suggest you ask Martin what guage you could go up to in those tunings (or if you don't want to, let me know here and I will ask them now that you've put the question in my mind too!).

Another option would be to slip a nut raiser over the nut to raise the string height which would be fine as long as you are only using the slide, if you want to play a mixture of slide and normally fretted notes then the nut raiser idea is probably not the answer. Also, I think it will still sound a bit thin (but I only use my fingers, not picks, so the thin sound may be just me).

[Michael Messer]

Hi Bod,

Your guitar should be fine if you fit medium gauge strings. Bill is correct about the tension in slack tunings. Also I recommend to try some of my MM National Newtone strings - they are wound on round core and tune up to pitch as slightly less tension than regular hexagonal core strings. Get the phosphor bronze 13 to 56 or 15 to 56 and try them in G & D tunings. I am fairly confident that your guitar will be fine with those strings. If you are worried, tune up to F & C, rather than G & D.

Let me know how you get on,

Shine On
Michael

[Michael Messer]

Just to make sure you understand what I meant - tuning to F & C means that you tune the same as G & D, but a tone lower.

G= DGDGBD
F = CFCFAC

D=DADF#AD
C= CGCEGC

Shine On
Michael.

[bod]

Hi

thanks for the input - I'll be sure to confine myself to lower tension tunings if / when I try some thicker strings, I had been thinking of open G and open D, but had not thought simply going a tone lower still for safety's sake (I did get your meaning when I read that bit, Michael, but I do thank you for taking the trouble to make sure).

I've emailed Martin to see if they'll offer comment, I'll let you know what I hear, Bill. (And, by the way, my experience of trying a slide on the 000-15S thus far matches you own entirely - down tune to open G and it all gets a bit slack and thin sounding on the top string, but ordinarily this guitar has such a lovely tone that I'm keen to see what, if anything, can be done slide-wise. Also, I do tend to, like you, use my fingers rather than picks, but I have some picks around somewhere, so I'll see if that makes any difference. Can I also ask what strings you tend to use on your 00015S? - just interested)

Michael, your Newtone Nationals, sound interesting and certainly offer the thicker string at lower tension thing I was hoping might exist. Looking at the online info it looks like the only difference between the medium / lights and the mediums might be the gauge of the 1st string, is that right? If so, do you know of anywhere that would sell a couple of different 1st strings along with a set such that a person could then experiment with the options?

Cheers

[Gerry C]

Hi bod. I used to have a similar-to-yours Martin 000-1 which I kept in Open D, but mainly for playing tunes such as Police Dog Blues and Turn Your Money Green. I rarely used it for slide and when I did I too found that it was not very good at it (terrific little guitar otherwise!). One solution would be to go to your local pawnshop or 'cash converter' -type place and see if you can pick up a rugged old Yamaha or Tanglewood or [insert brand name here...] acoustic which can take a load of grief without collapsing on you. You can fiddle about with the action if necessary by putting a shim under the saddle to lift it a little, AND fit heavier strings without worrying too much about the neck going banana-shaped. Then when you've really got the slide bug (and there is no known cure...) you can order a nice shiny MM Lightning or Blues, which we all know is what, deep down, you really, really want. ;D

Cheerily,

Gerry C

[pete1951]

Hi Bod , I play slide on all kinds of guitars and very often expensive ones [non resonator] have too complicated a sound for slide. Old cheap ladder braced ones [rather than X braced like a martin] seem to me better for the job. Heavy strings do make some slide things much easyer but you can get away with an 012 top string if your careful [I use 011s on 2 of my resonators but there are compromises that I am willing to make.Take Gerry Cs advice and get a cheepo ,leave the Martin for finger picking. Pete t

[SoloBill]

Dec 29, 2008 14:39:26 GMT bod said:

Hi

<snip>
Can I also ask what strings you tend to use on your 00015S? - just interested)

<snip>
Cheers

Hi Bod,
I have just stuck to the Martin SP3150.

I have heard good things about the Newtones from several different sources, so now that I'm thinking about it again, I might try them. I have been using Optima on my electric, not sure about them for an acoustic. At one point I was trying to standardise on one make for consistency and D'Addario were available everywhere but 'everywhere' no longer includes where I live as the local music shop closed a while ago :-( so that idea is no longer relevant.

[Michael Messer]

Apart from my own MM National Newtones which I obviously use, I have used Newtone strings on all my guitars since 1992.

Bod - you have to use your own judgement of whether a string gauge is too heavy for a guitar, but I really do think a set of medium gauge strings in open G & D tunings with either a 13 or a 15 on the top will do any harm at all to your guitar. I am sure the Martin company are protecting themselves a bit like sell by dates on food. Having said that I am not guaranteeing your guitar will be okay, just giving my opinion that it will.

Shine On
Michael

[maxxengland]

Lateral thinking: buy a cheapie , maybe even a bolt on adjustable neck type like my KD 28, and mess about with that. I'd save the Martin for a gentler pastime.

I run 12s in open E, the soundboard has distorted a little, but I have an adjustable aftermarket bridge bolted through it with big washers on the underside of the soundboard, so the intonation is mostly right. It actually works far better than you'd think.

[bod]

Again, thanks for all the input.

Good point, Michael - I do have to make my own judgements on this stuff, and for my money a big part of that comes into play when, for example, I put heavier strings on, you can bet I'll be keeping a close eye on the guitar if I do. But I like to make good judgements if I can and to my way of thinking my best start in this territory is to recognise how much I don't know (yet). I read around a lot of websites and forums and acquire a lot of info that way, but I then have to decide what to make of what I read (and here too I must make my own judgements). I tend to come here to post my questions because I've never seen a forum with less fruitless bickering than this one, and I think that says a lot for this site (i.e., I am already exercising my judgement in asking the questions here). The people here are very generous with the sharing of their views and opinions and I wouldn't dream of interpreting this in terms of guarantees - but you are right to clarify this...

(BTW, I didn't ask Martin for comment on the Newtones in particular, just whether they had a view on heavier gauges for open G and open D.)

Anyway, for any who might still be interested, here's where I'm up to with all this:

I do sort of suspect that Gerry C and pete1951 will turn out to be correct about the limited value of a 000-15S for slide - this would go with mine and Bill's experiences of trying this so far. (Although a few of those who post at the UMGF do seem to think otherwise...) Perhaps the little Martin did ought to be, as maxxengland puts it, saved for gentler pastimes. However, I still plan to try some heavier gauge strings - starting tuned down to open F and seeing how it goes from there. It is an empirical affair, after all. I plan to try the Newtones; I read good things about these elsewhere, too. So long as I don't stuff up badly it isn't going to cost more than a set of strings to try this and I'm intrigued... Two further factors feed in to this

1) I simply can't justify acquiring another guitar (not even a real cheapie - married with kids and newly unemployed) without parting with one, 2) due to a daft dog-walking accident I've had a dodgy left shoulder for some months now and - odd though it might sound - the kind of busy left-hand work that goes with the blues and ragtime type picking (for which I bought this guitar) aggravates my shoulder, so it is a good time for me to work on the basics of slide (which do not aggravate the shoulder), but I miss playing the Martin ... Plus, although Gerry C is right to say that what I really want now is a reso (and right to suggest that one of these MMs looks likely when the moment comes), I don't want to do any guitar trading 'til I've seen which way the shoulder thing goes - if it gets worse rather than better I'll be moving to slide in the lap position, which gives even less shoulder grief than slide on an "upright" guitar.... In the meantime I'll explore what can be done with what I've got (I also have a newish Chinese-built "Recording King" dreadnought that I picked up so that me and my son would have something for those more emphatic strumming moments, which is probably closer to the kind of old rugged / non-collapsing thing advised by some of you and I might try that with some Newtones, if / when the 000-15S doesn't work out, it seems heavier built than the Martin, but how well it would stay together under pressure is anybody's guess)

Anway, thanks for indulging me in my "thinking out loud" here and
.. Happy New Year, one and all!

[Deleted]

For many years I played slide on a Fylde Goodfellow. This had a higher action than most and was fine with a glass slide.

I think the action is the important thing. A low action for easy conventional playing is not going to give the beef that a higher one does and is also much harder to play slide on. I have tried.

A poor Q guitar with a high action, some MM Newtones (I used 12/52 on the Fylde), and a slide to match will give a good raw bluesy sound. How good depends on the player.

Happy New Year to ALL.

[Deleted]

I often play slide on a Korean made 'Kay' dreadnought i bought off ebay for £16 a year or two ago. I wasn't expecting anything great, and sure enough the front is so bowed that the poor intonation makes it pretty useless for standard playing, anywhere higher than fifth fret anyway. From memory, the Martin strings I put on it were described as 'medium-light', can't remember the gauge, they were in a red pack. I tune down to C because it soon became clear that the top was still warping under the pressure of D or G. Sounds pretty good though, deep and throaty.

The trouble with string gauges is that the are not standardised according to tension, unlike classical strings. This is perhaps why Martin warn against using heavy gauge strings, as they may be of significantly higher tension than is good for the guitar. Newtone's roundcore strings are lower tension than conventional strings of equal gauge.

We haven't discussed the kind of slide you're using, which will make a huge difference to the strings required. Fairly obviously, the heavier the slide, the stiffer the strings need to be in order to provide the necessary resistance. For your needs, a not too heavy glass slide probably makes more sense than a hefty lump of steel!

[melp]

Hi,

I have been using Newtones (13-56) on my Lowden for the last 6 months. I use it in G and D. I had similar concerns as you, so I found a tension guide on the internet and figured out that the tension is about the same with heavier strings at the lower tuning than mediums at standard. So tried it and it worked fine.

Obviously, each case can be different so you need to go careful, but if you measure the action first, then after changing the strings it should give some indication. If I need to play in standard tuning I just tune but to Eflat rather than E.

If in doubt just tune it down a semitone.

The previous comment about different slides is significant. I have found that lighter slides can work much better on a guitar not set up or ideal for slide guitar.

I mainly use diamond bottleneck slides, quite think and heavy, but I have a light'ish bottleneck that works much better than the heavy ones on 'normal' guitars and a fretless with a low action.

Good Luck

Mel

[blueshome]

I think Bill's comment about ending up a better player at the end is valid. You don't need a high action or reso guitar for slide, most great recordings were made on wooden guitars (yes, I know all about ladder bracing etc). These things can help if you are after a particular sound.
If you Martin is set up with a decent action - not too low (it's not an electric) I think you can have a lot of fun. A quick and safe way to help might be to just change the top string for a 12 or 13 when tuning down.
This will give you a bit more tension on the string you'll play most and make life a little easier without increasing the tension as much as putting a full heavier set.

Pick it up, tune it, play it and enjoy!! My bet is you'll sound great if you put the time in, whatever tools you have to hand.